Dr. Regis Martin, professor of Theology at Franciscan University and author for Crisis Magazine, writes on the ardor of agnes.
I have known only two women named Agnes in my life. One of them was my grandmother who, having died two years after I was born, I could hardly be expected to remember. But since I was often told things about her—for instance, that she was beautiful and pious and went to Mass every morning—I feel as if I should know her. She raised five sons, by the way, one of them my late father, and with the exception of her oldest son whose plane crashed on a bombing mission over the Balkans, all the others survived their time in World War II and then in Korea. I like to think she managed to get a few things right. And, by all accounts, most of them kept the faith
