Category: PATRONAGE – RAPE VICTIMS

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Saint of the Day – 5 February – St Agatha (c 231- c 251) Virgin and Martyr

Posted on by AnaStpaul

Saint of the Day – 5 February – St Agatha (c 231- c 251) Virgin and Martyr.   St Agatha was born at Catania or Palermo, Sicily and she was martyred in approximately 251 at Catania, Sicily by being rolled on coals.   She is one of seven women, who, along with the Blessed Virgin Mary, are commemorated by name in the Canon of the Mass.   Patronages – against breast cancer, against breast disease, against earthquakes, against eruptions of Mount Etna, against fire, against natural disasters, against sterility, against volcanic eruptions, of bell-founders, fire prevention, jewellers, martyrs, nurses, rape victims, single laywomen, torture victims, wet-nurses, Malta, San Marino, 64 Cities.

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One of the most highly venerated virgin martyrs of Christian antiquity, Agatha was put to death during the persecution of Decius (250–253) in Catania, Sicily, for her determined profession of faith.   Her written legend comprises “straightforward accounts of interrogation, torture, resistance and triumph which constitute some of the earliest hagiographic literature”.   Although the martyrdom of Saint Agatha is authenticated and her veneration as a saint had spread beyond her native place even in antiquity, there is no reliable information concerning the details of her death.

Cavallino, Bernardo; St Agatha; York Museums Trust; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/st-agatha-7795

According to Jacobus de Voragine, Golden Legend of c 1288, having dedicated her virginity to God, fifteen-year-old Agatha, from a rich and noble family, rejected the amorous advances of the low-born Roman prefect Quintianus, who then persecuted her for her Christian faith.   He sent Agatha to Aphrodisia, the keeper of a brothel.   The madam finding her intractable, Quintianus sent for her, argued, threatened and finally had her put in prison.   Amongst the tortures she underwent was the cutting off of her breasts with pincers.

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After further dramatic confrontations with Quintianus, represented in a sequence of dialogues in her passio that document her fortitude and steadfast devotion, Saint Agatha was then sentenced to be burnt at the stake but an earthquake saved her from that fate; instead, she was sent to prison where St Peter the Apostle appeared to her and healed her wounds. Saint Agatha died in prison, according to the Legenda Aurea in “the year of our Lord two hundred and fifty-three in the time of Decius, the emperor of Rome.”

Saint Agatha is a patron saint of Malta, where in 1551 her intercession through a reported apparition to a Benedictine nun is said to have saved Malta from Turkish invasion.   Agatha is the patron saint of bell-founders because of the shape of her severed breasts and also of bakers, whose loaves were blessed at her feast day.   More recently, she has been venerated as patron saint of breast cancer patients. She is claimed as the patroness of Palermo.   The year after her death, the stilling of an eruption of Mt. Etna was attributed to her intercession.   As a result, apparently, people continued to ask her prayers for protection against fire.

Agatha is buried at the Badia di Sant’Agata, Catania.   She is listed in the late 6th-century Martyrologium Hieronymianum associated with Jerome and the Synaxarion, the calendar of the church of Carthage, ca. 530.438px-Catania's_duomo_and_balloons

Two early churches were dedicated to her in Rome, notably the Church of Sant’Agata dei Goti in Via Mazzarino, a titular church with apse mosaics of c 460 and traces of a fresco cycle, overpainted by Gismondo Cerrini in 1630.   Agatha is also depicted in the mosaics of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, where she appears, richly dressed, in the procession of female martyrs along the north wall.

Basques have a tradition of gathering on Saint Agatha’s Eve (Basque: Santa Ageda bezpera) and going round the village. Homeowners can choose to hear a song about her life, accompanied by the beats of their walking sticks on the floor or a prayer for the household’s deceased.   After that, the homeowner donates food to the chorus.[25] This song has varying lyrics according to the local tradition and the Basque language.

An annual festival to commemorate the life of Saint Agatha takes place in Catania, Sicily, from February 3 to 5.   The festival culminates in a great all-night procession through the city for which hundreds of thousands of the city’s residents turn out.catania_i_cannalori

St Agatha’s Tower is a former Knight’s stronghold located in the north west of Malta.  The seventeenth-century tower served as a military base during both World Wars and was used as a radar station by the Maltese army.

Burial of St Agatha, by Giulio Campi, 1537
Burial of St Agatha, by Giulio Campi, 1537
Posted in ENGAGED COUPLES, Of GARDENERS, Horticulturists, Farmers, PATRONAGE - OF CHASTITY, PATRONAGE - RAPE VICTIMS, PATRONAGE - VINTNERS, WINE-FARMERS, Uncategorized

Saint of the Day – 21 January – St Agnes (c 291- c 304) Child Virgin Martyr

Posted on by AnaStpaul

Saint of the Day – 21 January – St Agnes (c 291- c 304) Child Virgin Martyr – Patronages – Betrothed couples; chastity; Children of Mary; Colegio Capranica of Rome; crops; gardeners; Girl Guides; girls; rape victims; virgins; the Diocese of Rockville Centre, New York; the City of Fresno.   She is one of seven women who, along with the Blessed Virgin, are commemorated by name in the Canon of the Mass.  Agnes is depicted in art with a lamb, from the Latin word for “lamb”, agnus.   However, the name “Agnes” is actually derived from the feminine Greek adjective hagnē meaning “chaste, pure, sacred”.   st agnes - header

Saint Agnes of Rome was a member of the Roman nobility born in c 291 and raised in an holy Catholic family.   She suffered Martyrdom at the age of twelve or thirteen during the reign of the Roman Emperor Diocletian, on 21 January 304.   She was a beautiful young girl of wealthy family and, therefore, had many suitors of high rank.  Legend holds that the young men, slighted by her resolute devotion to religious purity, submitted her name to the authorities as a follower of Christianity.

The Prefect Sempronius condemned Agnes to be dragged naked through the streets to a brothel.   In one account, as she prayed, her hair grew and covered her body.   It was also said that all of the men that attempted to rape her were immediately struck blind.   The son of the prefect is struck dead but revived after she prayed for him, causing her release.   There is then a trial from which Sempronius recuses himself and another figure presides, sentencing her to death.   She was led out and bound to a stake but the bundle of wood would not burn, or the flames parted away from her, whereupon the officer in charge of the troops drew his sword and beheaded her, or, in some other texts, stabbed her in the throat.   It is also said that her blood poured to the stadium floor where other Christians soaked it up with cloths.jacopo_tintoretto_-_the_miracle_of_st_agnes_detail_-_wga22467

Agnes was buried beside the Via Nomentana in Rome.    A few days after her death, her foster-sister, Saint Emerentiana, was found praying by her tomb;  she claimed to be the daughter of Agnes’ wet nurse, and was stoned to death after refusing to leave the place and reprimanding the pagans for killing her foster sister.   Emerentiana was also later canonised.  The daughter of Constantine I, Saint Constance, was said to have been cured of leprosy after praying at Agnes’ tomb.   She and Emerentiana appear in the scenes from the life of Agnes on the 14th-century Royal Gold Cup in the British Museum.

An early account of Agnes’ death, stressing her young age, steadfastness and virginity, but not the legendary features of the tradition, is given by Saint Ambrose.

Agnes was venerated as a saint at least as early as the time of St Ambrose, based on an existing homily.   She is commemorated in the Depositio Martyrum of Filocalus (354) and in the early Roman Sacramentaries.

Agnes’s bones are conserved beneath the high altar in the church of Sant’Agnese fuori le mura in Rome, built over the catacomb that housed her tomb.   Her skull is preserved in a separate chapel in the church of Sant’Agnese in Agone in Rome’s Piazza Navona.Sant'Agnese fuori le mura

Because of the legend around her martyrdom, she is patron saint of those seeking chastity and purity.   Agnes is also the patron saint of young girls.   Folk custom called for them to practise rituals on Saint Agnes’ Eve (20–21 January) with a view to discovering their future husbands.   This superstition has been immortalised in John Keats’s poem, The Eve of Saint Agnes.st agnes

Posted in PATRONAGE - RAPE VICTIMS, SAINT of the DAY

Saint of the Day – 6 July – St Maria Goretti (1890-1902) “Saint Agnes of the 20th Century”

Posted on by AnaStpaul

Saint of the Day – 6 July – St Maria Goretti (1890-1902) Virgin and Martyr, known as “Saint Agnes of the 20th Century.” Born 16 October 1890 at Corinaldo, Ancona, Italy – choked and stabbed to death during a rape attempt on 6 July 1902 at the age of 12.  She was Canonised on 24 June 1950 by Pope Pius XII    The ceremony was attended by 250,000 including her mother, the only time a parent has witnessed her child’s Canonisation.   Patronages – against poverty, against the death of parents, of children, girls, martyrs, poor people, rape victims, young people in general, Children of Mary, Diocese of Albano, Italy, Albano Laziale, Italy (proclaimed on 5 May 1952 by Pope Pius XII), Latina, Italy.   Attributes  – Fourteen lilies; farmer’s clothing; (occasionally) a knife.

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In 1900, two farm labourers relocated their destitute families to an old barn near Nettuno, Italy.   Luigi Goretti, his wife, Assunta and their six children moved in with Giovanni Serenelli and Alessandro, his teenaged son.   Soon after the move, Luigi died, leaving Assunta to carry on his work.   Maria, her oldest child, who was ten, assumed the household duties and cheerfully supported her mother.

At twelve Maria was already a beautiful young woman. Alessandro, then nineteen, twice made advances toward her.   She rebuffed him and kept his propositions secret because he had threatened to kill her.   On July 5, 1902, Maria sat atop the hovel’s stairs, mending Alessandro’s shirt.   He stormed past her, ordered her into a bedroom, grabbed her, and attempted to rape her.  “No! No! No!” Maria cried. “Don’t touch me, Alessandro! It’s a sin!”  She resisted him with all her strength.   Angered beyond control, he stabbed her fourteen times.   Maria survived a pain-filled twenty-four hours in the hospital.Stained-Glass-art-Saint-Maria-Goretti

She showed more concern for where her mother would sleep in the hospital than for herself.   Before she died she forgave Alessandro and prayed for God to have mercy on him.
Alessandro was sentenced to thirty years’ hard labour and imprisoned at Noto, Sicily. One night in 1910 he dreamed that Maria handed him a bouquet of lilies and he began to feel remorse.   Soon after, Bishop Blandini of Noto visited him, explaining that Maria had forgiven him and that God would also forgive him.   The message struck home.   A few days later Alessandro sent the bishop this letter:

“I cannot tell you what comfort has come to my sorrowing soul through the conversation with your Excellency, for which I send my most heartfelt gratitude.

It is indeed true that in a moment of mental aberration I was led to commit a barbarous murder which the law has already punished. . . .I regret doubly the evil I have done because I realise that I have taken the life of a poor, innocent girl.   Up to the last moment she wanted to protect her honour, sacrificing herself rather than give in to my wishes.   This it was that drove me to so terrible and deplorable a deed.   Publicly, I detest the evil that I have done.   And I ask God’s forgiveness and that of the poor, desolate family for the great wrong I committed. I hope that I too, like so many others in this world, may obtain pardon.   May your prayers united to mine obtain for me the forgiveness of Him who governs all things, and the calm and the blessing of the poor departed one.”

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Alessandro was released from prison early for good behaviour.   He reformed his life and ultimately joined the Franciscan Third Order. Pope Pius XII canonized Maria Goretti in 1950.   Assunta, her mother, was present for the event, the first time a mother was present when her child was declared a saint.

Maria was beatified on April 27, 1947.   In attendance at the ceremony were both Assunta and Pope Pius XII.   On the evening of the ceremony in Saint Peter’s Basilica, the Pope walked over to and greeted Assunta.   She later reported, “When I saw the Pope coming, I prayed, ‘Madonna, please help me’, and I felt faint. He put his hand on my head and said, “Blessed mother, happy mother, mother of a Blessed!”  Afterwards, both could be seen with eyes wet with tears.

Three years later, on June 24, 1950, Pius XII canonised Maria as a saint, the “Saint Agnes of the 20th century.”   Assunta was again present at the ceremony, along with her four remaining sons and daughters. Alessandro was also present.

Owing to the huge crowd present, the ceremonies associated with the canonisation were held outside Saint Peter’s Basilica, in the Piazza San Pietro.   Pius XII spoke, not as before in Latin, but in Italian. “We order and declare, that the blessed Maria Goretti can be venerated as a Saint and we introduce her into the Canon of Saints”.   Some 500,000 people, among them a majority of youth, had come from around the world. Pius asked them: “Young people, pleasure of the eyes of Jesus, are you determined to resist any attack on your chastity with the help of grace of God?”   A resounding “yes” was the answer.st-maria-goretti-3

Maria’s three brothers would claim that she intervened miraculously in their lives. Angelo heard her voice telling him to emigrate to America.   Alessandro was reportedly miraculously given a sum of money to finance his own emigration to join Angelo. Sandrino died in the United States in 1917 and Angelo died in Italy when he returned there in 1964.   Mariano said he heard her voice telling him to stay in his trench when the rest of his unit charged the Germans in World War I.   He, the only survivor of that charge, lived until 1975 and had a large family.

Maria’s body is kept in the crypt of the Basilica of Nostra Signora delle Grazie e Santa Maria Goretti in Nettuno, south of Rome. It has been often reported that it is incorrupt but this is not the case.   It is kept inside a statue which is lying down beneath the altar, which has been mistakenly believed by some to be its entirety.