Put on This Planet

Understanding the importance of the age of twelve

01/21/2025

Matthew 13:44-46 Jesus said to his disciples: "The Kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field, which a person finds and hides again, and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the Kingdom of heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls. When he finds a pearl of great price, he goes and sells all that he has and buys it."

The prevailing wisdom of the day says that someone does not know their vocation – what they should do with their life – until they turn at least 30 years old. And that wisdom seems to be borne out by experience: people frequently switch majors in college, they change jobs multiple times for their occupation, and some even divorce and remarry by the time they are 30 or so. In other words, it takes people almost half their life to figure out why they were put on this planet.

But that was not the more traditional wisdom of the ages. St. Francis de Sales argued that a boy or girl knows by the age of 12 what their vocation – their God-given purpose for which he created them – is all about. St. Francis de Sales was an extraordinarily wise spiritual director and so his opinion carries a lot of weight. After guiding countless souls to sanctity, St. Francis understood keenly when someone knows why they are on this planet.

Another reason the age of 12 is so significant is what happens at 13? Hormones happen! That is, our minds and our hearts and even our bodies are flooded with a thousand powerful (and not always very pure) thoughts, feelings, and urges. In other words, our psyche will never again be at peace in order to understand the world and our place in it as well as when we were 12 years old. Life only goes downhill after 12.

And the third reason the age of 12 stands as the pinnacle of personal maturity is because of our Lord’s own example. Do you remember what he was concerned with at 12? We read in Lk 2:41-42, “Each year his parents went to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover, and when he was 12 years old, they went up according to festival custom.”

And later when his worried and anxious parents found him in the Temple and ask his reasons for ditching them, Jesus answers perfectly nonplussed as if he were doing the most obvious thing: “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (Lk 2:49). It is as if Jesus were asking: “Isn’t it crystal clear to everyone what their vocation is – why we are put on this planet – by the age of 12?” At least it was crystal clear to our Savior.

I say all this as a prelude to better understand the brief life but long legacy of St. Agnes of Rome, whose feast we celebrate on January 21. She won two crowns at the age of 12, namely, the crown of virginity and the crown of martyrdom. I had a friend in seminary who had a deep devotion to St. Agnes. Every year he bought a huge cake for the whole seminary that was red velvet cake with white frosting. The red symbolized Agnes’ blood she shed and the white stood for her purity. Seminarians have some very strange ways of celebrating the saints.

Perhaps to outsiders the fact that we celebrate and cheer on a little girl’s death may indeed seem not just odd but outlandish, even something bordering on child abuse. But such a perspective comes to mind only because our own sensibilities have been scrambled by modern culture and the thought that “no one lives life to the full” until they know why they are put on this planet. And that can never happen before 30 or 40. But the older, ancient, and wiser viewpoint says a person knows that by the age of 12, and thus has virtually lived their whole life by then.

Not many years after St. Agnes’ martyrdom in the year 304, St. Ambrose would eulogize her in his Treatise on Virgins. Listen to how Ambrose praises Agnes’ maturity and fullness of life at such a tender age: “Too young to be punished yet old enough for a martyr’s crown; unfitted for the contest, yet effortless in victory, she shows herself a master in valor despite the handicap of youth.”

He continues: “In the midst of tears, she shed no tears herself. The crowds marvel at her recklessness in throwing away her life untasted, as if she had already lived life to the full. All are amazed that one not yet of legal age can give her testimony to God.” Then he concludes: “You could see fear in the eyes of the executioner, as if he were the one condemned; his right hand trembled, his face grew pale as he saw the girl’s peril, while she had no fear for herself.”

Why did St. Agnes have no fear for herself while the executioner felt as if he were the one condemned? Because Agnes knew by the age of 12 why she had been put on this planet - to glorify God by her martyrdom and virginity - while the executioner had no clue why he was here. The former had already lived a very full life, while the latter had not even begun to live.

Praised be Jesus Christ!