Optional Memorial of Saint Maria Goretti, virgin and martyr

Lectionary: 385

“Sow for yourselves justice,
reap the fruit of piety;
break up for yourselves a new field,
for it is time to seek the LORD,
till he come and rain down justice upon you.”

Although the Lord is certainly not replacing the Jewish covenant with a gentile religion, he is breaking up a new field as he names twelve apostles. The number recalls the twelve tribes of Israel's (Jacob's) sons. Their descendants will be born of Baptism and the Holy Spirit rather than of lineal descent. 

Repentance is necessarily a new beginning, a complete starting over. It is conceived as the Lord was conceived in the womb of the Virgin, from the seed which God implants. It is not an adjustment, a rearranging of old furniture, nor even a return to old ways. 

By Baptism we experience a new birth in the Spirit unlike the old birth of the flesh. Theologically it is described as ontological; that is, one's being is transformed. We become supernaturally children of God, and are no longer children of simple human descent. Our parents are godparents, that is those who foster our faith. They may be the same biological parents, but in many cases that is not so. 

On this feast of Saint Maria Goretti, we can compare the natural life and the supernatural life in sexual terms. The Italian girl died in 1902, a first martyr of an extraordinarily violent century. Refusing to indulge the sexual appetite of an older boy, she was raped and murdered even as she begged God and her assailant for mercy. He wanted what appears to many as natural while she clung to her supernatural relationship with God. 

Of course, we recognize her assailant's desire as unnatural because it was not inspired by the love of God. Human life without the theological gifts of faith, hope, and love is empty and meaningless. It may become savagely bestial, especially when subjected to the enslavement of a consumer economy that celebrates its animal desire and denigrates its aspiration to divinity. Because it does not hear or heed the Gospel, it is a futile way of life; it's only hope is that there is no eternal life where it might suffer an unendurable existence. 

By Baptism we learn of our supernatural calling and by Communion (Eucharist) in the Church we are guided to that Satisfaction that longs for more as it follows the Way of the Spirit. We have an infinite capacity for the infinite grace of God and are satisfied only with the promise of more and deeper communion. This is a pleasure our animal desire cannot imagine or conceive. It can only eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die. 

Saint Maria Goretti, though only a child, demonstrated the wisdom of an ancient church. She chose the better part as she waited for God's mercy. We pray that God will inspire us with her courage, especially as we can see that a consumer economy has become only more demanding, irrational, and violent since she died.