Feast of Saint Maria Goretti
(Re-post from 2007)
When the priest walked to the altar wearing red, I knew it was another martyr's feast day.
Today the Church celebrates the heroic life and death of a 12 year old young lady named Maria Goretti.(1890-1902) A devout young lady, she was assaulted and murdered because she refused a man's sexual advances. She chose death and heaven rather than allow herself to be raped. She was stabbed over 14 times but lived for almost 20 hours after the attack in which time she prayed for and forgave her accuser. Fifty years later Pope Pius canonized her in 1950 as the Patron Saint of Modern Youth. Many miracles have been attributed to her intercession.
In our present age, when many young people idolize the wrong kind of role models we need a modern saint whose virtue and faith can be emulated. Promiscuity, materialism and hedonism are put forth as the new "virtue" for today's youth. Saint Maria Goretti shows us how to choose purity and chastity over the values that this world offers. Even in 1950, the pope knew that young people needed positive role models and examples of the faith rightly lived. St. Maria Goretti had "resisted sin to the shedding of blood."
Saint Maria Goretti, today we honor your faith and example of holiness to the point of martyrdom. We ask you to intercede to Jesus for the souls of our young people that they would be open to God's grace and power to choose a life lived for God and not self.
Through the merits of Christ we ask this in His name,
Amen.
Saint Maria Goretti -A Modern Saint
When the priest walked to the altar wearing red, I knew it was another martyr's feast day.
Today the Church celebrates the heroic life and death of a 12 year old young lady named Maria Goretti.(1890-1902) A devout young lady, she was assaulted and murdered because she refused a man's sexual advances. She chose death and heaven rather than allow herself to be raped. She was stabbed over 14 times but lived for almost 20 hours after the attack in which time she prayed for and forgave her accuser. Fifty years later Pope Pius canonized her in 1950 as the Patron Saint of Modern Youth. Many miracles have been attributed to her intercession.
In our present age, when many young people idolize the wrong kind of role models we need a modern saint whose virtue and faith can be emulated. Promiscuity, materialism and hedonism are put forth as the new "virtue" for today's youth. Saint Maria Goretti shows us how to choose purity and chastity over the values that this world offers. Even in 1950, the pope knew that young people needed positive role models and examples of the faith rightly lived. St. Maria Goretti had "resisted sin to the shedding of blood."
Saint Maria Goretti, today we honor your faith and example of holiness to the point of martyrdom. We ask you to intercede to Jesus for the souls of our young people that they would be open to God's grace and power to choose a life lived for God and not self.
Through the merits of Christ we ask this in His name,
Amen.
“The political and social order will inevitably crumble in ambiances where the virtue of purity is disregarded. Thus, there can be no preservation of the social and political order, nor the serious building of Christian Civilization without a foundation based in purity, among other virtues. "
posted by Russ Rentler, M.D. | 7:58 PM
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