Monday, July 06, 2009

Bettter late than...

My whole schedule got turned upside down today--and being the day after a long holiday weekend didn't help. I love holidays, but you know how much they can confuse your inner work cycle! Plus, I will be leaving for my retreat and a two-week recording session on Saturday (Boston, here I come!), so I am trying like mad to finish odds and ends before packing. (Ain't gonna happen, I know.) And to top it all off, a fire ant bite I succumbed to in San Antonio seems to have just re-ignited (on the sole of my foot), so I am trying to take care of that. And still visit my one friend who is still (after a month) in the hospital.
In other words, I forgot all about blogging.
But I did want to just put a note down about today's saint. Maria Goretti, not even twelve years old, was woman enough to refuse the lewd demands of a teen porn addict, and Christian enough to try to convince him that what he wanted to do was damnable. Alexander's passion of lust turned, as it so often does, into rage against the girl, and he expressed his fury with the blade of a knife. That's where there is a poignant connection with today's Gospel for Monday in Ordinary Time where Jesus, called to the bedside of another twelve-year-old, speaks to her the words he surely spoke to Maria in calling her to heaven, "Little girl, I say to you, arise."
A good day (even if a bit late in that day) to pray for young people who so blithely accept the offerings of our sex-crazed culture.

2 comments:

Joyful Catholic said...

Excellent post. Thank you! I think I might send to a person I know who's seriously misguided in her world view. She thinks the early Church/martyrs/saints need to be "re=evaluated" and that martyrdom should not be necessary in today's world. Sadly, she's living in a relativistic lie. I was thinking of Maria Goretti. This person thinks that we who might die as martyrs are only wanting the "glory" and in the end, we "cause" our killers to become killers, like they have no choice in the matter! This is so sad for me to contemplate. She is a recent convert to the CC and I wonder now how many new converts and even cradle Catholics she's influencing? Thanks again.

Sister Anne said...

See what this young adult writer posted on her blog about Maria's continuing relevance: http://catholicnerdwriter.blogspot.com/2009/07/st-maria-goretti-giveaway.html