Feast of St. Agnes

Today is the feast day of my confirmation patroness, St. Agnes, to whom I have had a devotion since I was little.

There is a beautiful article on St. Agnes here (thanks to Fr. Z for the reference).

I took St. Agnes as my patroness because I saw in her another Catholic girl, about my age.  Her heroic purity was a model, and I still ask her intercession to protect my purity; but mostly she seemed very human and accessible to me.  Maybe I read her story so much that she just seemed real, or maybe God was giving me the grace to draw close to this virgin martyr in a way that I particularly needed and still need.  St. Agnes is a model not just of purity, but also of humility, a virtue which I sorely need!  She showed immense strength in a time that, in most girls' lives (or at least in mine) was a time of weakness, an in-between childhood and maturing.  I know that at the age of twelve I wanted to be an adult but knew I wasn't.  St. Agnes, however, had the courage and fortitude of an adult in Christ.  She was, for me, the female example of the miles Christi, soldier of Christ.  I've always loved that image of fighting for Christ; my beloved St. Agnes fights in a feminine but truly heroic way.

Let this post be to her praise and honor, as I ask again her intercession for me and all girls.  Let her be an example of femininity and womanhood for all those poor young women who degrade themselves and allow themselves to be degraded in this modern world.  St. Agnes, pray for us!