From a treatise On Virgins by Saint Ambrose

Too young to be punished, yet old enough for a martyr's crown

Today is the birthday of a virgin; let us imitate her purity. It is the birthday of a martyr; let us offer ourselves in sacrifice. It is the birthday of Saint Agnes, who is said to have suffered martyrdom at the age of twelve. The cruelty that did not spare her youth shows all the more clearly the power of faith in finding one so young to bear it witness.

There was little or no room in that small body for a wound. Though she could scarcely receive the blow, she could rise superior to it. Girls of her age cannot bear even their parents’ frowns and, pricked by a needle, weep as for a serious wound. Yet she shows no fear of the blood-stained hands of her executioners. She stands undaunted by heavy, clanking chains. She offers her whole body to be put to the sword by fierce soldiers. She is too young to know of death, yet is ready to face it. Dragged against her will to the altars, she stretches out her hands to the Lord in the midst of the flames, making the triumphant sign of Christ the victor on the altars of sacrilege. She puts her neck and hands in iron chains, but no chain can hold fast her tiny limbs.

A new kind of martyrdom! Too young to be punished, yet old enough for a martyr’s crown; unfitted for the contest, yet effortless in victory, she shows herself a master in valour despite the handicap of youth. As a bride she would not be hastening to join her husband with the same joy she shows as a virgin on her way to punishment, crowned not with flowers but with holiness of life, adorned not with braided hair but with Christ himself.

In the midst of tears, she sheds no tears herself. The crowds marvel at her recklessness in throwing away her life untasted, as if she had already lived life to the full. All are amazed that one not yet of legal age can give her testimony to God. So she succeeds in convincing others of her testimony about God, though her testimony in human affairs could not yet be accepted. What is beyond the power of nature, they argue, must come from its creator.

What menaces there were from the executioner, to frighten her; what promises made, to win her over; what influential people desired her in marriage! She answered: “To hope that any other will please me does wrong to my Spouse. I will be his who first chose me for himself. Executioner, why do you delay? If eyes that I do not want can desire this body, then let it perish.” She stood still, she prayed, she offered her neck.

You could see fear in the eyes of the executioner, as if he were the one condemned; his right hand trembled, his face grew pale as he saw the girl’s peril, while she had no fear for herself. One victim, but a twin martyrdom, to modesty and to religion; Agnes preserved her virginity, and gained a martyr’s crown

St. Agnes - 21st January 2009

Today we celebrate the feast of St. Agnes , let us read and contemplate what Dr. Plinio has to say about this great saint.

Biographical selection from St. Ambrose, On Virgins, Book II:

St. Ambrose speaks with great admiration of St. Agnes, who was martyred at the tender age of 12. In his work, On Virgins, he wrote: “This is a new kind of martyrdom! One not yet of fit age for punishment, but already ripe for victory. One unready for combat, but able to win the crown. One who has not yet reached the age of judgment but who has mastered virtue ....

“Joyfully she advances with unhesitating step to the place of punishment, her head not adorned with plaited hair, but with Christ. All weep; she alone is without a tear. All wonder that she is so ready to deliver her life, which she has not yet enjoyed, but which now she gives up as though she had lived it fully. All are astounded that she stands forth as God’s witness although at her age she could not yet decide about herself! And so it came about that what she said regarding God was believed, although what she said about man would not be accepted. For that which is beyond nature is from the Author of nature. ....

“She stands, she prays, she bends down her neck. You can see the executioner tremble, as though he himself has been condemned. His right hand is shaking, his face grows pale. He fears the peril of another, while the maiden fears not for her own danger. You have then in one victim a twofold martyrdom, of chastity and religion. She both remained a virgin and she obtained martyrdom."



Comments of Prof. Plinio:

St. Ambrose’s commentary on St. Agnes has a literary value that is both profound and very beautiful because it is all composed of contrasts. Through the use of these contrasts, St. Ambrose shows the points he wants to emphasize.

First, there is the contrast between her age and the martyrdom. She is too young to be condemned to death because at such a young age no one can deserve such a punishment. And yet she is already ripe for the victory. The one who is not mature in years is nonetheless ripe to win the victory. It is a glory. The immaturity of the years and maturity of the virtue.

The second contrast: She is unready for combat, but ripe for the crown. A young girl at that time did not have any conditions to fight, yet she won the highest of all the laurels, which is the crown of martyrdom.

The third contrast: She is so young that she is still under the guardianship of others. The law does not consider her capable of governing herself. All present admired her because she was a witness of the Godhead, even though she was still a minor who could not be a witness of anything in a court of human law. Her word would not have any value in a normal process of law, yet she has impressed everyone with her defense of Our Lord.

In addition to this, there are the contrasts that one can find in the actual martyrdom. She advances joyfully, with unhesitating step, to the place from which all people naturally flee.

Another contrast: her adornment is not artificially plaited tresses but rather Jesus Christ, because He is the true adornment, the real beauty of the soul who consecrates itself to Him.

Another contrast: she is not crowned with flower wreaths like the other young Roman girls of her time, but with purity. That purity in her is splendorous and makes a kind of halo around her head.

There are still other contrasts. All are weeping to see a young girl who will be killed. But she is not. It is a glorious contrast, because she is thirsting for Heaven, and not for earth. Along those lines, everyone is astonished that she can so easily give up a life that has hardly begun. Yet she sacrifices this life as if she had already lived and enjoyed it fully.

And what is the reason for all these contrasts? It is because St. Ambrose is trying to emphasize that there is something absurd in her martyrdom. For it would be natural for her to do the very opposite of what she is doing. The reason that she acts as she does with a strength that is beyond nature is because such strength can only come from the Author of nature itself. What is beyond nature is what is more that the merely natural. What is more than nature here is the One who is its author. God revealed Himself in the sanctity of St. Agnes and in the miracle of her death.

She goes forward and bends her head. She sees the executioner trembling as if he were the one who was condemned. But she – the condemned one – is calm and steady.

His right hand is shaking, his face pale. He fears the peril of another, while the maiden fears not for her own danger. The executioner trembles with fear to use the tools of punishment. But she has no fear of the executioner.

You have then in one victim a twofold martyrdom, of chastity and religion. She both remained a virgin and she obtained martyrdom.

This is the magnificent commentary of St. Ambrose on St. Agnes.

Feast of St. Augustine 28 August 2008

Today we celebrate the fest of St. Augustine. I like St. Augustine, because as a saint he shows the mercy and goodness of God. St. Augustine before his conversion was a very worldly man. He has an illegitimate son, was an intellectual giant and was generally having what we 20th century moderns call a good time.
If one reads the Confessions one will realize that despite having a mighty good time deep inside he was seeking the truth. Most of us go through this. I like At Augustine because he seems so human and yet after his conversion we see the greatness of his transformation all because of the mercy and love of God.
At times of despair one need only think of what St. Augustine was pre conversion to what he became post conversion and realize what God is capable of if only we let him and this is enough to lift one out of the despair.
Let us now consider the words of Dr. Plinio.




Comments of Prof. Plinio:

Reading the works of St. Augustine is one of the greatest pleasures a man can have. The Confessions is a wonderful and highly edifying book from many points of view. In it, St. Augustine describes the moral abysses of pride and sensuality into which he had fallen and narrates how he turned away from his innumerable sins. Then he relates his first contacts with St. Ambrose and how the light of the Catholic Religion began to enter his soul through the presence of St. Ambrose.

He expresses his enthusiasm for the Bishop of Milan and his visits to him. St. Augustine could not speak often with St. Ambrose since the Bishop was usually busy writing and studying, but he would remain there just to watch St. Ambrose at his work. The latter knew that his presence was making a better apostolate with St. Augustine than his words would do.

You can imagine the scene. St. Ambrose, the great Doctor of the Church, writing in an infolio, his features those of a venerable old man, placid, enlightened by the grace of God, wise, recollected, sublime in his judgments. Once in a while, he would stop to make a short interior prayer, then he would return to his thinking until he reached the final conclusion. Observing him was St. Augustine, whose face still reflected the turbulence of the crisis through which he was passing. But the grace of God was entering the soul of St. Augustine and transforming his personality through his admiration for St. Ambrose.

And so he goes on to narrate his interior crisis, the peace he experienced upon entering the church and hearing the sacred music, the psalms, the beauty of God’s worship. Then his strong movements of repentance and the voice he heard ordering him: Tolle et lege – take it and read. He took up Sacred Scriptures and the page opened to a verse that applied perfectly to his past life ["Not in riots and drunken parties, not in eroticisms and indecencies, not in strife and rivalry, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh in its lusts" (Romans 13:13-14)]. He received a decisive grace that completed his conversion.

Further on he describes the famous colloquium at Ostia with St. Monica, his mother. She was a very holy woman, while he had been a very bad son. When they were in Carthage preparing for a voyage to Rome, St. Monica went to a church and spent the night praying there. Augustine took advantage of the opportunity to flee from her and embarked for Rome by himself, leaving her alone.

Afterward she followed him, always weeping and praying for his conversion. Once she went to the Bishop of Milan, St. Ambrose, to ask him if her son would ever convert. He replied to her with those famous words: “Woman, the child of so many tears shall never perish." That is, she would see his rebirth through her intense and profound suffering.

You can imagine her joy when her son converted. St. Augustine and his mother spent some months together as he prepared for his Baptism. Then they planned to return to Africa. Before embarking on the voyage, they stayed at an inn in Ostia, a port city near Rome on the Mediterranean Sea. Standing at a window watching the sea, they began to converse about heavenly things.

One who reads this conversation between the saintly mother and son realizes they were experiencing a supernatural ecstasy. This gave him strength for the fights ahead he would have to face. For her it was a pre-taste of Heaven, because she would die there in Ostia, before the ship departed. He describes movingly how he assisted at her funeral. Then he went to Africa and became the Bishop of Hippo.

In Hippo, he wrote another of his great books The City of God. The theme of that extraordinary work is the perpetual and irreconcilable fight that takes place between the two cities in History – the city he speaks of comes from the Latin, civitas, and should be understood more as a state. These two cities are the City of God and the City of the Devil. He conceives all History as a battle between the Catholic Church and the power of darkness. The struggle results from two different loves. In the City of God there is the love of God to the oblivion of oneself; in the city of man, or City of the Devil, there is the love of oneself to the oblivion of God.

To live for self is to consider oneself the minuscule center of the universe, with everything turned toward one’s own pleasures and interests. This egotism is the starting point for every bad thing. On the contrary, to love God is to turn oneself entirely toward the transcendent realities we find in Revelation. It is to have a metaphysical spirit, a religious spirit turned toward the highest things. This is to live for God. With these two principles, he summarizes all of History.

An analogous philosophy of History is taught by St. Louis Grignion de Monfort. He argues that everything God does is good. Since the enmity between Our Lady and the serpent, and therefore between her spiritual descendents and those of the serpent, was decreed by God, this enmity is also good. It is the same thesis of St. Augustine, with more combativeness.

Because of this unequivocal presentation of good and evil, Progressivism attacks St. Augustine today by saying that he was Manichean. According to this stupid accusation everyone who admits that there is good and evil would be a Manichean. It is nonsensical because the Magisterium of the Catholic Church has always admitted the existence of good and evil, as have all of her Saints. If this were the only criterium, then they would all be Manichean. It is absurd!

In passing, let me say that Manichaeism was a Gnostic doctrine that appeared in the first centuries of the Church proposing that there would be two gods equal in origin and power, a good one and a bad one, in constant struggle against each other. Catholic doctrine says something completely different. It says that there is only one God, Eternal and Omnipotent, and that the Devil, a mere creature, revolted against Him and fights Him throughout History.

The heresy of Manichaeism supposes a different order of being than what Catholic doctrine teaches. For the former, the fight is on the ontological level; for the latter it is in the moral sphere. Also according to Manichaeism the fight will never end; in Catholic doctrine the fight ends at the Last Judgment when God will eternally triumph over his infinitely inferior enemy. Progressivism is aware of these differences, but still continues to spread that anyone who doesn’t support its ecumenism is a Manichaean. It is an absurd affirmation and a manifestation of bad faith.

There is a very beautiful point to consider about St. Augustine. He wrote his books as the Roman Empire of the West was falling, when everything pointed to the probability that the Catholic Religion would be swept from the earth after the barbarian invasions. In fact, Hippo and Carthage in North Africa were so devastated that almost nothing was left of these cities and the Catholic Religion did not re-establish itself in that area. Notwithstanding, St. Augustine serenely wrote his books for a future that was uncertain. He died as the Vandals were entering his city.

The world he knew fell; the Middle Ages came. And then it was the works of St. Augustine that inspired the medieval conception of State, Empire, and Christendom. Charlemagne used to listen to the reading of the City of God during his meals, and the Empire he founded was inspired directly by St. Augustine. The Middle Ages, in a certain way is a lily born from the works of St. Augustine. Centuries after his death, his confidence was rewarded.

There is a lesson for us in this. In our times when the new Vandals are destroying both the cultural values and material buildings of Christian Civilization, we should carry on our work with faith and confidence, knowing that it will serve to build the Reign of Mary when God so decides.