Vatican: presentation of lambs for Feast of St Agnes

On Saturday morning, in the Urban VIII Chapel of the Vatican Apostolic Palace Pope Benedict was presented with two lambs, adorned with flowers, which had earlier been blessed for the feast of St Agnes.

The blessing took place in the basilica on Rome's Via Nomentana, which bears the saint's name and is where she is buried. The wool of the lambs is used to make the palliums bestowed on new metropolitan archbishops on 29 June, the Solemnity of Sts Peter and Paul, Apostles.

The pallium is a white woollen band embroidered with six black crosses which is worn by the Pope and by metropolitan archbishops.

The lambs, the symbol of St Agnes who was martyred in Rome around the year 305, are raised by the Trappist Fathers of the Abbey of the Three Fountains in Rome and the palliums are made from the newly-shorn wool by the sisters of St Cecilia.

Source: VIS/Vatican Radio