I had Saint Agnes, Virgin and Martyr, on my mind this morning.\u00a0 It was her feast day, after all, and she is one of the earliest known women martyrs of the city of Rome (evidence of her martyrdom goes back to the mid-fourth century). She is also one of the seven women whose names are lifted up in the Roman Canon.<\/p>\n
Yet when I glanced through the pages of my newspaper this morning, another feminine figure superimposed itself over Saint Agnes: another \u201cinspiring symbol of faith,\u201d if the ad for this \u201cstunning limited edition angel figurine\u201d is to be believed. The picture of this angel together with the description provided in the ad evoked an angelic version of a deluxe Barbie: \u201ctiny waist,\u201d \u201cfluid elegance,\u201d lovely features,\u201d and \u201cluxurious satin\u201d described the unbelievably tall, slender figure in a flowing, white, sleeveless-dress and a posture that accentuated (without over-accentuating!) her breasts. My gender-attentive interests\u00a0were arrested by this ad. I was just about ready to add the ad to my vast collection of \u201cimages of femininity used to advertize specific commodities,\u201d in this case, angel figurines. {Angels, after all, are en vogue in our culture of diffuse spiritualities which has difficulties with anything religious that is too concrete and specific}.<\/p>\n
Before I added this \u201cgorgeous angel\u201d \u2013 \u201cWe expect demand to be strong. Reply today!\u201d — to my collection, however, it struck me that the narrative that developed around the early Roman martyr Saint Agnes was maybe not that different from the one attached to the angel figurine. Agnes\u2019s story too became embellished with particular images of femininity: especially beauty, virginity and purity, to name but the most prominent. I began to wonder: why is it so difficult simply to stay with the basics? In the case of Saint Agnes: a young Roman girl who, during a period of persecution in the late second or early third century, chose death rather than a life bought at the price of denying her faith? Whether she was gorgeous or not, whether she was saved by an angel (with a tiny waist?!) when put into a brothel or not, and whether she died being executed like a lamb or not, doesn\u2019t really matter that much, at least not to me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I had Saint Agnes, Virgin and Martyr, on my mind this morning. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[362],"tags":[1803,1801,1802],"class_list":["post-13094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-saints-mary","tag-angels","tag-contemporary-culture","tag-st-agnes"],"yoast_head":"\n