Agnus Dea

Gamelion, the month in the Greek lunar calendar that celebrates the sacred marriage of Zeus and Hera, commences at the Januaray new moon (last Friday).  It was a favoured time for weddings in old Athens, and in the modern world, brides who marry in the coming spring or summer are busy planning their big fat weddings now.

Tonight is the eve of St. Agnes, a time for dreaming true, and especially for love divinations to predict who your future mate will be, even though Agnes herself chose death over marriage.  Some ways by which to determine your future spouse are here, most of them I agree are way too strange! I did try the more innocuous apple peeling method when I was a teen and got the letter "R" -  but I did this on Halloween.  Apparently it predicted true, my husband's name is Robert.

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St Agnes was a Roman girl who lived in the fourth century. Like St.Lucy, St. Distaff and others, the story of her life may be based on nothing more than her name, which comes from the Greek word agnos ("chaste") and/or the Latin agnus (lamb), and she is usually represented with a Lamb and some lilies or hyssop, all symbols of being "pure as the driven snow".  This usually connotes chastity, but can also mean "virginal" in the sense of being pure of focus, "untouched" i.e. not influenced by anything that would degrade or sully your integrity.
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This is the start of lambing season in the Celtic countries, linking St. Agnes with Brighid (aka Bride), matron goddess / saint of Candlemas, aka Imbolc, a word referring to the lactation of ewes in providing milk for the young lambs.  The feast day of St. Agnes is thus interwoven into the many traditions of Candlemas, some of which will likely be presented here soon.
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In Rome, two lambs are brought to the altar of the church of Saint Agnes to be ceremoniously blessed on her feast day. The wool is then shorn and used in the weaving of the pope's pallium cloak for the year. John Keats in his poem, "The Eve of St. Agnes" [stanza 13] refers to the holy loom used by the "secret sisterhood" to weave St Agnes’ wool.
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To the Victorian artists and poets, this is a patron saint of all virgin brides and betrothed couples. The Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood were captivated by the works of Keats and also Tennyson, fascinated as they were by the theme of romantic love. Both poets wrote about St. Agnes eve, compared and contrasted in the Victorian Web, and they both use very similar images in their opening stanzas to create the romantic scene of a frozen winter's night.  John Everett Millais painted no less than three pictures illustrating the Eve of St. Agnes.  The one below is inspired by the poem by Tennyson, portraying a maiden (one of the secret sisterhood?) gazing longingly up into the winter sky:

Deep on the convent-roof the snows

Are sparkling to the moon:

My breath to heaven like vapour goes:

May my soul follow soon!...

Make Thou my spirit pure and clear

As are the frosty skies,

Or this first snowdrop of the year

That in my bosom lies.

As these white robes are soil'd and dark,

To yonder shining ground;

As this pale taper's earthly spark,

To yonder argent round...
Break up the heavens...

Thro' all yon starlight keen,

Draw me, thy bride, a glittering star,

In raiment white and clean...

For me the Heavenly Bridegroom waits...

excerpt: St. Agnes eve - Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)

image: St. Agnes Eve - John Everett Millais, from victorianweb.org

So even nuns are not immune to romantic dreaming.  Valentine's Day is coming...