If you’re in Rome on 21 January, there’s really only one place to be. It’s the feast of St Agnes, and this year, as every year, there is the blessing of the lambs at her church, St Agnes Outside the Walls, at 10.30 am. My daughter is an Agnes, so a couple of years ago, when the feast fell on a Sunday, I took her to the church to celebrate her saint. My friend lived nearby and came with us.
It’s a parish church in what is now a Roman suburb, and the place was packed, standing room only for us. At the front, children were sitting cross-legged on mats in front of the altar. But before the Mass started, the focus of attention was at the back of the church, where two dear little lambs were each tucked up in a box under a white satin coverlet with the initials S.A.V. (Saint Agnes, Virgin) and surrounded by roses, white for one, red for the other, with satin-covered handles. Naturally, everyone congregated to admire them, especially the children. Only their faces peeped out. There was the occasional faint bleat, but on the whole the creatures were wonderfully quiet, so quiet indeed that we suspected they had been slipped something to make sure they behaved.
