Living Espoused to God in Right, Justice, Love, Mercy and Fidelity, 14th Monday (II), July 6, 2020

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Visitation Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan
Monday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time, Year II
Memorial of Saint Maria Goretti
July 6, 2020
Hos 2:16-18.21-22, Ps 145, Mt 9:18-26

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below: 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

• Last week we examined in the first reading God’s word through the Prophet Amos, given in the 8th century BC to the people of the Kingdom of Israel in the north of the Holy Land. His preaching was fundamentally about the breakdown of morals, of justice, of love for God and neighbor, among those in the Kingdom and God’s call to conversion.Monday through Friday this week we will consider his contemporary, Hosea, who was preaching shortly thereafter to the people of the same Kingdom. Whereas Amos preached fundamentally about morals, through Hosea God preached about fundamental issues of spirituality, how they looked at God, received what he was giving, and responded. The fundamental image God has Hosea use is that of spousal love. He has Hosea marry a prostitute, Gomer, to symbolize how the people of the Kingdom have given themselves over to the cult of Ba’al, a worship of sex, but that God, through the prophetic ôt he inspired in Hosea’s marrying Gomer, was showing that he would take her back. Later, Gomer would engage in adultery, not being able to remain faithful to Hosea, just as the people of the Kingdom were not faithful to God, but even then, God willed to take Israel back. That’s the setting for today’s passage. Speaking in the future tense, God says about Israel, in touching, spousal words, “I will allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak to her heart. She shall respond there as in the days of her youth, when she came up from the land of Egypt. On that day, says the LORD. She shall call me ‘My husband,’ and never again ‘My baal.'” This is a play on words, because “Ba’al” was understood to be a word for “husband” in the cult of Ba’al, but husband as master and ruler, not as lover. God was saying something far more. “I will espouse you to me forever: I will espouse you in right and in justice, in love and in mercy; I will espouse you in fidelity, and you shall know the Lord.” Throughout these words, God, as he did through Isaiah, revealed his love as spousal, a thing of choice, as a thing that involved a commitment for better or worse, in sickness and in health, for richer and poorer. It was true, just, loving, merciful, faithful and forever. He would forgive even spiritual adultery. And he was indicating that our relationship with Him in return should be marked not just with reverence for a Creator, God and Lord, but also by spousal affection for someone who has chosen us to be his despite our unworthiness. Our whole Christian life must be marked by the sense of being loved by God and loving him back.
• We see the particular love of God incarnate in Jesus Christ in his care for Jairus, for his daughter, and for the woman with the hemorrhage. They were not just people, but people loved with special care.  Jesus responded immediately to Jairus’ petition and went with him hastily, perseveringly, strengthening him with faith even after he received news that his daughter was dead. He indicates to him the life-giving reality of our spousal relationship with God. Similarly, Jesus called the little girl by name and gave her a foretaste of his resurrection. He asked that she be given something to eat, showing his care to provide even the most basic needs. With the anonymous woman, he wanted to meet her so that he could give her out of love the gift of salvation by faith, so that she would know that she was loved personally, not just anonymously.
• Today the Church celebrates the feast of someone who understood the love of God and loved him back, with a holy jealously, even to her martyrdom at the age of 11. St. Ambrose said in the early Church, “Virginity is praiseworthy not because it is found in martyrs, but because it makes martyrs.” And we see that St. Maria Goretti’s yeses to God in chastity was what gave her courage to say yes to God and no to even the possibility of sin when the supreme hour arrived. When her 20 year old next-door-neighbor Alessandro Serenelli tried to seduce her and then rape her, she said simply, “It would be a sin,” and she repeatedly refused. Her chastity flowed from her recognition that she was a temple of God and that Alessandro likewise was called to glorify God in his body, not sin. Alessandro didn’t want to hear it, however, and when she screamed as he was trying to rip her clothes off, he began to stab her 14 times with a long awl, piercing her lungs, her diaphragm, her throat and her heart. He ran away. Maria’s infant sister Teresa whom she was babysitting began to cry and her cries weren’t addressed, so eventually Alessandro’s father and Maria’s mother came to see if everything was okay with Teresa. That’s when they found Maria. She was rushed to the hospital where they did surgery without anesthesia to try to stop the bleeding and repair the damage but it was too late. Maria described Alessandro’s advances and what he had done that day, said that she forgave him and wanted him to join her in heaven, and died on the following day. Alessandro was a very bitter man after he was sent to jail for 30 years. For the first three years, he refused all advances to help him, including from priests. But then Maria appeared to him in a dream, gave him lilies — signs of her purity as well as of her resurrection — and told him anew that she forgave him. He became a changed man. He was released after 27 years for good behavior. His first visit was to Maria’s mother Assunta to ask for her forgiveness. She said that if her daughter could forgive him, so could she, and then she brought him to Church the next day, which was Christmas Eve, and asked the whole community to forgive him — something that made it possible for him to live there. Eventually he became a Capuchin brother and lived the rest of his days in holiness. He was present at the canonization of the little girl he had tried to rape and then murdered when she was canonized by Pope Pius XII in 1950, the first canonization ever to be held outside in St. Peter’s Square because of the immensity of the crowds that wanted to be present for the ceremony. Her chaste love of God had led her chastely to love others in God with the Lord’s own mercy and that love of God through her in life and after death was what transformed Alessandro and is meant to transform us. In her we find a fulfillment of the true, just, loving, merciful, faithful and eternal spousal covenant God wishes to have with each of us.
• The Mass is the consummation of the spousal union between Christ the Bridegroom and his Bride the Church as we become one flesh with the Lord. This is the means by which God each day not only reminds us of his love but fills us with it. This is the place where we come to love him back, with all our mind, heart, soul and strength, and unite with him in loving our neighbor. St. Maria Goretti’s intense love for God was expressed and fortified here. Exactly 13 months before she was martyred, St. Maria Goretti had received her first Holy Communion with intense longing. “I long for Jesus,” she was accustomed to say. Even though she was illiterate, she learned all her prayers and catechism with the help of her parish priest and a lady of the village so that she would be ready to receive him. She would receive Holy Communion every Sunday thereafter with great zeal and would receive Jesus for the last time as Viaticum, “like an angel,” as those present attested. It was after she had received Jesus that last time that she said that she had forgiven Alessandro out of love for Jesus and prayed that God would forgive him too. That’s the power of what Jesus did in her. That’s the power of spousal love we receive and are called to reciprocate and give.

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

Gospel MT 9:18-26

While Jesus was speaking, an official came forward,
knelt down before him, and said,
“My daughter has just died.
But come, lay your hand on her, and she will live.”
Jesus rose and followed him, and so did his disciples.
A woman suffering hemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him
and touched the tassel on his cloak.
She said to herself, “If only I can touch his cloak, I shall be cured.”
Jesus turned around and saw her, and said,
“Courage, daughter! Your faith has saved you.”
And from that hour the woman was cured.When Jesus arrived at the official’s house
and saw the flute players and the crowd who were making a commotion,
he said, “Go away! The girl is not dead but sleeping.”
And they ridiculed him.
When the crowd was put out, he came and took her by the hand,
and the little girl arose.
And news of this spread throughout all that land.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download