July 6th, two days after the July 4th when America celebrates her independence. What a coincidence that today is the feast day of a Saint so beautifully in love with Christ that she died at the age of eleven just for Him, to maintain her freedom by chastity in Him instead of being a slave to sin.
Saint Maria Goretti was born in Italy in 1890 to an increasingly poor farming family, and as such had no education, no chance to learn reading or writing, or any other privileges as such. However, her parents raised her and her other siblings deeply in the faith and in love of God, even in the midst of their struggles. At the age of nine, Maria's father died of malaria, leaving the mother and the other children to seek work as tenant farmers working for others. In time, they moved into a house which they shared with a family which included a man named Giovanni Serenelli and his son Alessandro. Though her mother, brothers, and sisters worked in the fields, Maria would keep the house clean, prepare meals, and sew for the two families.
On July 5th, 1902, Maria had been sewing a shirt for Alessandro and keeping watch over her baby sister while Alessandro and the rest of the family worked in the fields. Knowing she'd soon be done and alone, Alessandro went to the house and demanded Maria submit to him sexually. Maria, knowing this would be against her Beloved Christ, resisted, and Alessandro, in anger, stabbed her eleven times before he ran away. Though her mother, family, and Alessandro's father heard the screaming and took Maria to the hospital, she died of her wounds 24 hours after the attack, but not before forgiving Alessandro and asking God that he would end up in Heaven with her.
Saint Maria Goretti acted perfectly in love both in her entire life and at the end of it, living everything for Christ and dying as a martyr completely in love with only Him. Her refusal to submit to her attacker's demands because of the detachment from God it would cause was based around her love of both God and, through Him, Alessandro himself, as Maria had told him he would go to hell, which she did not want for him. In the entire trial, she remained pure for Jesus, and so was even able to forgive her attacker, praying that he would learn the same purity in Christ, as that is where true happiness lies by living for Him.
By living chastely in Christ and remaining such through staying true to His will for us, especially in how we live this bodily life for Him, we are given the grace to love as He loves; in a selfless, merciful, and total way, just as Saint Maria Goretti did. In living in purity, both physically and spiritually, Christ teaches us to love for His sake, for His will, and so to love especially those who might be living in slavery to sin. The freedom such purity in Christ brings us is the necessary state in which we love Him and others.
St. Maria Goretti, please pray for us, especially those who are struggling with purity, that they may instead live only for our Lord Jesus Christ in complete purity and the freedom that brings in Him!
No comments:
Post a Comment