Today's meditation: Not yet capable of suffering and already ripe for victory

It is Christmas day for a virgin's heaven: let us follow her integrity. It is the Christmas day of a martyr: like her we offer our sacrifice. It is the Christmas day of Saint Agnes!
It is said that he suffered martyrdom at the age of twelve. How detestable is this barbarism, which has not been able to spare even such a tender age! But certainly much greater was the strength of faith, which found testimony in a life still at the beginning. Could such a tiny body offer room for sword strikes? Yet she who seemed inaccessible to iron, had enough strength to overcome iron. The girls, his peers, tremble even at the stern gaze of their parents and come out in tears and screams for small pricks, as if they had received who knows what wounds. Agnese instead remains fearless in the hands of the executioners, tinged with her blood. She stands firm under the weight of the chains and then offers her whole person to the executioner's sword, unaware of what dying is, but still ready for death. Dragged by force to the altar of the gods and placed among the burning coals, she stretches her hands to Christ, and on the same sacrilegious altars she raises the trophy of the victorious Lord. He puts his neck and hands in shackles of iron, although no chain could hold such thin limbs.
New kind of martyrdom! She was not yet capable of suffering torment, yet she was already ripe for victory. The struggle was difficult, but the crown was easy. The tender age gave a perfect fortress lesson. A new bride would not go as quickly to the wedding as this virgin went to the place of torture: joyful, agile, with her head adorned not with crowns, but with the Christ, not with flowers, but with noble virtues.
Everyone is crying, she doesn't. Most are amazed that, lavishing on a life not yet tasted, he gives it as if he had fully enjoyed it. Everyone was amazed that she was already a witness of the divinity who for her age could not yet be the arbiter of herself. Finally she made sure that her testimony in favor of God was believed, she, who still would not be believed and had testified in favor of men. Indeed what goes beyond nature is from the Author of nature.
What terrible threats did the magistrate not resort to to frighten her, what sweet flattery to persuade her, and how many aspirants to her hand did he not speak to her to make her withdraw from his purpose! But she: «It is an offense to the Bridegroom to wait for a lover. Whoever chose me first will have me. Executioner, why do you delay? May this body perish: it can be loved and desired, but I don't want it. " She stood still, prayed, bowed her head.
You could have seen the executioner trembling, as if he were the condemned man, trembling the executioner's right hand, turning pale the face of those who feared the danger of others, while the girl did not fear her own. You therefore have a double martyrdom in one victim, of chastity and faith. She remained a virgin and achieved the palm of martyrdom.