Vatican City, 21 January 2014 (VIS) –
Today, on the liturgical memory of St. Agnes, the lambs which had
been blessed in the basilica where the saint is entombed on the Via
Nomentana in Rome were presented to the Pope. The wool of these lambs
is used to weave the pallia for the new metropolitan archbishops.
The pallium – a white stole adorned
with six black crosses – is a liturgical vestment worn by the Pope
and the metropolitan archbishops in their Churches and in those of
their Provinces. The pallia are stored in a casket near the Confessio
Petri and the pontiff bestows them upon the new archbishops on the
Solemnity of the Saints Peter and Paul, as a sign of union with the
Apostolic See.
The nuns of the Roman convent of San
Lorenzo in Panisperna raise the lambs who are offered to the Holy
Father by the Canons Regular of the Lateran on the feast day of St.
Agnes, martyred in the year 305 and depicted with a lamb according to
the traditional iconography.
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