Entries

Acta Sanctorum: St. Agatha (Feb 5)

February 05, 2025

Fr. John Colacino C.PP.S.

February 5

St. Agatha

Life († 251)

Saint Agatha was born in Sicily of rich and noble parents, a child of benediction from the first, for she was promised to her parents before her birth, and consecrated from her earliest infancy to God. In the midst of dangers and temptations she served Christ in purity of body and soul, and she died for love of chastity. Quintanus, who governed Sicily under the Emperor Decius, had heard the rumor of her beauty and wealth, and he made the laws against the Christians a pretext for summoning her from Palermo to Catania, where he was at the time. O Jesus Christ! she cried, as she set out on this dreaded journey, all that I am is Thine; preserve me against the tyrant.

And Our Lord did indeed preserve one who had given herself so utterly to Him. He kept her pure and undefiled while she was imprisoned for a whole month under charge of an evil woman. He gave her strength to reply to the offer of her life and safety, if she would but consent to sacrifice to the gods, Christ alone is my salvation! When Quintanus turned from passion to cruelty, and cut off her breasts, Our Lord sent the Prince of the Apostles to heal her. She told the elderly gentleman who appeared to her that she was Christian and desired no treatment, for her Lord could cure her by a single word. He smiled, identified himself as Saint Peter, and said: It is in His name that you will be healed. And when he disappeared, she saw that her wounds were healed and her flesh made whole. But when she was rolled naked upon potsherds, she asked that her torments might be ended. Her Lord heard her prayer and took her to Himself.

Saint Agatha gave herself without reserve to Jesus Christ; she followed Him in virginal purity, and then depended upon Him for protection. And to this day Christ has shown His tender regard for the very body of Saint Agatha. Again and again, during the eruptions of Mount Etna, the people of Catania have exposed her veil for public veneration, and found safety by this means. In modern times, on opening the tomb in which her body lies waiting for the resurrection, they beheld the skin still entire, and experienced the sweet fragrance which issued from this temple of the Holy Ghost.

Les Petits Bollandistes: Vies des Saints, by Msgr. Paul Guérin (Bloud et Barral: Paris, 1882), Vol. 2; Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints, a compilation based on Butler's Lives of the Saints and other sources by John Gilmary Shea (Benziger Brothers: New York, 1894).

Scripture (1 Cor 1:26-31)

Consider your own calling, brothers and sisters. Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. Rather, God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong, and God chose the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who are something, so that no human being might boast before God. It is due to him that you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, as well as righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, so that, as it is written, Whoever boasts, should boast in the Lord.

Writings

(Year C). Lo the bright festal day of the glorious martyr and virgin Agatha, when Christ took her to himself, and a double crown wreathed her brow. Though noble by birth and blessed with beauty, her grandest riches were her deeds and her faith. Earthly prosperity was nothing in her eyes, but her whole heart was on the precepts of her God. Her bravery tired out the men that tortured her ; she flinched not as they lashed her limbs : and her wounded breast reveals a dauntless heart.Her prison was her paradise, where the pastor Peter beals his bleeding lamb; and thence once more she runs to suffer, gladder and braver at every wound. A pagan city once in flames was saved by Agatha’s prayer. The same can check, in Christian hearts, the threatening: fire of lust. Now that thou art in heaven, clad as a bride of Christ, intercede with him for us miserable sinners, that he grant us so to spend thy feast, that our celebration may draw down his grace. Glory be to the Son, together with the Father and the Holy Ghost. May the one almighty God grant that this his saint be mindful of us. Amen. (Pope St. Damasus)

Musical Selection

Gaudeamus omnes in Domino diem festum celebrantes sub honore Agathae martyris de cuius passione gaudent angeli et colaudant Filium Dei.

Let us all pray in the Lord, in celebrating the feast day in honor of St. Agatha the martyr: angels rejoice in his passion and praise the Son of God.

Collect

Loving Lord,
whose will it is that all humanity
should be reconciled with you
through the saving passion of Christ:
let our plea for forgiveness be heard
in union with the prayers of the martyr Agatha,
who found favour with you by the pearl of her chastity
and by her courage in suffering death for the gospel.
We as this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, now and for ever. Amen. (English Missal)

Archives