Blessed are the pure of heart..
Tomorrow is the memorial of St. Maria Goretti, the young girl murdered for refusing the advances of a teenage man, Alessandro Serenelli, who lived and labored alongside the Goretti family. Maria's story is quite well known. I watched part of a film depicting her life last night; it was okay - but not as well done as it could be. The acting was a bit schmaltzy in the attempt to show Maria's charity towards others, and there was a lot of crying - the mother cried a lot. At times Maria was portrayed as being much too familiar with Alessandro and other men - caressing their cheek, speaking a bit too much, and in one scene Maria's mother left Allesandro and Maria alone by the fire as she retired to bed for the night. It seemed rather un-Italian to do that.
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Anyway - everyone knows Maria, but there was another young woman, closer to our time, who happened to be at Maria's canonization, and who suffered a similar fate in 1957. Pierina Morosini. Pierina was 26 when she was murdered while returning home from her job in a factory. Her attacker attempted to seduce her, and as she refused his advances and tried to fight him off, he beat her to death with a large stone, crushing her face.
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Blessed Pierina is today venerated as the patron of rape victims, as well as a martyr for chastity.
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Born into a poor family of eight children in 1931 in the Diocese of Bergamo, Italy, she at one time desired religious life but remained a lay woman consecrated to God by a private vow of chastity. She remained with her family offering support to her mother, while teaching catechism in her parish. Trained as a seamstress, Pierina began to work in a factory at age 15. On October 4, 1987, John Paul II beatified Pierina along with another Italian martyr for purity, Antonia Mesina , the 16 year old Sardinian murdered by a teenage rapist in 1935.
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Meditation:
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The dignity and the vocation of women - as well as those of men - find their eternal source in the heart of God. And in the temporal conditions of human existence, they are closely connected with the "unity of the two". Consequently each man must look within himself to see whether she who was entrusted to him as a sister in humanity, as a spouse, has not become in his heart an object of adultery; to see whether she who, in different ways, is the cosubject of his existence in the world, has not become for him an "object": an object of pleasure, of exploitation. - THE DIGNITY AND THE VOCATION OF WOMEN, John Paul II
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Trivia: Bl. Pierina shares her birthday with Bl. Pier Giorgio - both were born on April 6, although years apart.
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4 comments:
Thank you, Terri, for giving us examples of true saints. I was reading about the murder of McNair described as "the greatest person in the world". He had a wife, 4 children and as if it were not enough, a 20 year-old girlfriend, who eventually killed the "greatest guy in the whole world".
Such are our modern heroes ("saints" would not be appropriate. It is so disturbing to me to think that young people live in this kind of environment. It makes the Passion even more present.
+JMJ+
Thanks for writing this, Terry. I hadn't known there were other martyrs for purity who have been raised to the altar as well.
Enbrethiel - there are more that I haven't included, but don't forget the boys have some too - this from Catholic Exchange:
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Another more recent group of saints who have an important relevance and message concerning purity for our culture today are the holy martyrs of Uganda, who were beatified in 1920 and canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1964. Saints Charles Lwanga, Joseph Mkasa, and their companions were tortured and put to death by a homosexual king because of their refusal to participate in and condone his sins of unnatural vice.
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The first Catholic missions in Uganda were established in 1879 by the White Fathers of Africa. They met with great success and the native people flocked to baptism and to the Catholic Church, becoming converts of the sincerest and deepest spirituality. The first king the missionaries encountered there, King Mtesa, was friendly to them. However, after his death, he was succeeded by a different kind of pagan, King Mwanga, who was a hater of Christianity and kept a harem of adolescent boys for his homosexual pleasure. For fear the British colonial authorities might interfere in his lifestyle, the king murdered a group of Anglican missionaries to keep his sodomy quiet. For this and for his debauchery, he was publicly reproved by a brave Catholic boy, Saint Joseph Mkasa, whom the king originally wanted to put in charge of the harem. He had Mkasa beheaded immediately.
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Finding out that a Catholic layman named Matthias Murumba had been instructing some his harem boys in Christianity and that another layman named Andrew Kaga had been doing the same, the king had them both seized. He then summoned all his harem boys in front of him and told those who were Christians to separate themselves from the others. Then he asked them if they intended to remain Catholics. They shouted, "We are Catholic Christians to the death." The furious king had them all taken out of the village and along with Murumba and Kaga had them stripped naked, wrapped in straw mats and set afire. One of the king's executioners was the father of one of the boys, Saint Mbaga. He was furious at his son for not submitting to the king's sexual perversion, but did not want to see him burn, so he broke his son's neck killing him before setting the others on fire. There were 21 martyrs in all, 17 of whom were the young harem boys who refused to commit sins of homosexuality, knowing that God revealed that such sins are intrinsically and inherently evil and exclude anyone who commits them from heaven (Galatians 5:19; Romans 1:26-32; Ephesians 5:3-6; Colossians 3:5; etc.) - Catholic Exchange
Mia, there is also the most recent martyr for purity, Bl. Albertina Berkenbrock (1919-1931). Read about her here:
http://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/saints/ns_lit_doc_20071020_berkenbrock_en.html
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