Obligation, Mt 9:1-8, St Maria Goretti, Life Can Be Scary, Guardian Angels
Good Day Bloggers!
Wishing everyone a Fantastic Friday!
P.U.S.H. (Pray Until Something Happens). It has a remarkable way of producing solace, peace, patience and tranquility and of course resolution...God's always available 24/7..
We are all human. We all experience birth, life and death. We all have
flaws but we also all have the gift knowledge and free will as well,
make the most of it. Life on earth is a stepping to our eternal home in
Heaven. Its your choice whether to rise towards eternal light or lost to
eternal darkness. Material items, though needed for sustenance and
survival on earth are of earthly value only. The only thing that passes
from this earth to Heaven is our Soul, our Spirit...it's God's perpetual
gift to us...Embrace it, treasure it, nurture it, protect it...
"Raise not a hand to another unless it is to offer in peace and goodwill." ~ Zarya Parx 2012
Today's word: Obligation ob·li·ga·tion [ob-li-gey-shuhn] noun.
Origin: 1250-1300; Latin obligation (stem of obligato) a binding, equivilant to obligat (us) bound
1. The act of binding oneself by a social, legal, or moral tie.2. A social, legal, or moral requirement, such as a duty, contract, or promise that compels one to follow or avoid a particular course of action.
3. A course of action imposed by society, law, or conscience by which one is bound or restricted.
4. The constraining power of a promise, contract, law, or sense of duty.
5. Law. A legal agreement stipulating a specified payment or action, especially if the agreement also specifies a penalty for failure to comply. The document containing the terms of such an agreement.
6. Something owed as payment or in return for a special service or favor. The service or favor for which one is indebted to another.
7. The state, fact, or feeling of being indebted to another for a special service or favor received
Today's Gospel Reading - Matthew 9:1-8
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| MASACCIO Tribute Money 1426-27 Fresco, 255 x 598 cm Cappella Brancacci, Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence |
Now while he was at table in the house it happened that a number of tax collectors and sinners came to sit at the table with Jesus and his disciples.
When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, 'Why does your master eat with tax collectors and sinners?'
When he heard this he replied, 'It is not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick. Go and learn the meaning of the words: Mercy is what pleases me, not sacrifice. And indeed I came to call not the upright, but sinners.'
Reflection
• The Sermon on the Mountain takes chapters 5, 6 and 7 of the Gospel of Matthew. The purpose of the narrative part of chapters 8 and 9 is to show how Jesus put into practice what he had just taught. In the Sermon on the Mountain, he teaches acceptance (Mt 5, 23-25. 38-42.43). Now he puts it into practice accepting the lepers (Mt 8, 1-4), the foreigners (Mt 8, 5-13), the women (Mt 8, 14-15), the sick (Mt 8, 16-17), the possessed (Mt 8, 28-34), the paralytics (Mt 9, 1-8), the tax collectors (Mt 9, 913), the unclean persons (Mt 9, 20-22), etc. Jesus breaks the norms and the customs which excluded and divided persons, that is with the fear and the lack of faith (Mt 8, 23-27) the laws on purity (9, 14-17), and he clearly says which are the requirements for those who want to follow him. They should have the courage to abandon many things (Mt 8, 18-22). In the same way in the attitudes and in the practice of Jesus we see in what the Kingdom and the perfect observance of the Law of God consists.
• Matthew 9, 9: The call to follow Jesus. The first persons called to follow Jesus are four fishermen, all Jewish (Mt 4, 18-22). Now Jesus calls a tax collector, considered a sinner and treated as an unclean person by the community of the most observant of the Pharisees. In the other Gospels, this tax collector is called Levi. Here, his name is Matthew, which means gift of God or given by God. The communities, instead of excluding the tax collector and of considering him unclean, should consider him a Gift of God for the community, because his presence makes the community become a sign of salvation for all! Like the first four who were called, in the same way also Matthew, the tax collector, leaves everything that he has and follows Jesus. The following of Jesus requires breaking away from many things. Matthew leaves the tax office, his source of revenue and follows Jesus!
• Matthew 9, 10: Jesus sits at table with sinners and tax collectors. At that time the Jews lived separated from the tax collectors and sinners and they did not eat with them at the same table. The Christian Jews should break away from this isolation and sit at table with the tax collectors and with the unclean, according to the teaching given by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mountain, the expression of the universal love of God the Father (Mt 5, 44-48). The mission of the communities was that of offering a place to those who did not have it. But this new law was not accepted by all. In some communities persons coming from paganism, even if they were Christians, were not accepted around the same table (cf. Ac 10, 28; 11, 3; Ga 2, 12). The text of today’s Gospel shows us Jesus who sits at table with tax collectors and sinners in the same house, around the same table.
• Matthew 9, 11: The question of the Pharisees. Jews were forbidden to sit at table with the tax collectors and with sinners, but Jesus does not follow this prohibition. Rather he becomes a friend to them. The Pharisees seeing the attitude of Jesus, ask the disciples: “Why does your master eat with tax collectors and sinners?” This question may be interpreted as an expression of their desire to know why Jesus acts in that way. Others interpret the question like a criticism of Jesus’ behaviour, because for over five hundred years, from the time of the slavery in Babylon until the time of Jesus, the Jews had observed the laws of purity. This secular observance became a strong sign of identity. At the same time it was a factor of their separation in the midst of other peoples. Thus, because of the laws on purity, they could not nor did they succeed to sit around the same table to eat with tax collectors. To eat with tax collectors meant to get contaminated, to become unclean. The precepts of legal purity were rigorously observed, in Palestine as well as in the Jewish communities of the Diaspora. At the time of Jesus, there were more than five hundred precepts to keep purity. In the years 70’s, at the time when Matthew wrote, this conflict was very actual.
• Matthew 9, 12-13: “Mercy is what pleases me, not sacrifice. Jesus hears the question of the Pharisees to the disciples and he answers with two clarifications: the first one is taken from common sense: “It is not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick”. The second one is taken from the Bible: “Go and learn the meaning of the words: Mercy is what pleases me, not sacrifice”. Through these clarifications, Jesus makes explicit and clarifies his mission among the people: “I have not come to call the upright but sinners”. Jesus denies the criticism of the Pharisees; he does not accept their arguments, because they came from a false idea of the Law of God. He himself invokes the Bible: “Mercy is what pleases me, not sacrifice”. For Jesus, mercy is more important than legal purity. He refers to the prophetic tradition to say that mercy has greater value for God than all sacrifices (Ho 6, 6; Is 1, 10-17). God has profound mercy, and is moved before the failures of his people (Ho 11, 8-9)
Reference: Courtesy of Order of Carmelites, www.ocarm.org.
Featured Items from Litany Lane
Saint of the Day: Saint Maria Goretti
**(Warning: The biography is historical in content but the nature of St Maria Goretti's violent death by assault may be disturbing and should be read with parental consent only, rated as PG13.)
Patron Saint of chastity, rape victims, youth, teenage girls, poverty, purity and forgiveness.
(October 16, 1890 – July 6, 1902) is an Italian virgin-martyr of the Roman Catholic Church, and is one of its youngest canonized saints. She died from multiple stab wounds inflicted by her attempted assaulter after she refused to submit to him.[1]
Born in Corinaldo, Ancona, Italy, on October 16 1890; her farmworker father moved his family to Ferrier di Conca, near Anzio. Her father died of malaria and her mother had to struggle to feed her children.
In
1902 an eighteen-year-old neighbor, Alexander, grabbed her from her
steps and tried to rape her. When Maria said that she would rather died
than submit, Alexander began stabbing her with a knife. As she lay in the hospital, she forgave Alexander before she died. Her death didn't end her forgivness, however. Alexander
was captured and sentenced to thirty years. He was unrepentant until he
had a dream that he was in a garden. Maria was there and gave him
flowers. When he woke, he was a changed man, repenting of his crime and
living a reformed life. When he was released after 27 years he went
directly to Maria's mother to beg her forgiveness, which she gave. "If
my daughter can forgive him, who am I to withold forgiveness," she said.
When Maria was declared a saint in 1950,
Alexander was there in the St. Peter's crowd to celebrate her
canonization. She was canonized by Pope Pius XII in 1950 for her purity
as model for youth.
She is called a martyr
because she fought against Alexander's attempts at sexual assault.
However, the most important aspect of her story is her forgiveness of
her attacker -- her concern for her enemy extending even beyond death.
Her feast day is July 6. St. Maria Goretti is the patroness of youth and for the victims of assault.
Biography
Early life
Goretti was born Maria Teresa Goretti[2] on October 16, 1890 in Corinaldo, in the Province of Ancona, then in the Kingdom of Italy, to Luigi Goretti and Assunta Carlini. She was the third out of six children.[2] Her sisters were named Teresa and Ersilia; her brothers were Angelo, Sandrino, and Mariano.[3][4]By the time she was six, her family had become so poor that they were forced to give up their farm, move, and work for other farmers. Soon, Maria's father Luigi became very sick with malaria, and died when Maria was just nine.[5] While her brothers, mother, and sister worked in the fields, Maria would cook, sew, watch her infant sister, and keep the house clean. It was a hard life, but the family was very close. They shared a deep love and faith for God. She and her family moved to Le Ferriere, near modern Latina and Nettuno in Lazio, where they lived in a building, "La Cascina Antica," they shared with another family which included Giovanni Serenelli and his son, Alessandro.[4][6]
Maria Goretti on glass
Maria's martyrdom
On July 5, 1902, finding eleven-year-old Maria sewing alone, Alessandro Serenelli came in and threatened her with death if she did not do as he said; he was intending to rape her. She would not submit, however, protesting that what he wanted to do was a mortal sin and warning Alessandro that he would go to hell .[7] She desperately fought to stop Alessandro, a 19-year-old farmhand, from abusing her. She kept screaming, "No! It is a sin! God does not want it!" Alessandro first choked Maria, but when she insisted she would rather die than submit to him, he stabbed her eleven times. The injured Maria tried to reach for the door, but Alessandro stopped her by stabbing her three more times before running away.[8]Maria's little sister Teresa awoke with the noise and started crying, and when Serenelli's father and Maria's mother came to check on the little girl, they found the bleeding Maria and took her to the nearest hospital in Nettuno. She underwent surgery without anesthesia, but her injuries were beyond the doctors' help. Halfway through the surgery, Maria woke up. She insisted that it stay that way. The pharmacist of the hospital in which she died said to her, "Maria, think of me in Paradise." She looked at the old man: "Well, who knows, which of us is going to be there first?" "You, Maria," he replied. "Then I will gladly think of you," said Maria.[9] The following day, twenty hours after the attack, having expressed forgiveness for her murderer and stating that she wanted to have him in Heaven with her, Maria died of her injuries, while looking at a very beautiful picture of the Blessed Mother, and clutching a cross to her chest.
Writing in 2002 based on his own interviews with Alessandro Serenelli and Maria's sister Ersilia in 1952, journalist Noel Crusz provided a more detailed account:
- On July 5 in 1902, exactly a hundred years ago, at 3 p.m. whilst [Maria's mother] Assunta and the other children were at the threshing floor, Serenelli who persistently sought sexual favours from the 12-year-old [sic] girl approached her. She was taking care of her infant sister in the farm house. Allesandro [sic] threatened her with a 10 inch dagger, and when Maria refused, as she had always done, he stabbed her 14 times.
- The wounds penetrated the throat, with lesions of the pericardium, the heart, the lungs and the diaphragm. Surgeons at Orsenigo were surprised that the girl was still alive. In a dying deposition, in the presence of the Chief of Police, Maria told her mother of Serenelli's sexual harassment, and two previous attempts made to rape her. She was afraid to reveal this earlier since she was threatened with death.[4]
Serenelli's imprisonment and repentance
Alessandro Serenelli was captured shortly after Maria's death. Originally, he was going to be sentenced to life, but since he was a minor at that time the sentence was commuted to 30 years in prison. He remained unrepentant and uncommunicative from the world for three years, until a local bishop, Monsignor Giovanni Blandini, visited him in jail. Serenelli wrote a thank you note to the Bishop asking for his prayers and telling him about a dream, "in which Maria Goretti gave him lilies, which burned immediately in his hands."[10]After his release, Alessandro Serenelli visited Maria's still-living mother, Assunta, and begged her forgiveness. She forgave him, saying that if Maria had forgiven him on her deathbed then she could not do less, and they attended Mass together the next day, receiving Holy Communion side by side.[11] Alessandro reportedly prayed every day to Maria Goretti and referred to her as "my little saint."[12] He attended her canonization in 1950.
Serenelli later became a laybrother of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin, living in a monastery and working as its receptionist and gardener until death peacefully in 1970.
Beatification and canonization
On the evening of the beatification ceremonies in the Saint Peter's Basilica, April 27, 1947, Pope Pius XII walked over to Assunta. She almost fainted. "When I saw the Pope coming, I prayed, Madonna, please help me. He put his hand on my head and said, blessed mother, happy mother, mother of a Blessed!" They both had eyes wet with tears.[13]Three years later, on June 24, 1950, Pius XII canonized Goretti as a saint, the "Saint Agnes of the 20th century."[1] Assunta was again present at the ceremony, along with her four remaining sons and daughters. Some sources assert she was the first mother ever to attend the canonization ceremony of her child.[4] However, at least one source identifies her as the second, after Luigi Gonzaga's mother attended his canonization in the sixteenth century,[3] in spite of the fact that Gonzaga was canonized in the eighteenth century, long after his mother's death.[14] Alessandro Serenelli was also present at the canonization.[15][16][17]
Owing to the huge crowd present, the ceremonies associated with the canonization were held outside of Saint Peter's Basilica, in the Piazza San Pietro. Pius XII spoke, not as before in Latin, but in Italian. "We order and declare, that the blessed Maria Goretti can be venerated as a Saint and We introduce her into the Canon of Saints". Some 500,000 people, among them a majority of youth, had come from around the world. Pius asked them: "Young people, pleasure of the eyes of Jesus, are you determined to resist any attack on your chastity with the help of grace of God?" A resounding "yes" was the answer.[18]
All three of her brothers would claim that she intervened miraculously in their lives. Angelo heard her voice telling him to emigrate to America. Sandrino was reportedly miraculously given a sum of money to finance his own emigration to join Angelo. Sandrino died in the United States in 1917, and Angelo died in Italy when he returned there in 1964. The third brother, Mariano, said he heard her voice telling him to stay in his trench when the rest of his unit charged the Germans in World War I. Mariano, the only survivor of that charge, lived until 1975 and had a large family.[3]
Her body is kept in the crypt of the Basilica of Santa Maria delle Grazie e Santa Maria Goretti in Nettuno, south of Rome. It has been often reported that her body is incorrupt but this is not the case. Her remains are kept inside a statue which is lying down beneath the altar, which has been mistakenly believed by some to be her entire body.[19]
References: Courtesy of Wikipedia
- Hoever, Rev. Hugo, ed. "Lives of the Saints, For Every Day of the Year", New York: Catholic Book Publishing Co., (1955) p. 259-60
- Ruef, Vinzenz. Die Wahre Geschichte von der hl. Maria Goretti, Miriam, Jestetten, 1992, ISBN 3-87499-101-3 p. 12
- ^ The Incorruptibles: A Study of the Incorruption of the Bodies of Various Catholic Saints and Beati, TAN Books & Publishers, Inc. ISBN 0-89555-066-0
- ^ 1962 typical edition of the Roman Missal
Today's Snippet:
Life Can Be Scary
Reference: Daily OMIt may be comforting to know that everyone gets scared, and it is perfectly OK. Sometimes just acknowledging our fears is enough to make us feel better. And while it sometimes takes a lot more to ease our mind, we can console ourselves with the knowledge that life can be scary at times. Giving ourselves permission to be scared lets us move through our fears so we can let it go. It also makes it alright to share our fears with others. Sharing our apprehensions with other people can make our fears less overwhelming because we are not letting them grow inside of us as pent up emotions. Sharing our fears also can lighten our burden because we are not carrying our worries all by ourselves. Remember that you are not alone.
Our fears may revolve around our physical safety, particularly if we are not feeling well, living under difficult circumstances, or doing work that exposes us to hazardous conditions. Or, we may be experiencing financial woes that are causing us to be fearful about making ends meet. We may also fear the loss of a loved one who is sick, or we may be scared of never finding someone special to spend our life with. We may be scared to start at a new school, begin a different job, move to a new town, or meet new people. Whatever our fears are, they are valid, and we do not need to feel ashamed or embarrassed that we are, at times, afraid.
Life can take us on a roller coaster ride full of highs and lows and twists and turns. Even for those of us who enjoy unexpected thrills, it’s frightening to suddenly find ourselves heading for a deep plunge. Yet, it happens to all of us. At these moments, it is important to remember that you are not alone in your experiences.
No matter how brave, strong, or levelheaded we are, sometimes we all get scared.
Who are our Guardian Angels?
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| 1900 Evangelische Bilderwelt, Fridoln Leiber, Germany |
Psalm 91: 10-12 A heavenly spirit assigned by God to watch over each of us during our lives. The doctrine of angels is part of the Church's tradition. The role of the guardian angel is both to guide us to good thoughts, works and words, and to preserve us from evil. Since the 17th century the Church has celebrated a feast honoring them in October throughout the Universal Church. Their feast is Oct 2nd.
God has charged His angels with the ministry of watching and safeguarding every one of His creatures that behold not His face. Kingdoms have their angels assigned to them, and men have their angels; these latter it is to whom religion designates the Holy Guardian Angels. Our Lord says in the Gospel, "Beware lest ye scandalize any of these little ones, for their angels in heaven see the face of My Father." The existence of Guardian Angels, is, hence a dogma of the Christian faith: this being so, what ought not our respect be for that sure and holy intelligence that is ever present at our side; and how great our solicitude be, lest, by any act of ours, we offend those eyes which are ever bent upon us in all our ways!
St. Thomas teaches us (Summa Theologica I:113:4) that only the lowest orders of angels are sent to men, and consequently that they alone are our guardians, though Scotus and Durandus would rather say that any of the members of the angelic host may be sent to execute the Divine commands. Not only the baptized, but every soul that cometh into the world receives a guardian spirit; St. Basil, however (Homily on Psalm 43), and possibly St. Chrysostom (Homily 3 on Colossians) would hold that only Christians were so privileged. Our guardian angels can act upon our senses (I:111:4) and upon our imaginations (I:111:3) — not, however, upon our wills, except "per modum suadentis", viz. by working on our intellect, and thus upon our will, through the senses and the imagination. (I:106:2; and I:111:2). Finally, they are not separated from us after death, but remain with us in heaven, not, however, to help us attain salvation, but "ad aliquam illustrationem" (to enlighten us)(I:108:7, ad 3am).
This is the traditional Catholic prayer to one's guardian angel
- Angel of God, my guardian dear
- to whom God's love commits me here.
- Ever this day/night be at my side
- to light, to guard, to rule and guide
Reference: "Guardian Angel." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 7. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. 6 Jul. 2012 <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07049c.htm>
