February 5. agatha of sicily, whose corpse's veil stilled rushing lava
experiment: |
Patron of breast cancer patients, martyrs, wet nurses, bell-founders, bakers, fire, earthquakes, and eruptions of Mount Etna.
231 to 251 Agatha came from a rich and noble family. At fifteen years old, having dedicated her virginity to God, she spurned the amorous advances of a low-born Roman prefect who felt he had rank enough to force her to acquiesce to him. When faced with impending tortures, Agatha addressed her savior: "Jesus Christ, Lord of all, you see my heart, you know my desires. Possess all that I am. I am your sheep: make me worthy to overcome the devil." The prefect sent Agatha to Aphrodesia, a subtly named brothel keeper (alternately, "an evil woman who practiced the seductive arts" and "kept a common stew."). There Agatha underwent a month of assault and humiliation, but God restored her virginity after every sexual encounter she was made to endure. Aphrodesia found Agatha intractable, and so she called on the prefect to imprison her. FAMOUSLY EXCISED OF BREASTS To the judge who ordered her most famous torture-scene, Agatha said: “Cruel man, have you forgotten your mother and the breast that nourished you, that you dare to mutilate me this way?” "If you threaten me with wild beasts, know that at the Name of Christ they grow tame; if you use fire, from heaven angels will drop healing dew on me." Here's how chroniclers describe what she went through: "She underwent the cutting off of her breasts with pincers." [ . . . ] "Her breasts were crushed and cut off." [ . . . ] "The prefect ordered her breasts to be tortured, and then cut off." [ . . . ] "She was despoiled of her breasts." [ . . . ] "[Her] breasts were lacerated." [ . . . ] "Her breasts were torn off with iron pincers." Agatha was next sentenced to death, but soon after they rolled her nude body onto glass shards and live coals, an earthquake intervened. Flouted, her tormentors sent her to prison where St. Peter the Apostle appeared to her and healed all her wounds. By one account, he even restored her severed breasts. Agatha died in the prison. Parts of her incorrupt body are still in existence today. STILLED ERUPTIONS A year after her death, devotees stilled an eruption at Mount Etna when they held her corpse's red veil toward the onrushing lava and flames. PLATED BREASTS Agatha is often depicted carrying her breasts on a platter. The blessing of the bread that occurs on her feast may have come from the mistaken notion that she was carrying loaves rather than flesh hunks. Some pastry shops honor Agatha with small spongy marzipan-filled cakes topped with red cherry "nipples." |