Saint Agnes of Bohemia

Agnes was born in Prague in 1211, the daughter of Ottokar I, king of Bohemia, and Constance of Hungary. Hers was a family where holiness already ran in the house: she was related to Ludmila and Wenceslas, who were her ancestors, to Hedwig, to Elizabeth of Hungary, who was her first cousin, and to Margaret. She was raised by none other than Saint Hedwig, in the Cistercian monastery of Trzebnica, and then moved to the one at Doksany. At eight she was promised in marriage to Henry, son and heir of the emperor Frederick II of Swabia, and sent to the court in Vienna to learn how to be a sovereign. Then came the message of Francis of Assisi, and everything changed direction. With the support of Pope Gregory IX she broke off the engagement — which, with that particular fiancé, was no small whim — and withdrew to Prague. What she did next can still be seen. In 1232 she founded the region’s first friary of Friars Minor, and next to it a hospital for the poor; to run it she created a lay confraternity, the Knights of the Cross, which the pope raised to a religious order in 1237. In 1234 she founded a monastery of Poor Clares on the banks of the Vltava, and Clare of Assisi herself sent her five of her nuns. Agnes entered it on June 11 of that same year, became its abbess and remained so until the end. She died in Prague on March 2, 1282. Popular devotion began immediately, but canonization came only in 1989, with John Paul II. If your name is Agnes, today is your name day — even though many wait for January 21, which belongs to the other Agnes, the Roman martyr.