Feast Day: February 5th
The Life of Saint Agatha: Agatha answered, “I confess Christ with my lips, and I never cease to call upon Him in my heart.”…
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Prayers
Kontakion: Let the Church be arrayed today in glorious purple dyed with the chaste blood of the Martyr Agatha, and let us cry: Rejoice, thou boast of Catania.
Troparion: Thou wast a fragrant flower of virginity and an undefiled bride of the Lifegiver; thou didst desire the Source of all good and excel in Martyrdom. O glorious Agatha, intercede by thy Holy Prayers for those who lovingly honour thy contest.
The 15 year old Saint Agatha said that she is the bride of Christ and cannot be unfaithful to her Betrothed.
When she was again brought to the tribunal, Quintinian said, “Since you are of noble birth, why are you behaving like a slave?” “Because I am a slave of Christ,” she replied, “and slaves of Christ are really the most free of all creation because they acquired self-mastery by His Grace.”
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“These tortures are very beneficial for me; just as wheat cannot arrive at the granary before it is cleansed from the chaff, so my Soul cannot enter into Paradise if my body, beforehand, is not humbled by tortures.”
“I confess Christ with my lips, and I never cease to call upon Him in my heart.”
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Then the old man, smiling, said: “And He it was Himself that sends me to you: for I am His Apostle; know that in His Name you will be made whole.”
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“Jesus Christ, Lord of all things! You see my heart, you know my desires. Possess all that I am – You alone. I am your sheep; make me worthy to overcome the devil.”
At her burial, an Angel placed a stone tablet on her grave inscribed with the words, “A righteous mind, self-determining, honour from God, the deliverance of her fatherland.
Elder Joseph of Vatopedi, in a sermon about Saint Agatha, comments on the meaning of such an honour from God: But how could this little girl win such honoured glory? Do you know what it means, for God to feel to confess His pleasure with the work of a Soul? Think over how much perfection she reached to receive this seal from the Providence of God. If one assesses this, she achieved the so-called gift of Salvation. Man of course must show his accord and his intention. However, he moves towards God solely out of love and neither fears nor is forced “neither from sorrow nor from need”, because the issue of need is a parasite following the Fall. Man, as lord and as an image and likeness of God, must never be relegated to any condition of need, because need reveals cowardice, weakness, imperfection, fear, uncertainty, etc. Let us flee therefore completely from the law of need, it is weak. On the subject of our intent however, because of the choice that we make we can go beyond this, with respect to our offering and sacrifice to God. Our attitude towards God, shouldn’t be from need, neither from fear, neither from self-interest. Quite simply we believe in our Christ, it is worth it; we follow Him, because He deserves it; we Worship Him, because he is the center of all Worship, Honour and Glory. Not to take Him “as our own”. What are “His own”? For He sacrificed himself for us. In these however, the only thing that we know is that His All-Goodness will grant us “Himself and of His own”, we move always from love. Thus thought and worked this small girl, this very Great Martyr, who is the glory of our Church, and who won the Divine pleasure.
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