Saint Agnes was favored with abundant mystical graces and the gift of working miracles. Even the infernal spirits were obliged to obey her.
Newsroom (21/04/2022 08:47, Gaudium Press) In the life of Agnes of Montepulciano, the call of God did not delay in making itself heard, to the point that several candles lit with divine flames appeared prodigiously in the room where she was born. They announced the great mission of this girl.
Vocation proven since childhood
Already at the age of four, Ines knew how to pray the Our Father and the Hail Mary, often preferring to abandon her childish games to converse with God in some secluded corner of the garden. Attracted by a voice that whispered deep in her heart, even before she was ten years old she felt the desire to embrace religious life.
Early on, however, the struggles and trials began: when she expressed these good wishes to her parents, they tried in every way to dissuade her.
It so happened that one day, while passing by a hill near the walls of Montepulciano, Agnes was violently attacked by a flock of demons who, taking the form of crows, cawed with fury and stabbed her on the head with their claws and beaks. There was a house of perdition there, which would later be torn down and replaced by a house of Christ’s wives founded by the Saint, and the infernal spirits seemed to foresee the harm this would bring them.
Her parents were greatly concerned by this unusual episode, after which the girl categorically presented God’s plans for her, informing them that similar events would happen if they continued to oppose the fulfillment of her vocation.
Fearful, they had no choice but to surrender to the designs from on high: they gave their daughter to the religious life, letting her enter the monastery of the “Sisters of the Sack”, so called because, out of humility, they wore a scapular made of this coarse cloth.
Fervent prayer and observance of the rule
An excellent executioner of the rule, always cheerful and without showing fatigue, the little nun fasted, prayed, and did penance, serving as an angelic example to her sisters of vocation, who marveled at such a high degree of fervor and virtue. Her earnestness and continuous progress toward perfection amazed even the most observant.
Having been blessed with countless mystical graces, her prayer life was one of continuous ecstasy. During her spiritual conversations, she often went into prolonged levitations.
In the places where she knelt to pray, roses and lilies would usually sprout, which exhaled a unique perfume of pleasant odor.
Taken by supernatural phenomena, she could not hide from her sisters the flames of love for God that burned in her heart.
Many times, when the religious entered the chapel, they found her submerged in raptures, her cloak covered with a kind of soft manna.
And on the day she took her vows and received the veil, in Proceno, the chapel was filled with this same manna from Heaven, which fell in the form of little crosses, as if symbolizing the Crucified One’s acceptance of the self-offering made by his tender wife.
Holding the Child Jesus in her arms
On another occasion, while he was praying in the monastery chapel, the Blessed Virgin appeared to him, carrying the Child Jesus in her arms. It was the feast of the Assumption and the Queen of Angels gave her her Son, allowing her to carry Him for a few moments.
Filled with joy and tenderness, Agnes begged the Divine Infant to remain at her side or to take her with him. However, it was not yet time to see her wish come true: it was not long before Our Lady took him in her arms once again…
Realizing that the Divine Infant was about to leave, Agnes deftly removed the little cross that He was wearing around His neck, and said to Him: “Since you are leaving, leave me at least a souvenir of this day!”
Our Lady smiled on seeing the pious theft and disappeared, leaving the Saint with her face on the ground and the little cross tightly clasped in her hand.
Young superior of the monastery of Proceno
At the age of fourteen, St. Agnes left her original convent for a new foundation in the city of Proceno, where she soon became known for her virtue, winning the admiration and trust of all.
Many of the people, delighted with her, wished her to be appointed prioress of the monastery in spite of her young age, and provided the necessary dispensations for this. Thus, even before she was fifteen years old, the young nun was given the task of looking after the other sisters.
Considering herself unworthy of the role she had received, Agnes redoubled her prayers and sacrifices: she began to feed herself only on bread and water, having the cold ground as her bed, and a stone as her pillow.
Persevering in prayer, she obtained everything she begged God for. On one occasion, desirous of having some relics of the Holy Places where Jesus had lived and shed His most precious Blood, a strong windstorm filled her hands with dust: an Angel had come to bring her clods of earth that had been sprinkled by the Blood of Jesus.
And as if this were not enough, immediately afterwards the Angel gave him a piece of the clay vessel in which the Blessed Virgin had bathed the Child God in his childhood.
Lover of the Eucharist, she was constantly attracted to Jesus present in the consecrated hosts, never missing a minute in which she could be in front of the tabernacle. And, many times, when there was no opportunity to receive communion by the hands of a priest, she had the Angels themselves as ministers.
Power to cast out demons
But more than for her spiritual benefit, her ardent prayers served to benefit the souls that approached her.
In a neighboring town to Proceno, there was a possessed man who was behaving in an increasingly alarming way. Since no local priest had been able to solve the case, the poor man’s relatives, already desperate and wanting to obtain a cure, decided to turn to the holy abbess, whose miracles were known in the area.
Realizing that it would be impossible to take the tormented man to her, they asked Agnes to accompany them to the unfortunate man. As soon as the servant of Christ entered the city, the proud and senseless demon, who earlier seemed to take no notice of any word that was said to him, began to violently roll the possessed man’s body from side to side.
As the holy religious woman stepped on the threshold of the door of the house, the demon’s cowardly and defeated whimper was heard, saying, “I cannot remain here, because the virgin Agnes has entered!”
With that, the troubled man found himself free of the spirit that had tortured him for so long.
A contemplative soul, with a solid interior life, Saint Agnes progressed each day in spiritual improvement, without ever allowing herself to be taken over by earthly concerns.
Neither the scarcity of money nor the lack of bread were an obstacle for the impetuous abbess. Faced with any material problem, she addressed her supplications to God, and they were effectively answered.
Countless times she multiplied the loaves of bread in order to feed the nuns of her monastery. And when there was no more wine in one of the family homes she visited, she turned the water into wine, just like Jesus did at the Wedding at Cana.
On the Montepulciano hill
After a vision in which it was clear that it was God’s will that a new religious house be founded on the hill of Montepulciano, where she had been attacked by crows, Agnes set out with some religious women to erect a monastery there under the rule of Saint Dominic.
Having obtained the necessary donations, she acquired the entire hilltop, on which, in addition to the convent, she built a church dedicated to Our Lady.
She was in prayer one Sunday, when an Angel handed her a chalice, with the following words, “Drink, spouse of Christ, this chalice that Our Lord drank also for you!”
After this apparition, the holy abbess fell gravely ill. The One who had once called her to a life of struggle, asking her at the age of nine to persevere in her good resolutions despite pressure from her parents to the contrary, now invited her to accompany Him to the heights of Calvary, joining Him in accepting further suffering.
At the request of her religious sisters, Agnes began to visit the spas in the city of Chianciano, in order to restore her health. As she stepped into the waters to bathe, the place was filled with the familiar and mysterious manna that fell from Heaven. A new spring also sprang up there, which, through the merits of the Saint, began to heal numerous sick people.
During her visits to these baths, she worked many miracles, including the resurrection of a drowned boy, simply by making the sign of the Cross over the corpse.
After so many healings and prodigies performed there through the intercession of the virtuous nun, the place received the name of Fountain of Saint Agnes.
Miracles even after death
When she returned to the monastery, her pains became even worse, and on April 20, 1317, when her course in this life was over, Saint Agnes departed for eternity.
Even before the news of her death was made public, at dawn, a lady with a very serious arm disease approached the monastery doors, asking to see the deceased abbess. She informed the sisters that at night she had had a vision, in which the Saint, full of light and surrounded by Angels, told her that if she touched her body she would be cured.
That inert corpse, marked by heroic holiness, continued to benefit souls, and achieved the healing of the afflicted lady.
Similar events took place for several days after his death. And from her corpse began to exhale a heavenly perfume that spread throughout the whole monastery, and a most odorous balsam flowed from it in abundance.
There, Saint Agnes has benefited countless souls with prodigious physical and spiritual cures, deserving to be acclaimed as the intercessor of the needy and the terror of infernal spirits.
Text extracted, with minor adaptations, from Heralds of the Gospel Magazine n. 208, April 2019.
