A child who wanted to become a nun from an early age
St. Agnes of Montepulciano was born into a noble family on January 28, 1268 near Lake Trasimeno. The city of Monte Pulciano was part of the Papal States at that time.
From an early age, she amazed everyone around her with her wisdom and deep faith. She was extremely modest and obedient, always eagerly listening to sermons in the church and deeply feeling the Holy Mass. She liked to play with her peers, but she often interrupted the games and went to church, where she prayed fervently. She was able to stand for hours in ecstasy in front of images of Our Lord Jesus Christ or the Virgin Mary.
When asked why she prayed so much, she replied that she prayed weakly and unworthily. That she would like to learn to pray well and that she must prepare herself for her role that Our Lord Jesus Christ has given her. She was about 6 years old when she started talking about wanting to go to a convent as soon as possible.
When she was 9 years old, she persuaded her parents to allow her to enter the Franciscan nunnery in Montepulciano. Even the parents of St. Agnes were devout Catholics.
The convent sisters belonged to a very strict branch of the Franciscan family – they lived a simple and religious, contemplative way of life, which little Agnes liked immensely. She received special permission to enter the monastery from Pope Nicholas III (1277 – 1280), because under normal circumstances entering the monastery at the age of 9 was contrary to church law.
In the novitiate, the young adepts were educated by the experienced and pious nun Margita. St. Agnes soon won the hearts of all the nuns with her innocence, humility, meekness, obedience and piety. Once, when a selected abbess visited the monastery as part of an inspection, the experienced eye of the nun did not escape the pious novice. She then sent a letter to the address of St. Agnes of Montepulciano spoke prophetic words: "In this monastery there is a pearl that will be a model for future religious, just as her patroness saint, St. Agnes of Rome, martyr of the Catholic Church, is a model."
In 1281, the ruler of Orvietto and Procena invited the nuns of Montepulciano to found a new monastery in Procena. Among the nuns who came to Procena was Agnes, who was only 15 years old at the time, who was soon appointed quaestor. She took care of the kitchen, the pantry, the laundry in the convent and carried out this work with her own consistency and responsibility.
Despite the fact that she had a lot of work, she did not neglect prayers and inner contemplation, so she was a great example for older and more experienced sisters. With great spiritual help for St. Agnes in Procena was formed by Sister Margaret, who had already formed her at the time when she entered the convent of Montepulciano as a 9-year-old girl.
Sister Margaret, together with Sister Agnes, arranged the situation in the Procence convent in such a way that the convent became famous not only throughout Italy for its piety, discipline and contemplative prayer, but also became known in France and Spain. Approximately around 1284, St. Agnes was chosen as the superior of the Procen monastery and Pope Martin IV, like Pope Nicholas III a few years ago, made a decision in the case of St. Agnes of Montepulciano again an age exemption from ecclesiastical law. Despite her young age, he allowed her to be elected abbess.
An abbess who did not give orders, but preferred to set a personal example
St. Agnese's biographers have noted that she was very aware of her young age and her position of responsibility. That is why she did not order anything to the older nuns, but she embarked on every work herself. And the nuns did not hesitate to follow the example of their abbess. St. Agnes thus gave the most beautiful example to the sisters under her guidance – she never admonished them, she set an example by deeds and not by words.
She surpassed all the sisters in self-denial and repentance. From the age of 12, she ate only vegetables and bread washed down with water; She slept on the bare ground, using stone as a headrest – she refused any comfort. Her convent cell was the poorest and coldest in the entire convent, mortifying herself and cultivating flagellantism. She loved prayer so much that the prescribed length of prayer time in the convent seemed too short for her. She was known for her deep devotion and reverence for the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, and she could immerse herself in contemplative prayer so much that she lost track of time.
According to her first biographer, the Dominican friar Raymond of Capua, one Sunday she was so deeply and fervently immersed in prayer that from 5 a.m. until 11 p.m. she knelt motionless on the stone floor – as if she did not even live on Earth. It was not until an hour before midnight that she woke up from her religious ecstasy and realized with horror that she had not received Holy Communion that day because of her contemplation. However, according to legend, Jesus Christ himself sent his angel to give her the Blessed Sacrament.
Very soon, people began to perceive her as a saint, because she was able to cure mental and physical illnesses. According to medieval legends, she was able to multiply bread and fish, similarly to Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Gospel of St. Peter. Matthew:
13 When Jesus heard this, he went from there in a boat to a desert place in solitude. But the multitudes heard of it, and they walked out of the cities behind him. 14 When he went out and saw a great crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick. 15 And when evening came, the disciples came to him and said, "This place is desolate, and the time is past. Dismiss the crowds, so that they may disperse to the villages to buy food." 16 But Jesus said to them: "They need not go anywhere; you give them something to eat!" 17 And they said unto him, We have nothing here, but five loaves and two fish. 18 And he said, Bring them to me hither. 19 And he commanded the multitudes to sit down on the grass. He took five loaves and two fish, lifted up his eyes to heaven, blessed them, broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples to the multitudes. 20 And they all ate and were filled, and gathered up twelve baskets full of the remainder of the crumbs. 21 And those who did eat were about five thousand men, besides women and children. (Matthew 14:13-21)
According to Raymond of Capua, the rumor about the saint spread throughout the region. Thanks to her example, many young girls decided to enter the convent of Procena, so soon the capacity of the convent was no longer enough. The humble St. Agnes did not like to hear people praise her, because, as is customary with saints, she considered herself the least suitable person to be touched by the grace and love of Christ.
St. Agnes returned to her hometown at the request of the people, where she became a role model
Her natives from Montepulciano asked the bishop to return to her hometown, and this received God's great blessing from living in her hometown. When she arrived in her hometown in 1306, people greeted her noisily and with celebration, which caused her grief and regret. St. Agnes rejected such expressions of respect, according to her, veneration should and should be given only to the Triune God, the Virgin Mary and the saints.
In front of the city there was a pimp's house where prostitutes lived. St. Agnes was shocked by this fact and expressed the wish that this house would become a refuge of penance and virtue. Her wish was immediately fulfilled by the town hall, only to ensure that St. Agnesa will stay in the city forever. The house was bought, rebuilt into a monastery and consecrated. St. Nicholas remained in the monastery. Agnes to act as an abbess. She was followed by several nuns from the Procensko monastery, and the nest of vice was thus transformed into a place of purity and salvation. Soon, dozens of young girls began to flock to this convent to consecrate their lives to God as nuns.
According to Raymond of Capua, God endowed St. Agnes with many precious graces. She was able to persuade even the greatest sinners to start caring about the salvation of their souls and she had the gift of healing. Her biography states that she asked for the gift of repentance in iniquity to a hardened person who had not been to confession for more than 30 years. She restored the sight of one of the nuns who had gone blind and whom her parents wanted to take from the convent so that they could take care of her at home, in their home.
According to information from her closest circle, St. Agnes reached a very high degree of contemplative prayer and the sisters spoke about her apparitions – she often saw the Virgin Mary and the entire Holy Family. She visited Florence many times in order to raise funds for the construction of the church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence (home temple of the Red Team in Calcio Fiorentino), and in her visions in Florence in 1311 she had a vision of St. Dominic Guzmán, founder of the Dominican order. Based on these visions, she then inspired the sisters in the convent to accept the Rule of St. Augustine and became members of the Dominican family. In Florence, she also intervened in disputes between the ruling families in the city, and thanks to her, many of these hostile families ended up laying down their arms and preferring to live in peace.
At the beginning of 1316, her health deteriorated significantly. Doctors suggested a treatment in the nearby thermal springs of the town of Chianciano Terme. However, the treatment did not help and the health of St. Agnes deteriorated so much that she had to be carried from the spa to the convent on a stretcher. She predicted exactly the date of her death, shortly before it happened, she received the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick and viaticum. On her deathbed, she said goodbye to all the sisters of the convent, to whom she dedicated her last words: "Mydaughters, love one another, because love is a sign of God's children."
St. Agnes of Montepulciano died on April 20, 1317 at the age of 49. Almost immediately after her death, word spread in the city that their beloved saint had died. Crowds of pilgrims began to flow into the city to say goodbye to her.
After her death, the body of St. Agnes did not decompose – the first proof of her holiness
However, the Dominican nuns who were preparing her body for handing over to the land reported that the body of St. Agnes of Montepulciano shows no signs of death and decay even after three days of her death. On the contrary, a pleasant smell emanated from the dead body. She was buried in the local monastery church, and when they decided to move her remains years later, they found that they were still intact. Subsequently, the tomb of the saint became a place of many pilgrimages.
About 50 years after her death, the Dominican monk Raymond of Capua, confessor of St. Catherine of Siena, wrote the first biography of St. Catherine of Siena. Agnes of Montepulciano. He saw with his own eyes the body of a saint who only looked like she was sleeping. The tomb of the saint was often visited by St. Catherine of Siena, who loved to pray at it. Another Dominican, Lorenzo Mariani from Rome, wrote a new biography of St. Francis. Agnes of Montepulciano, in which he referred to her as a saint.
St. Agnes of Montepulciano was canonized by Pope Benedict XIII in 1726. To St. Agnese of Montepulciano prays that sinners will receive the gift of repentance. Her deep devotion to prayer is highlighted. St. Agnes always emphasized to the nuns in the convent she led the enormous importance of prayer and emphasized the words of St. John Chrysostom, in which the saint said:
"If you talk to a good friend or an important person, you do so with the utmost attention and tact. Why, then, when you talk to God and ask Him to forgive your sins, do you tend to be spiritually lazy, inattentive, and your mind wanders here and there? Prayer must be said with reverence and love, it is necessary to build our interior life on prayer, and we must pray with all our heart so that we may believe that God will hear us..."
In the Dominican Order, her feast day has been celebrated on the 20th day of April since the 13th century. St. Agnes of Montepulciano is usually depicted in the habit of a Dominican nun with a cross or crucifix in her hand, with lilies or a lamb.
