Agatha
When we don't get our way, we can become really nasty.
For God alone my soul in silence waits; from him comes my salvation. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold, so that I shall not be greatly shaken. How long will you assail me to crush me, all of you together, as if you were a leaning fence, a toppling wall? They seek only to bring me down from my place of honor; lies are their chief delight. - Psalm 62:1-4
Today we remember Agatha of Catania in Sicily, now Palermo, where my grandmother came from.
Agatha should never have become a saint. Not because she didn't suffer torture and abuse for her faith, but because the circumstances that led to her persecution as a Christian are so heinous and selfish, having nothing to do with her faith.
Hers is a story about abuse of power and domination. She was tortured by the man who wished to marry her, Quintianus. Because she refused his advances, and because he was powerful as a judge and prefect, he used her faith against her, having her imprisoned during the reign of Gaius Messius Quintus Decius.
In 250, Decius ordered all the citizens to perform a public sacrifice. The Christians resisted and refused to do so, including the bishops of Rome, Jerusalem and Antioch, who were all put to death. Many others were imprisoned.
Quintianus became so obsessed with Agatha's denial of him, that he first sent her to a brothel to be raped and assaulted for a month, and then when she continued to deny him his wishes, he had her breasts cut off and tossed her in prison, where St. Peter appeared to her and healed her.
This is evil stuff.
There is a touch of irony in this, though. While we don't know the circumstances of Agatha's death, we do know it was in the year 251, just one year after the persecution started. And it was early in that year that the persecution ended.
A few months later, Decius died.
It is appalling what we can succumb to when we don't get our way. Both Decius and Quintianus are examples of that selfishness that leads to brutality that we all abhor.
Yet it continues, doesn't it?
How much of the persecution we see is not about opposing faiths but about something else, something personal and abhorrent?
So, today we remember Agatha, the patron saint of breast cancer patients. May none have to suffer for foolishness and may all who are afflicted be healed.
More to come...