Become Like Children

Feast of St. Agnes
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/0121-memorial-agnes.cfm

As you drive around town, you may have noticed giant banners hanging on the side of buildings that honor local celebrities.  These 60-foot-tall, vinyl banners are called “Hometown Heroes.” They have honored Muhammad Ali, Colonel Sanders, Jennifer Lawrence, Jack Harlow, Hunter S. Thompson, and 26 others over the last 24 years.  The banners have a big, black and white photo of the person with the caption, “Muhammad’s Louisville,” or whatever the first name of the honoree is.  The three criteria for inclusion in the program are that,

1. The person is from Louisville or is closely associated with the city.
2. The person has achieved something positive and noteworthy …. that is recognized far beyond the city's limits.
3. The person has given back to the city of Louisville.

The banners cost $15,000 or as much as $90,000 to create and place. A fourth, unwritten criterion is that a group of sponsors needs to raise those funds to make it happen.

After studying the list of hometown heroes, one thing I noticed is that none of them were children. That may not be all that surprising, I suppose, given the criteria of achievements, but I will ask you to pause and look at something very familiar—so familiar that we may have stopped noticing it: the giant mosaic of St. Agnes behind me. 

I am going to make three claims, and you can correct me after mass if I’m wrong.  First, our mosaic is the largest depiction of a 12-year-old girl in Kentucky.  Secondly, this is the biggest building in the Commonwealth that is named for a child. Third, it is the only building in the state named for a child who lived 1,700 years ago.  

So, who was Agnes or Rome, and why is she worthy of all this?  A brief biography: Agnes was born into a wealthy patrician family in the late 3rd century during the reign of the emperor Diocletian.  Agnes was raised a Christian, though the religion continued to be persecuted in the Roman Empire.  In fact, Diocletian would inaugurate the last, largest, and bloodiest massacre of Christians in Roman history (303-312).  

In addition to being a Christian, this girl, on the cusp of young adulthood, committed a second crime.  According to Roman law, all girls were the legal property of their fathers.  When they reached their teenage years, they were expected, indeed mandated, to marry.  At that point, they became their husband’s legal property.  If their husband died, widows were obligated to remarry.  At no point were women permitted to be independent persons who owned themselves.  

Like several other older Christian girls of this period, Agnes rejected the idea that she was property. In Scripture, she heard that she had dignity and was created in the image of God.  She belonged to no man.  She belonged to Christ, who created her and redeemed her. 

When Agnes was approached with multiple wedding proposals, she refused them all, in the process outing herself as a Christian. Her spurned suitors angrily reported her to Roman officials.  The authorities had her arrested, and to make an example of her, they stripped her, paraded her through the streets, and imprisoned her.  They attempted to burn her alive, but she was mysteriously protected from flames.  Out of frustration, a soldier drew his sword and killed Agnes. 

 

She was buried near the place of her death.  Within a short period of time, her catacomb tomb became a place of pilgrimage and devotion.  20 years after her death, a new emperor, Constantine, converted to Christianity and legalized the faith.  His daughter, named Constantina, developed a deep devotion to Agnes.  After being struck with leprosy, Constantina visited Agnes’ tomb and was miraculously cured.  

In thanksgiving, she built a basilica over Agnes’s catacomb.  It is a church that still stands in Rome, and this very church is modelled on.

 Devotion to Agnes has remained strong for over 17 centuries. You can often see her depicted holding a lamb, which is a nod to her Latin name, Agnes, which sounds an awful lot like the Greek word Agnus, meaning lamb.  She often has long hair which was said to have miraculously grown to cover her nakedness when she was paraded through the streets.

So, what lessons can we take from Agnes?  First, she reminds us to take children seriously. It’s easy for adults to discount children—to treat them like they don’t matter, shouldn’t be listened to, and have nothing to teach us.  

In the second reading, St. Paul tells us, “God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise and the weak of the world to shame the strong.”  It is the “lowly and despised of the world who count for nothing who reduce to nothing those who are something in the eyes of the world.”  

Agnes, the little lamb, embodies that message.  She is the child who leads us.  

I find, as a parent, that my children often ask me questions that shame me or challenge me.  When we see someone asking for money at an intersection, they ask, “Why aren’t we helping him?”  

My son EJ is very concerned about the environment.  This summer, he asked us, “Why are we flying when we know how much airplanes pollute the earth?”  

Children might also ask us, “Why aren’t we going to church every Sunday?” Or “why don’t we pray before meals?”  

When my children ask me difficult questions about the way of the world, I find a way to reason my sinfulness away. To rationalize the hardness of my hearts and justify the ways that I compromise my values with the “way of the world.”  

Sometimes we make simple issues more complicated.  Sometimes, following Christ is simpler than we may think.  

As Scripture says, you must be like a child to enter the kingdom of heaven, to recapture the “foolish wisdom” of a child.  Let us, who claim St. Agnes as a patron, and hometown strive to follow her example.  

Sancta Agnes, Ora Pro Nobis.  St. Agnes, Pray for Us.