Lessons in Holiness from Dominican Saints Agnes according to Saint Catherine
Today we commemorate one of our cloistered Dominican nuns – Saint Agnes of Montepulciano. She is one of those saints who can seem unreal because of all the miracles and mystical experiences that are often relayed when discussing or summarizing her life. Yet these things do not make a person a saint. Our dear Saint Catherine of Siena wrote in a letter to Saint Agnes’ monastic community that Saint Agnes’ chief virtue was humility. How is this?
Saint Agnes was favored from her birth with extraordinary graces. At the age of nine, after begging her parents persistently, was allowed to enter religious life with a most poor and austere community commonly known as the Sisters of the Sack, because of the rough and poor habits they wore. She applied herself diligently to growing in prayer and virtue and was recognized for her humility, obedience and prudence – so much so that before she had turned 14, a superior put her in charge of managing all the community’s temporal goods. Imagine having to manage the monastery property and secure the needs of a community of sisters at the age of 14! Yet she did it with charity and prudence, and all without lessening her prayer and penitential practices.
A neighboring town had heard of the sanctity of the community and asked the Sisters of the Sack to send one of the nuns to begin a new foundation in their town. The community decided to send Sister Margaret, who had been Sister Agnes’ novice mistress. Sister Margaret insisted that to take on such a task, she would need Sister Agnes to help her. Reluctantly the community agreed and sent the two sisters to begin a new foundation in Proceno. By the age of 15, Saint Agnes was made the superior of the community by the local bishop.
Yet God was not through using her administrative and management skills. Before she turned 40, He led her to become a Dominican nun and found a new monastery in her hometown, Montepulciano, on the site of a former brothel. This was a particular trial that included the hired builders taking shortcuts in the construction so that part of the monastery collapsed and the nuns had to raise more funds to have a proper building erected.
Not many of us are called to such a high level of service to others. Yet, Saint Catherine of Siena was encouraging all the nuns of Montepulciano to follow the example of their mother foundress, by following her humility and her other virtues. During her life, Saint Agnes recognized that her talents and skills were gifts from God and meant to be used for His glory and in loving service to others and she applied herself well to the service of her sisters, yet that was not her primary concern. Rather, as Saint Catherine highlights in her letter, Saint Agnes possessed “uncreated charity that continually burns and consumes the heart”; she had a “taste and hunger for souls” and “always applied herself to keeping vigil in prayer”. Saint Catherine points out that there is no other way to acquire humility except with charity and to arrive at perfect virtue as Saint Agnes did, we must practice “free and voluntary self-denial”, which makes us renounce ourselves and the goods of this world.
Saint Agnes’ treasure was not what her earthly father or this world could offer; she sought and possessed the treasure of her Divine Spouse, Jesus Christ. She accepted all He willed to share with her: His cross, disgrace, pain, mockery and reproaches, as well as voluntary poverty, a hunger for our Heavenly Father’s honor, and our salvation. Saint Catherine goes on to instruct the nuns, “possess this treasure with the force of your reason, moved by the fire of charity,” and you will arrive at true virtue.
Saint Agnes of Montepulciano, pray for us!