Agnes. A Greek name meaning “chaste” (not to be confused with the Latin-derived Agnus, meaning “lamb”). Today’s saint, not surprisingly hailed for her chastity, spent hours as an infant on her knees, reciting her prayers (Our Fathers and Hail Marys). Agnes was so intent on this course of conduct that her parents put her in a convent when she was nine years old. At the very young age of fifteen, the pope appointed her abbess over an entire order. In an effort to set a good example to them all, this girl would sleep on the ground with a stone for a pillow and eat nothing but (14th-century) bread and water. Not surprisingly, Agnes soon fell seriously ill. At least her spiritual directors had the sense to tell her to be less austere. Nevertheless, she was never truly healthy after that point.

The people from the town in Italy where Agnes grew up wanted her to come back home. So they tore down a whorehouse and built on that spot a convent there so that Agnes could run a nunnery there. She indeed returned to her home town and, though sickly, was beloved for her miracle-working and spirit of humility and charity while suffering an unending series of illnesses that took her life at age 43.

There seems to be something ennobling about the sick who persevere…as long as they do so with a smile and without railing at a God who could even conceivably wish for a 15-year-old girl to starve herself and sleep on cold floors on top of rocks.