Friday Focus January 23, 2026
Agnes and the Faith of Children
Christina (Tina) McKinlay
January 23, 2026
St. Agnes
Friday Focus 2026
Agnes and the Faith of Children
This past Wednesday, Jan. 21st, we celebrated the life and witness of St. Agnes, who was martyred at Rome around the year 304.
She is said to have been only twelve years old when she suffered for her confession of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The traditional accounts of her martyrdom agree that she was arrested and brought before a pagan judge, and when he tried to coax her into renouncing the Christian faith, she answered him with an assurance that was far above her years. Her boldness infuriated the judge, and he sentenced her to death — some accounts say by being burned at the stake, others say by beheading.
What truly matters to the Church is not the manner of her death, but the maturity of faith displayed in so young a child.
Some eighty years after her death Ambrose of Milan wrote: “Everyone marveled that Agnes was so spendthrift with her life, which she had hardly tasted, but was now giving up as though she had finished with it. All were astounded that she should come forward as a witness to God when she was still too young to be her own mistress. So, she succeeded in convincing others of her testimony about God, though her testimony in human affairs could not yet be accepted. The onlookers believed that she had received from God what could not come from humans; for what is beyond the power of nature must come from its Creator.”
Jesus had a lot to say about what we can learn from children.
He welcomed them with open arms and taught that the kingdom of God belongs to those who are like them. “Truly I tell you,” Jesus asserts in the Gospel of Matthew, “unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”
Jesus calls upon his adult followers to exhibit the same type of trust in him that children show towards a loving parent. Such trust, he insists, is essential for a genuine relationship with God. Too often, however, we lose such simple trust as we age and become subject to cynicism, practicality, and realism. In the process, we lose the unconditional love and sense of awe and wonder so easily displayed by children.
Jesus often held children up as examples for adults, reminding us that the openness of children can inspire a deeper faith. Sadly, as adults, we often fail to recognize that children possess a depth of wisdom, strength, and resilience that often exceeds our own. Agnes is a witness to such faith.
May we, like Jesus, welcome children and what they have to teach us about faith.
Norman+