Solemnity of Saint Agnes

Song of Solomon, 2:10-13
2 Corinthians, 10:17-11:2
Matthew, 25:1-13

O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world.

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Our patron saint, S. Agnes, is the second from the left on the mural over the high altar. Under her feet is her symbol, a lamb, the agnus, because agnus sounds like Agnes. Agnes is one of the great virgin martyrs of the Church. On account of her resolute loyalty and faith in Jesus, the Roman authorities murdered her in about 304, during the reign of Diocletian, the last of the Roman emperors to lead a serious persecution of Christians. There are numerous traditions about the events related to her death. Out of them we can cobble together something of her story.

At age twelve, Agnes had astonishing beauty and significant wealth. Despite her extreme youth, at least for us, she was a catch. Many Roman youths sought her, but she'd have nothing to do with them. She considered herself ‘the bride of Christ,' sort of a proto-nun; as such, she was an inspiration for nuns when orders and monasteries were formed centuries later. The rejected young men reported Agnes' devotion to Christ to the Roman authorities, who tried to break her will by torture and prison. They even sent her to a brothel. When a young man tried to molest her, he was struck down as if by lightning and became blind – no doubt to his soul's health. A Roman judge then ordered Agnes to be put to death. Agnes joyfully went to her death as the executioner slit her throat. It's hard to know how much of that story we can believe, but we can be sure that her zeal, her witness, her faithfulness to Christ made a great impression upon the Church, and most likely upon the unchurched as well.

Her remains were buried in her family's cemetery a short distance outside the walls of Rome. Initially, a chapel was built over the site, and within a century a large basilica was built there. On her feast day every year, two young lambs are blessed in this basilica. The lambs are sheared on Maundy Thursday. The wool is then used to make about twelve pallia. The pallium is a vestment, a narrow circular band of white wool embroidered with six small crosses. Looking again at the mural over the high altar, on the far left is S. Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury. He's standing next to Agnes. He's wearing a pallium. Under his feet is the shield of the Archbishop of Canterbury, which has a pallium on it.

Every year the Pope sends these pallia to his archbishops to remind them of their call to be Good Shepherds. The pallium also signifies their authority, derived from the Holy See. The Roman Church, of course, no longer recognizes the validity or the authority of Canterbury. The Archbishop of Canterbury no longer receives the pallium. He no longer has the privilege of wearing one. So there's more than a touch of irony that the supreme Anglican See, the point of unity for all Anglicans, has a pallium on its shield.

The original intention of the founders of our city intended the city to grow toward the southeast from Capitol Hill, toward the Anacostia River. That's why the front of the Capitol faces east. But the planners foiled their plan by locating the White House to the west of the capitol, toward the older settlement of Georgetown. In the early 19th century, social life became focused on the White House, and the city mostly grew up between the Hill and the White House. In 1826, the residents living at the bottom of the Hill built a church on 5th St, just steps from the present Courthouse.

Trinity Parish grew quickly, and within a generation needed a new church. To assist in this effort, William Corcoran, who would be vital in building our church, gave some land at C and 3rd Streets, where the horrendous Department of Labor building now stands. Trinity Parish engaged James Renwick, architect of the Smithsonian Institution building as well as S. Patrick's Cathedral in New York and further downtown from there Grace Church, Broadway.

Like most Episcopal churches in Washington, Trinity was a staunchly evangelical parish, proud of being Protestant. At a Sunday service during Trinity's heyday, you could bump into John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, John Calhoun, Jefferson Davis. In his history of S. Agnes Parish, Nelson Burr writes: "Like some of these men, many of the congregation [of Trinity] were not Episcopalians, but went to the fashionable Sunday morning club." By the early 20th century, Trinity Parish was in decline. The final celebration of the holy communion was in 1936, and the Diocese sold the property in 1947. In that architecturally sensitive and enlightened age, the church was destroyed soon thereafter.

However, in her old age, the parish had given life to another parish – S. Agnes. In 1901, a group of Trinity parishioners began working to establish a mission in the neighborhood several blocks north of old Trinity Church. In 1903, this group of laity established a chapel in a small, rented building at the corner of New York Avenue and Fourth Street – today a horrendous intersection, where 395 emerges from underneath the Mall and turns right onto New York Avenue. A congregation gradually emerged with strong lay leaders, one of whom, Clarence Whitmore, went to seminary and then was ordained in 1909. He became the first vicar of the S. Agnes mission. Under his leadership, the mission bought property on Q St., at North Capitol, and – at huge financial risk – built a small church in 1913. The building is still there at 46 Q St., NW; although with that faux stone cladding so popular in the ‘60s, it's not quite its former glory.

In its early days, S. Agnes continued in the evangelical tradition. But after Whitmore returned from the high-church General Theological Seminary in New York, he and his successor, Fr Weedon, who came in 1915, emphasized catholic faith and practice. S. Agnes was becoming what we enjoy here every day. Burr writes that these priests "brought not peace but a sword. In short there was an explosion, and many went to other parishes." When Fr. Whitmore introduced wafers at communion, one parishioner complained, calling it ‘fish food.' Burr says that some got thoroughly mad and left the parish, but the congregation became more healthy and continued to grow.

Somewhat surprisingly, relations between S. Agnes and Trinity remained cordial. Burr explains: "wayward children have a strange knack of finding a warm spot in mother's heart." Parishioners from Trinity and one or two significant ones from S. Paul's gave critical support to the parish. Indeed, Trinity parish, even when its own finances were quite tight, came up with significant funds for S. Agnes in the ‘10s.

In 1923, S. Agnes achieved parish status and called a new rector, Fr Anderson. We have much to be grateful for in his fourteen years of service. For what we are today is something Fr. Anderson strived to institutionalize: a parish where the continuous offering of the mass is our primary glory. Although Trinity was fashionable in its day, S. Agnes was never a fashionable parish. S. Agnes was, and is, constituted of average people, deeply committed to Jesus, as evident by their sacrifice and prayer. In his 1948 history of S. Agnes, Burr writes:

The people worshipped and prayed like a family, and they still do. This is a fine thing in a city like Washington, where so many single people are lost in the nervous throngs. Fr Anderson wanted everyone to feel at home. . .. The result was a spirit of working together. . . The parish [became] a center of Catholic devotion, which has never degenerated into fussy precisianism.

That's what we intend to be today; and that's what we will continue to be. That's our mission. And by the way ‘precisianism' is a real word. A precisian, that is with ending an ‘a – n', refers to someone who's precise and strict in observing rules and customs, and specifically refers to a 17th century English Puritan. That is precisely what we try to avoid here. We want to respect and to be sensitive to the rules and customs of the Church and her tradition, but we don't want to make devotion to rules and customs more important than trusting God, being merciful, and loving one another as Jesus loves us.

Fr. Anderson died in 1937. His death deeply saddened the parish. But of course the parish bounced back and called Fr duBois to be the rector. By this time the parish was no longer much of a neighborhood parish. Like today, people traveled great distances to come to worship. The parish remained strong during Fr duBois' time, even during the war when Fr duBois went off for four years to serve as a chaplain. During his absence, a couple priests of the Society of St. John the Evangelist ministered to the congregation. The Society of St. John the Evangelist was established in 1866 in Cowley, a neighborhood of Oxford. The old monastery of these Cowley Fathers, or as they are more casually known - the Cowley Dads, is now a seminary, and I'm honored to have prayed and studied for three years there, and this parish continues to provide some support to it.

When Fr duBois returned to the parish at the end of the war, things were going well. So well, that the parish needed to expand its building or find a new church. By 1947, few people attended Ascension Parish, and the Diocese was looking to sell this building. To his enduring credit, and our gratitude, Fr. duBois was able to arrange a union of the two parishes in 1948. The Bishop of Washington, Bishop Dun, warned the low church Ascension parishioners that S. Agnes was the ‘most advanced' parish in the Diocese, but they accepted the S. Agnes people and their customs. One Ascension parishioner is quoted saying: "We would have like to have known about this spiritual heritage long ago."

What we do here every Sunday, indeed what we do here every day, is based upon a tradition of faith that stretches across time and space: from S. Agnes, to Frs. Whitmore, Weedon, Anderson, and duBois, to thousands of parishioners. We, like they, are witnesses to the power of Christ to transform lives, to give us strength and courage in times of need. And we have the obligation and the honour of not just continuing that witness. We have to expand our witness beyond the walls of this wonderful building so that in another hundred years the parish will still continue its participation in Christ's work to take away the sins of the world.

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.