OPTIONAL MEMORIAL SAINT MARIA GORETTI, SATURDAY OF THE THIRTEENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME, JULY 6, 2024

MASS READINGS;

Gospel 

MT 9:14-17

The disciples of John approached Jesus and said, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast much, but your disciples do not fast? ”Jesus answered them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. No one patches an old cloak with a piece of unshrunken cloth, for its fullness pulls away from the cloak and the tear gets worse. People do not put new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise the skins burst, the wine spills out, and the skins are ruined. Rather, they pour new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved.” 

REFLECTION

 Rather, they pour new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved.” 

When you live alone you can develop poor habits that follow you through life. One example I can remember was when we were together having breakfast and it was time for a second pot of coffee. I thought nothing of pouring out the left over coffee so as to brew fresh coffee. No problem, and yet attention was drawn to my not rinsing out the day’s first pot so that fresh coffee would taste like the real thing and not like left over bitter old coffee. MY BAD!!

When one is smitten by God's love and presence in our life, we want to pour out the old self, the old thoughts and feelings and become a new life. We are asked to not only be patient with ourselves but to those who also grapple with poor habits, poor decisions and poor lifestyles. It is easy indeed to think like the old self and compartmentalize the old and the new. Old habits tend to creep back up through the endless nerve endings of our brain. We may look with suspicion at those who don't fit in or who are not righteous enough. We don't forgive them nor do we choose to forget their past.

Today we celebrate the memorial of St Maria Goretti. She is the patron saint of chastity, rape victims, girls, youth, teenage girls, poverty, purity, and forgiveness. She was stabbed 14 times by Alessandro Serenelli while trying to rape her. She died from abdominal infection. Her last words were, “ I forgive Alessandro Serenelli...and I want him with me in heaven forever."

One night, six years into his prison sentence, Maria appeared to Alessandro.  She appeared in a garden picking 14 white lily flowers, handing them to him one by one.  This gesture of forgiveness, this act of love, filled Alessandro with light and the Holy Spirit.  He immediately became contrite for what he did to that little girl. (1)

Her mother forgave him as well and welcomed him to be with her at the canonization of her daughter. He eventually joined the Capuchin Franciscans and, as a lay brother, worked as a gardener, porter, and general laborer.  He died in the peace of Christ, with the love and admiration of those that knew him, at the Capuchin convent at Macerata, Italy, on May 6, 1970. (1)

Following his death, the Capuchin friars with whom he lived found a sealed envelope among his personal effects.  It was his spiritual testament, written in the form of an open letter to the world.  It contains an appeal that all follow the way of Christ.  It also paints a dramatic and touching picture of a man who was able to regain his dignity through the generous mercy that those he wounded extended to him: (1)

God Bless You

(1) https://mariagoretti.com/the-murderer/