THE cities of Palermo and Catana, in Sicily, dispute the honor of her
birth: but they do much better who, by copying her virtues, and claiming
her patronage, strive to become her fellow-citizens in heaven. It is
agreed that she received the crown of martyrdom at Catana, in the
persecution of Decius, in the third consulship of that prince, in the
year of our Lord 251. She was of a rich and illustrious family, and
having been consecrated to God from her tender years, triumphed over
many assaults upon her chastity. Quintianus, a man of consular dignity,
bent on gratifying both his lust and avarice, imagined he should easily
compass his wicked designs on Agatha's person and estate, by means of
the emperor's edict against the Christians. He therefore caused her to
be apprehended and brought before him at Catana. Seeing herself in the
hands of the persecutors, she made this prayer: "Jesus Christ, Lord of
all things, you see my heart, you know my desire: possess alone all that
I am. I am your sheep, make me worthy to overcome the devil." She wept,
and prayed for courage and strength all the way she {358} went. On her
appearance, Quintianus gave orders for her being put into the hands of
Aphrodisia, a most wicked woman, who with six daughters, all
prostitutes, kept a common stew. The saint suffered in this infamous
place, assaults and stratagems against her virtue, infinitely more
terrible to her than any tortures or death itself. But placing her
confidence in God, she never ceased with sighs and most earnest tears to
implore his protection, and by it was an overmatch for all their hellish
attempts, the whole month she was there. Quintianus being informed of
her constancy after thirty days, ordered her to be brought before him.
The virgin, in her first interrogatory, told him, that to be a servant
of Jesus Christ was the most illustrious nobility, and true liberty. The
judge, offended at her resolute answers, commanded her to be buffeted,
and led to prison. She entered it with great joy, recommending her
future conflict to God. The next day she was arraigned a second time at
the tribunal, and answered with equal constancy that Jesus Christ was
her life and her salvation. Quintianus then ordered her to be stretched
on the rack, which torment was usually accompanied with stripes, the
tearing of the sides with iron hooks, and burning them with torches or
matches. The governor, enraged to see her suffer all this with
cheerfulness, commanded her breast to be tortured, and afterwards to be
cut off. At which she made him this reproach: "Cruel tyrant, do you not
blush to torture this part of my body, you that sucked the breasts of a
woman yourself?" He remanded her to prison with a severe order, that
neither salves nor food should be allowed her. But God would be himself
her physician, and the apostle St. Peter in a vision comforted her,
healed all her wounds, and filled her dungeon with a heavenly light.
Quintianus, four days after, not the least moved at the miraculous cure
of her wounds, caused her to be rolled naked over live coals mixed with
broken potsherds. Being carried back to prison, she made this prayer:
"Lord, my Creator, you have ever protected me from the cradle. You have
taken from me the love of the world, and given me patience to suffer:
receive now my soul." After which words she sweetly gave up the ghost.
Her name is inserted in the canon of the mass, in the calendar of
Carthage, as ancient as the year 530, and in all martyrologies of the
Latins and Greeks. Pope Symmachus built a church in Rome on the Aurelian
way, under her name, about the year 500, which is fallen to decay.[1]
St. Gregory the Great enriched a church which he purged from the Arian
impiety, with her relics,[2] which it still possesses. This church had
been rebuilt in her honor by Ricimer, general of the western empire, in
460. Gregory II. built another famous church at Rome, under her
invocation, in 726, which Clement VIII. gave to the congregation of the
Christian doctrine. St. Gregory the Great[3] ordered some of her relics
to be placed in the church of the monastery of St. Stephen, in the Isle
of Capreae, now Capri. The chief part, which remained at Catana, was
carried to Constantinople by the Greek general, who drove the Saracens
out of Sicily about the year 1040: these were brought back to Catana in
1127, a relation of which translation, written by Mauritius, who was
then bishop, is recorded by Rocci Pyrrho, and Bollandus.[4] The same
authors relate in what manner the torrent of burning sulphur and stones
which issue from mount AEtna, in great eruptions, was several times
averted from the walls of Catana by the veil of St. Agatha, (taken out
of her tomb,) which was carried in procession. Also that through her
intercession, Malta (where she is honored as patroness of the island)
was preserved from the Turks who invaded it in 1551. Small portions of
relics of St. Agatha are said to be distributed in many places.
{359}
* * * * *
The perfect purity of intention by which St. Agatha was entirely dead to
the world and herself, and sought only to please God, is the
circumstance which sanctified her sufferings, and rendered her sacrifice
complete. The least cross which we bear, the least action which we
perform in this disposition, will be a great holocaust, and a most
acceptable offering. We have frequently something to suffer--sometimes
an aching pain in the body, at other times some trouble of mind, often
some disappointment, some humbling rebuke, or reproach, or the like. If
we only bear these trials with patience when others are witnesses, or if
we often speak of them, or are fretful under them, or if we bear
patiently public affronts or great trials, yet sink under those which
are trifling, and are sensible to small or secret injuries, it is
evident that we have not attained to true purity of intention in our
patience; that we are not dead to ourselves, and love not to disappear
to the eyes of creatures, but court them, and take a secret complacency
in things which appear great. We profess ourselves ready to die for
Christ; yet cannot bear the least cross or humiliation. How agreeable to
our divine spouse is the sacrifice of a soul which suffers in silence,
desiring to have no other witness of her patience than God alone, who
sends her trials; which shuns superiority and honors, but takes all care
possible that no one knows the humility or modesty of such a refusal;
which suffers humiliations, and seeks no comfort or reward but from God.
This simplicity and purity of heart; this love of being hid in God,
through Jesus Christ, is the perfection of all our sacrifices, and the
complete victory over self-love, which it attacks and forces out of its
strongest intrenchments: this says to Christ, with St. Agatha, "Possess
alone all that I am."
Footnotes:
1. Fronteau Cal. p. 25.
2. Disi. l. 3, c. 30.
3. L. 1, ep. 52.
4. Feb. {}1, p. 647.