Masses were offered yesterday for the repose of the soul of Ray Lloyd (+), and today for the repose of the soul of the Reverend J. D. Key (+). I would like to ask your prayers also for the soul of Mrs. Sarah Rafferty (+), who passed away yesterday. May their souls and the souls of all the Faithful departed rest in peace.
I only want to mention Maria Goretti, the saintly Italian girl who suffered a horrible death, protecting herself from a would-be rapist and is honoured by the Church as a virgin-martyr. She is also one of our youngest Saints, and belonged to a rural family in Ancona. She kept house for her family, who worked in the fields. Her attacker stabbed her several times for denying him and she died in hospital. He repented in prison and, when released, sought the forgiveness of her family. He joined a monastery for the rest of his life and lived to see the girl beatified, and canonised (1950). I think that his fate was worse than hers.
Learn more about the story here. Maria is a very popular Saint in the West and is known as a martyr for chastity/purity, because of her attempt to protect herself from her attacker. And it is well known that she forgave him on her death-bed. The first reading from Saint Paul at Monday's Mass naturally speaks about purity:
"Your bodies are not meant for debauchery, they are meant for the Lord, and the Lord claims your bodies. And God, just as He has raised our Lord from the dead, by His great power will raise us up too. Have you never been told that your bodies belong to the Body of Christ? And am I to take what belongs to Christ and make it one with a harlot? God forbid. Or did you never hear that the man who unites himself to a harlot becomes one body with her? The two, we are told, will become one flesh. Whereas the man who unites himself to the Lord becomes one spirit with Him. Keep clear, then, of debauchery. Any other sin a man commits, leaves the body untouched, but the fornicator is committing a crime against his own body. Surely you know that your bodies are the shrines of the Holy Spirit, who dwells in you. And He is God’s gift to you, so that you are no longer your own masters. A great price was paid to ransom you; glorify God by making your bodies the shrines of His presence." - I Corinthians 6: 13-20
Paul's theme, as so often mentioned in his letters, is that we have been ransomed/purchased by Christ and we are not quite our own - we belong to Christ. So Christ has a claim upon us and the way we live our lives. This idea becomes more powerful when Paul links it to his Eucharistic theology - through Holy Communion, we are part of the Body of Christ and we cannot join that to a life of sin. So, it's not possible to unite with another through sin and at the same time to unite with Christ in Holy Communion. This underlies the Churches firm position on receiving Holy Communion in the state of grievous sin. And in this reading, Paul zeroes in on sexual sin in a way most people don't want to hear about today. This message of purity is unpopular today, and Saint Maria Goretti paid for defending it with her life. She was twelve years old. This is why we honour her, and may she pray for us all, always.
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