Lambs presented to Pope Francis on the feast of St. Agnes

Tuesday was the feast day of St. Agnes and Pope Francis was presented with the lambs which had been earlier blessed in the Roman church where the saint is buried. 

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 Pope by the Canons Regular of the Lateran on the feast day of St. Agnes, martyred in the year 305 and who is traditionally depicted with a lamb.