Saint Agatha: Pious and Virginal Mind – Fr. Pimen Vlad

What distinguishes Saint Agatha? What was her life like? Listen to Father Pimen Vlad who tells us the life of the saint and highlights the saint’s most poignant charisms.

Enjoy!

We meet again, my dear ones. I want to talk to you now about the life of a martyr from long ago, perhaps

She is from somewhere in the area of Panorm, in Catana. She was a young woman from a noble family. She had good, wealthy parents, but she was raised with fear and love of God, raised well, with much love by her parents. Growing with age, she wanted very much to remain a maiden all her life, not to marry. It is said that she was of great beauty. It was during the reign of Emperor Decius, who persecuted Christians.

In that area there was called a prince named Chintian, who of course persecuted Christians. This prince, in time, heard that there was a maiden there, of unspeakable beauty, more beautiful than all in the area, and took an interest in her, because, as a prince, he had dominion over the whole area. Living in fun, he was looking for beautiful women. Among other things, he was told she was a Christian, and then that was the easiest reason to acquire someone.

Being a Christian, the prince had every right from the emperor over her and her body. He could do whatever he wanted. Whoever disobeyed was also stripped of his wealth. And so he sent soldiers to bring him that maiden. When the soldiers arrived at her home, they informed the servants of the house that they had come with gifts from the prince. Then she realized [what was going on] and went into the church and prayed and asked for God’s help for what was to come. After that, of course, she left with the soldiers.

Her relatives and acquaintances went with her on the road up to a point. At one point, when she had to bend down to tie her shoes, she looked back and saw that no one she knew was with her anymore. Then she prayed to God to perform a miracle that would strengthen her faith, as she was abandoned by acquaintances.

And at that moment, on that stony place, a large, wild, fruitless olive tree sprang up, looking like the hearts of those who abandoned it. Her acquaintances didn’t dare go further, knowing that if she ended up being tortured, so would they. And she was taken to the prince, who tried in every way to please her, praising her beauty.

Finally, he ordered her to be taken to the house of a rich woman who worshipped the gods and had 5 daughters living in freedom. And he commanded the woman to do what she knew so that Agatha would start having fun, drinking, doing everything, somehow turning her away from God. If she had fallen into sin, the prince could have had her for himself.

The women tried to have parties, parties in the house, they tried in every way, but to no success as she prayed and went about her business. Seeing this, the rich woman went to the prince and told him that one could turn stones more easily than turn her around, because she kept holding on to her Christ.

Then the prince brought her to the palace and began to threaten her. Why do you refuse to worship gods? What lineage are you from?

“I am of noble and wealthy blood!”

“Then why do you walk around with these poor, old clothes?”

“Because I’m a subject!”

“What do you mean?”

“I am the servant of Christ and I serve Him and I do not need wealth!”

Seeing that there was no way to persuade her, he ordered her to be tortured. They stripped her naked and tied her to a wood to shame her and beat her. While being beaten, she prayed. The prince realizing he did not solve anything this way, he ordered her breasts to be cut off.

Seeing this, she said: “[You are] Merciless and hardened, do you not think that you too have been fed at your mother’s breast? Is that how you mock the female nature?” Then he got angrier and ordered her to be put in a dark prison. There Apostle Peter appeared to her, with the face of an old doctor, and said to her:

“Look, I’ve come to heal you!”

“I can’t get this, even if I knew you would heal me, I couldn’t let you touch me because I haven’t been touched by a man’s hand before. How can you heal me? I’d rather bear the pains, bear the torments than let you touch me!”

And then, seeing the girl’s faith, he smiled and said:

“I am the Holy Apostle Peter and I was sent by God to heal you!” At that moment he made himself invisible, and when she searched for her body, she saw that she was completely healed. Thus, she remained in prison glorifying God for several days.

After a while, the prince found out that she was not dead and asked for her to be brought to him. When he examined her, he saw that she was whole and bright.

“Who healed you?

“My Christ!”

“Worship the gods and I promise you anything you want!”

“Let your wife be like Aphrodite and you like Zeus, that is, those in whom you believe.”

Then he ordered that she be hit across the face [and said] “How do you talk like that to your prince?”

“But what, are you ashamed of your gods? When I told you to be like them, I said it to honor you. Then it means you’re aware that those are just boulders and you don’t want to be like them!”

Then the prince ordered his men to prepare a place with shards of glass, a kind of bed that would also have sharp nails reddened in the fire and burning coals. The moment they put her on that spot, an earthquake started that split the ground. The prince had two close friends, one of whom was his lover. The prince’s lover was swallowed first by the earth, and then the other. Have you seen that?

His boyfriend! He, as a man, lived with another man. Because of the earthquake, fire came out of the mountain like from a volcano. And it was coming towards them, downhill, so they all got scared and ran away. The prince then ordered her to be put back in prison.

There she prayed, “Lord, receive my spirit!” But before that she said a beautiful prayer that I wrote down:

“Thank You, Lord, for enabling me to suffer for Your holy name, and for taking from me the longing for temporal life, You have given me patience. So sharpen me, O Lord, at this hour, deign that I may leave this world and pass to Your rich and great mercy.”

Praying like this, she gave her soul into God’s hands. Do you see? She prayed and God received her spirit. It is said that, with everyone else fleeing, Christians came and took her body.

At that moment, a bright young man appeared, accompanied by a hundred other young men, and they all accompanied the body of the saint to where she was buried. And when they put the body in the grave, this young man placed a stone on at her head and it that read, “Pious mind, glory to God and to the homeland deliverance.” After the funeral, that beautiful young man and his hundred beautiful and bright companions made themselves invisible. They were God’s angels that had accompanied her. Yes, my dears, have you seen what life she had? But let’s see what happened to the prince!

After the earthquake, he thought of going and taking her wealth because he had this right, this being the emperor’s order, to have the wealth taken away from Christians. Knowing that Saint Agatha was rich, of good family, he wanted to go and plunder all her wealth, and he headed there with his squadron. On the way he had to cross a larger river. They made a boat and also put horses on it. When they reached the middle of the river, the horses went wild and began to bite them. The prince’s horse bit him on the head, on the ears, until it shattered his whole face, then threw him into the water, and he drowned. And of the others who were still on the side, some drowned, and those who escaped did not dare to approach the family of the holy martyr to take her fortune.

It is said that once there was another volcano, also God’s punishment. The fire was coming downhill towards the city, and then everyone ran, both Christians and non-Christians, to the church of Saint Agatha, which had meanwhile been made near her tomb. From there they took the saint’s robe, which still had her blood on it, and placed it on the mountain. At that moment the fire stopped and was extinguished as if ashamed of the saint’s robe. So the saint protected the city.

Do you see how saints receive gifts from God? For their lives, for their patience in martyrdom, for fighting for Christ, for confessing Christ, and for holding on to Christ, for remaining anchored to the end in Christ. Because of this, we could say that Saint Agatha, besides being the protector of young people who want to remain in purity, girls, young maidens with a pure life, nuns living in the monastery, is also a deliverer from fire. You have seen, when God’s punishment came, when the fire came, her garment being brought out in front, she stopped the fire!

And one more thing! We have a rather large piece of her relics, of Saint Agatha. This is how the saint ordained about three years ago, to come to someone who had a beautiful reliquary with a part of her relics, brought from Jerusalem itself. Seeing that I liked it, the person gave it to me. We brought it and now we have it here on the Holy Mountain. So the saint blessed us and came here, in our little church, and so we have her among us.

Pray to Saint Agatha, she helps a lot! All young people, maidens, pray so that she may help you! And she protects people from fire too! May the good God, the Mother of God and all the saints help us! May God help us!

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