April 20th - Saint of the Day: Saint Agnes of Montepulciano, Dominican Abbess & Mystic
A teenage abbess. A mystic. A miracle worker. A Dominican saint whose body was said to remain incorrupt. Saint Agnes of Montepulciano is one of those saints that sounds almost unreal until you realize the Church has been honoring her for centuries. She entered religious life as a child, led a convent while still incredibly young, founded a monastery, and became known for deep Eucharistic devotion, mystical visions, miraculous healings, and astonishing holiness. One of the wildest stories tied to her life is that she raised a drowned child back to life through her prayers. Another is that after her death, pilgrims flocked to her tomb because of miracles and the sweet fragrance said to surround her relics. Even Saint Catherine of Siena loved her deeply. Saint Agnes reminds the Church that holiness does not need a spotlight. Hidden prayer, real humility, and total surrender to Jesus can shake the world harder than fame ever could. Want the full story of Saint Agnes of Montepulciano, her miracles, her legacy, and why Catholics still honor her today? Go to HolyManna.blog to learn more about this saint and so much more.
20 April
Profile
Born wealthy. A pious child, at age six she began nagging her parents to join a convent. She was admitted to the convent at Montepulciano, Italy at age nine. When her spiritual director was appointed abbess at Procena, she took Agnes with her. Agnes’s reputation for holiness attracted other sisters. Abbess at age fifteen after receiving special permission from Pope Nicholas IV. Agnes insisted on greater austerities in the abbey; she lived off bread and water, slept on the ground, used a stone for a pillow. In 1298 she returned to Montepulciano to work in a new Dominican convent. Prioress of the house the last seventeen years of her life. Pilgrim to Rome, Italy.
Many stories grew up around Agnes, including
Her birth was announced by flying lights surrounding her family’s house.
As a child, while walking through a field, she was attacked by a large murder of crows; she announced that they were devils, trying to keep her away from the land; years later, it was the site of her convent.
She was known to levitate up to two feet in the air while praying.
She received Communion from an angel, and had visions of the Virgin Mary.
She held the infant Jesus in one of these visions; when she woke from her trance she found she was holding the small gold crucifix the Christ child had worn.
On the day she was chosen abbess as a teenager, small white crosses showered softly onto her and the congregation.
She could feed the convent with a handful of bread, once she’d prayed over it.
Where she knelt to pray, violets, lilies and roses would suddenly bloom.
While being treated for her terminal illness, she brought a drowned child back from the dead.
At the site of her treatment, a spring welled up that did not help her health, but healed many other people.
Born
1268 at Gracchiano-Vecchio, Tuscany, Italy
Died
20 April 1317 at the convent of Montepulciano, Italy of natural causes following a lengthy illness
legend says that at the moment of her death, all the babies in the region, no matter how young, began to speak of Agnes, her piety, and her passing
miracles reported at her tomb
body incorrupt
relics translated to the Dominican church at Orvieto, Italy in 1435
Beatified
1534
Canonized
10 December 1726 by Pope Benedict XIII
Patronage
Montepulciano, Italy
Representation
Dominican nun gazing at the Cross with a lily at her feet
Dominican nun holding a model of Montepulciano, Italy
Dominican nun holding the Christ child
Dominican nun with Saint Catherine of Siena
Dominican nun with the Virgin and Child appearing to her
Dominican abbess with a lamb, lily, and book
Dominican with the sick who were healed at her tomb