Sometimes things just strike you a certain way...

I have, for someone of the misedumacation generation of Catholics a greater than ordinary familiarity with the lives of the saints, we had favorite picture books, a love of fine art of the Old-&-Established variety, (not so much those hooligan Moderns, but then, they don't add much to the treasures of hagiography, do they? But I digress...)
So the story of St Agnes is not exactly news to me.... so why did it move me to tears?
Is it something about the horrible vulnerability of so many girls I know, so many children, even the young adults in my own family? The way that vulnerability seems to be growing, the world is looking more dangerous, and worse, the Ways of the World every more threatening, in more significant ways, emotionally, spiritually?
Or is it just because I saw my portrait etched with such lapidarian skill at Universalis?
(Yes, of course I would die for my faith in principle, but wouldn’t I be able do more good in the long run if I stayed alive just now.... )
I was .... having a moment at the rectory after the funeral this morning.
Yes, I put in "too much time." But I could put in more.
Yes, my current compensation, or rather the threats to it are manifestly unfair.
But I am neither hungry nor in danger of losing the roof over my head, so why shouldn't I do, not only not with more, but with less?
O dear, I had to listen to and accompany a piece of cheese, (well, chose to, in deference to the sensibilities of those women who do such a service. Why shouldn't they get the object of their misguided musical affections once in a while?)
On the scale of martyrdom, it doesn't even register, does it? (Cheez at Mass is in a different category, that is an affront not to my sensibilities or to the gods of art, but to liturgical propriety and to the God of All.)
Mike Aquilina has a good thought on the spread of the Faith -- a skinny little girl may have been a sight mightier than all Constantine's legions....

it was the public torture of this lovely, innocent little girl, from a noble family, that turned the tide of public opinion in favor of the Christians. In that act, pagan Rome saw itself clearly and didn’t like what it saw. It was the tipping point. (There’s no way to prove such an hypothesis, of course. But if you’d like to step outside…)
http://www.fathersofthechurch.com/2008/01/21/st-agnes/