Category: courageous saints

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Courageous Saints: St. Maria Goretti

pilgrimage logoI knelt in prayer less than a foot away from the relics of St. Maria Goretti, overwhelmed by the immensity of mercy from such a small child.

I’ve gone on my share of pilgrimages — some tinged with a little sadness, others so joyful I could barely stand it, but this pilgrimage to visit St. Maria Goretti touched me deeply in an unexpected way. I think it stirred my heart and challenged me unexpectedly.

Maria died a martyr’s death, murdered violently by a young man, Alessandro, who attempted to rape her. Her cries appealed to his soul, “It is a sin! God does not want it!” While the rape was thwarted, he fatally wounded her, stabbing eleven-year-old Maria over a dozen times. She survived into the next day, long enough to describe the scene with her assailant, Alessandro Serenelli, and to forgive him.

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Alessandro served a thirty-year prison sentence for the murder. Upon his release, he sought Maria’s mother, Assunta, to beg for forgiveness. She forgave him, explaining that she could not withhold what Maria had already freely given him. So many feels this morning as I knelt close to St. Maria’s remains!

How could Alessandro face Assunta? How could Assunta offer her forgiveness? It is, for me, the action of the Divine Mercy, Christ Himself, who forgives us and asks us to do the same.

A growing devotion to the Divine Mercy in recent years, a visit to Cuba and meeting Pope Francis, Missionary of Mercy, and now, venerating the relics of St Maria Goretti, on this Pilgrimage of Mercy, well…I am certain that I will be entering into the Year of Mercy with an open heart.

Read her entire story, including the amazing account of how both her mother, Assunta, and her assailant, Alessandro, attended her canonization: Pilgrimage of Mercy: St. Maria Goretti.

If you have a chance to visit this moving display, you owe it to yourself to go. If it didn’t come to your town or you missed it, I’d like to offer one of my readers the pair of holy cards distributed at the church. One card is a prayer for Alessandro Serenelli, and was touched to the letter he wrote to the world. The other card, of St. Maria Goretti, has a prayer and was touched to her relics, making it a third class relic.

Leave a comment if you’d like a chance to receive this lovely reminder of the gift of mercy. I’ll select the recipient on November 2nd with a random drawing.

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Featured Saint: Rose of Lima

St. Rose of Lima medalI have recently developed a special devotion to St. Rose of Lima. I feel like she picked me, instead of the other way around.

At the recent Edel Gathering in Charleston, I happened to have her assigned to me as my hall pass and conference patron. There’s a more complicated story about that. I’ll share it another time, but suffice to say, she’s my girl now.

Coincidentally, or God-incidentally, she’s also featured in my very favorite chapter of My Badass Book of Saints.

Because I grew up Catholic and attended Catholic schools, I knew of St. Rose in that way that most kids get to know saints — there was probably a statue of her somewhere, most likely in the convent or a classroom, and if she wasn’t a martyr with some fantastic tale of a beheading, then that’s about where the story ended for me.

I’m desperately trying to make up for lost time when it comes to familiarizing myself with the lives of extraordinary men and especially women whose holy lives inspire me to grow in sanctity — one story at a time.

St. Rose, the story goes, was so beautiful that she cut off her hair and rubbed pepper all over her face in order to repel suitors.

That got my attention.

She consecrated her virginity to Christ, in spite of her father’s opposition. He wanted her to marry and blocked her from becoming a nun. He finally gave in to her, and allowed her to pursue an ascetic life, retired to her rooms.

Although she never became a nun, she did enter The Third Order St. Dominic and served the poor and sick in her community. I liked her for serving the poor, something that pulls at my heart, too.

“The gift of grace increases as the struggle increases.” -St. Rose of Lima

But her care for the sick drew me in. I started reading about St. Rose at about the same time my father’s cancer took a bad turn, and the more I read about her, the more I began to see the beauty in his caregivers, starting first with my mother but also in the loving selflessness of nurses and other health professionals.

As I learn to accept and go with the flow in my own husband’s illness, I take great solace in knowing I have in St. Rose a companion and prayer partner. That I continue to encounter her in odd moments, whether in a chapel, or like at Edel, in a medal picked out for me by someone else, tells me she has taken an interest in me.

Blows my mind a little, but why not? You can’t beat having a Saint want to befriend you, now, can you? Takes spiritual friendship to a new level. And grace.

 

 

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Featured Saint: Ignatius of Loyola

Ignatius

A soldier and swordsman, Ignatius of Loyola’s Spanish name, Iñigo, always reminds me of another swordsman…you know who I’m talking about, Princess Bride fans.

It’s not such a wild connection. The fictional Iñigo was an orphan who dedicated himself to a life wielding the sword. Ignatius was not very far removed from the same thing. He was destined to serve in the King’s court, and as such lived a life of privilege that led to womanizing and lawless behavior.

When he was severely wounded in battle, his leg crushed by a cannonball, he retired to a long and painful recovery. Bored and unable to move, he had no other entertainment but to read lives of saints. This proved to be a turning point for him as Ignatius began to see himself, not as a servant of the king, but a servant of the true God.

He kept extensive notes during this conversion, documenting mostly long periods of contemplation and pondering. This notebook eventually became what we know to be the Spiritual Exercises. Although Ignatius dreamt of adventure and leading great conversion in the Holy Land, he was sent back to Europe to study, in what was a humbling experience. He was a grown man and found himself reviewing and preparing his studies with children. Still, he persisted, and eventually earned a master’s degree. While studying in Paris, he formed a group of friends who moved through those spiritual exercises that Ignatius had developed.

Initially intent upon being missionaries, the men recognized that the companionship they had was bound by their companionship with Christ. They abandoned ideas of going abroad, and decided, instead, to remain and form a religious order which they called Society of Jesus.

Today, we know them as the Jesuits.

Happy memorial of St. Ignatius Loyola.

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