Virgin and martyr of Sicily · Feast: 5 February
Open in the Daily Word app“My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” 2 Corinthians 12:9
Agatha was a young Christian woman of Sicily who died for her faith, probably in the middle of the third century, during the persecution of the emperor Decius, around 251. Catania and Palermo have both claimed her as a daughter of their city, and Catania, where she died, honours her as its patroness. Almost nothing else can be stated with certainty about her life. Her fame, however, is very old and well attested.
The Acts of her martyrdom were written later and cannot be taken as an exact record. They describe a young woman of good family who had consecrated her virginity to Christ. The Roman official Quintianus desired her, and when she refused him he had her accused as a Christian. He placed her in a house of ill repute to break her will, then had her tortured, and in the cruellest part of the torment had her breasts cut off. She died in prison.
Whatever may be uncertain in these details, the Church's memory of her is ancient. Her name appears in the early martyrologies, and it is still spoken in the Roman Canon, the First Eucharistic Prayer, alongside Felicity, Perpetua, Lucy, Agnes, Cecilia and Anastasia. In Rome, St Gregory the Great dedicated to her the church now known as Sant'Agata dei Goti. A sermon of St Methodius of Sicily, read in the Roman Office on her feast, plays on her name, which means good in Greek.
Catania celebrates her every February with one of the great processions of Italy. She is invoked against fire and against the eruptions of Mount Etna, and women suffering from diseases of the breast ask her prayers, as do nurses. Her story reminds us that the bodies of women are holy and that no violence can take from a person the dignity she has before God.
Violence could wound Agatha's body, but it could not touch her dignity.
Her promise to Christ, as the Acts present it, was stronger than power and fear.
A young woman stood firm before an official of the empire.
She is a companion for women who are sick or who have suffered abuse.
The Acts tell that on the night after her torture an old man came to Agatha in prison with medicine, revealed himself as the apostle Peter, and healed her wounds in the name of Christ.
People of Catania say that when Etna erupted about a year after her death, they carried her veil out against the lava and the flow stopped. Her veil is still carried in the city's procession.
From early times her name was included among the holy women named in the Roman Canon. Every priest who prays this Eucharistic Prayer still names this Sicilian girl.
Jesus Christ, Lord of all, you see my heart, you know my desires. Possess all that I am. I am your sheep: make me worthy to overcome the devil.
Prayer of St Agatha in the Acts of her martyrdom, in substance
God's strength shone in her suffering (2 Corinthians 12:9).
Our bodies are holy; no one may treat a person as an object.
Her prayers for the sick and the wounded.
Dear friends, we do not know many exact details about St Agatha, but we know that the Church has never forgotten her. For well over a thousand years, her name has been spoken in the Eucharistic Prayer at the Holy Mass / Holy Qurbana. She was a young woman in Sicily who would not surrender herself to a powerful man and would not deny Christ.
The Lord says to St Paul: My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9). An official of the empire had every kind of power over Agatha, or so it seemed. He could imprison her and torture her. But he could not make her deny the Lord to whom she had given her life. Her story has outlived his.
Her story touches a painful subject. Women and girls still suffer harassment, abuse and violence. The Church must be a place where they are believed, protected and cared for, and our homes and parishes must be places where each person's dignity is respected. Let us say clearly today that no one who has suffered such things has lost her worth before God.
Let us also remember women with breast cancer and all who are ill, their families and those who nurse them. Many of them feel weak and afraid. May St Agatha pray for them, and may we stand beside them with our prayer and our practical help, so that they too may find that grace is sufficient. Amen.
Lord God, you gave St Agatha strength to stay faithful to you through cruel suffering. Through her prayers, protect all who are sick or wounded, comfort those who have suffered violence, and make us reverent toward the dignity of every person. Amen.