Saint Agnes

Agnes was a girl of a noble Roman family who died for her faith around 304, probably during the persecution of Diocletian. Saint Ambrose, writing less than a century later, says she was only about twelve years old, and that she went to her death more joyfully than a bride to her wedding. Tradition tells that she refused offers of marriage because she had consecrated herself to Christ, and that when she was denounced as a Christian, no threat could make her offer sacrifice to the gods.

She was put to death, probably by the sword, and buried on the Via Nomentana outside Rome. Within decades Constantina, the daughter of the emperor Constantine, built a basilica over her tomb. Her name, which sounds like the Latin agnus, "lamb," made the lamb her symbol, and she is named in the Roman Canon of the Mass.

Each year on January 21 the Pope blesses two lambs at Rome; their wool is used to weave the pallia, the woolen bands given to new archbishops on June 29. Her relics rest in the Basilica of Sant'Agnese fuori le Mura and her skull in the church of Sant'Agnese in Agone on Piazza Navona. Many schools and parishes in the United States bear her name.