Saint Agatha, Virgin & Martyr

Friends in Christ,

When Agatha, a young Christian maiden of Catana in Sicily, refused to marry Quintianus, a pagan noble, she was torured and mutilated. Her wounds were healed in prison by Saint Peter, but after fresh torture she died for faith under the emperor Decius. By her intercession Catana was saved from a torrent of lava during an eruption of Mount Etna. Devotion to her is widespread in Italy, and her name occurs in the Canon of the Mass.

Saint Agatha is indeed an illustration of God's choice of the weak ones of this world to confound the powerful and mighty enemies of the Faith.
If you take the opportunity to read through Blessed Saint Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians 1:26-31 you will understand this illustration a lot better.

We are challenged by Blessed Saint Paul to consider the circumstances of our own calling, pointing out that not many of us are wise, not many of us are powerful or well born in the world's fashion. So, we as Catholic Christians often are looked upon by the world as being very foolish. My former Parish Priest from Melbourne, a strong defender of the Traditional Catholic Faith was often seen by the powerful and liberal leaders of the Anglican Church as a pious fool. And yet.. the pious fools are called by God to abash the high and the mighty of this world. The same goes for our Church , the Church of God, the Traditional Anglican Communion, in the eyes of the world we do not appear to be strong or we are oftten called, again by those in the world, as a small group of Orthodox trouble makers, and yet as Blessed Saint Paul says " God has chosen what the world holds weak , so as to abash the strong.

So.. this little Chapter about Saint Agatha might help us all to look at our circumstances, which might seem to shaky and bad at this point in time, but we shall overcome. We take our origin from Jesus Christ, given to us by God, the Father and this Jesus is our wisdom, our justification, our sanctification, our atonement, so yes... the Scriptures will be fullfilled.

Amen.

Ed Bakker

Postulant TAC - New Zealand