Category Archives: Penance and Reconciliation

Divine Mercy and our Youngest Canonized Saint – by Deacon Marty McIndoe

Church, Divine Mercy, Penance and Reconciliation, Saints, Spirituality

StMariaGorettiJPIISt. Pope John Paul II visits the remains of St. Maria Goretti in 1979

Maria Goretti was born on October 16th, 1890 in Italy.  She came from a very poor family that struggled to make ends meet.  Her father died when Maria was nine years old leaving her mother and siblings to tend the farm so that they could live.  Maria stayed home and watched the youngest child as the others worked.  Even though it was a difficult life for all of them, they were faith filled people.

A young man, Alessandro Serenelli, was a neighbor and he began make sexual advances towards young Maria.  She kept putting him off telling him that it would be a mortal sin and that she would have nothing to do with his sexual advances.  Finally, after several months of this, he attacked her forcibly trying to rape her.  This little eleven year old girl fought off this 20 year old large boy.  He finally told her that he would kill her if she didn’t give him what he wanted.  She told him that she would rather die than commit this terrible sin.  Alessandro tried strangling her and she fought him and he then stabbed her eleven times.  When she then tried to make it to the door, he stabbed her another three times.  The youngest child in the house began screaming and Alessandro ran away.

When Maria’s siblings and mother got to her, she was still alive.  They immediately took her to the hospital, but the damage was so severe that they were not able to help her.  The doctor working on her said to her, “Maria, think of me in paradise”.  She responded, “I will think of you gladly.”   The next day, Maria told her mother that she forgave Alessandro and wanted to see him in heaven with her.  Shortly after, Maria died while holding a crucifix and staring at an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Alessandro was arrested shortly after the incident.  He not only admitted the attempted rape and murder, but also said that he had been trying to seduce her for quite some time.  Because of his age he was sentenced to thirty years in prison, instead of life imprisonment.  A priest came to visit him in prison and Alessandro went in to a rage and began howling and lunging for the priest.  After that, Alessandro hardly ate and was nervous and filled with despair.  It was then that Maria appeared to him in a vision and told him that she forgave him.  She was surrounded by lilies, the flower symbolic of purity.  From that moment on, Alessandro was a changed man.  Real peace entered his heart and he was an ideal prisoner.  After serving his thirty year sentence, Alessandro went to a Franciscan Monastery and they accepted him as a lay brother.  He went to visit Maria’s mother to ask her forgiveness.  Marie’s mother said that if her daughter could forgive him, she would also.  They actually attended Christmas mass together in the local parish church and Alessandro spoke before the people acknowledging his sin and asking for God’s forgiveness and the pardon of the community.

Forty years later, on June 24, 1950, Maria was canonized in St. Peter’s basilica in Rome.  Alessandro, now firmly converted to the Lord, attended the canonization.   He died on May 6, 1970 in the Capuchin convent of Macerata.  A few years before that, Alessandro wrote that Maria was sent to him to guide and save him.  He said that her words of both rebuke and forgiveness were etched in his heart.  He called Maria his light, and his protectress and he anxiously awaited seeing her and her mother in heaven.

Maria is considered a virgin and a martyr because she gave up her life to keep God’s commandments.  I think that her outpouring of mercy and deep care for the one who offended her show us a glimpse of the Divine Mercy that God pours out on us.  For an eleven year old, she accomplished so much.   God’s Divine Mercy triumphs in His Saints.

 

As We Forgive Those Who Trespass Against Us – by A.J. Avila

Healing, Penance and Reconciliation, Spirituality

forgiveness-for-blog

I stared at the computer screen. According to Facebook, my eighth grade teacher, Sister Ann (not her real name), had died at the age of 99.

Former students posted about what a wonderful teacher she had been, what a sweet person she was.

Which she was—to everybody except me.

In about the fourth grade, I began being bullied by some of the other girls in my class.

I couldn’t figure out what had caused this shift in attitude. We were still the same girls as before, weren’t we? Yet, all of a sudden they called me stupid and ugly. Despite my prowess with a basketball, I was always the last chosen for a team—and even then the team captains argued over who had to take me.

Of course my athletic skill had nothing to do with it. It was all about popularity, and it was made abundantly clear that I was at the bottom of the pecking order.

That was difficult enough, but in the eighth grade, Sister Ann joined in the bullying.

I don’t know what it was about me that set Sister off. Maybe I reminded her of someone who had done her wrong in her past. Maybe it was because she’d had my older sister as a student a few years before, and Sis could be quite a handful.

Whatever the reason, she would scream at me, her face red and her body trembling with anger, over something as trivial as a book cover. I could get into trouble for the horrible crime of saying “Excuse me, Sister” when I wanted to ask her a question.

I could not talk to my mother about this. She had already told me the bullying from the other girls was my fault. “You must have done something,” she said. But for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what I had done to invite such animosity.

[SIDENOTE: After graduation I did find out the reason. From overhearing three of the girls talking about me behind my back, I discovered—to my utter shock—that they hated me because they thought I was prettier than they were. I understand now why envy is one of the Deadly Sins. It’s toxic. It’s the one sin that, as Dr. Peter Kreeft puts it, doesn’t even make you happy while you’re committing it.]

There was no way I could tell my mother that a teacher, a nun!, was doing this to me. Most likely she wouldn’t believe me, and even if she did, I would get blamed.

So I suffered in silence.

Eventually graduation rolled around, and I was released from the abuse. By that time my self-esteem had dropped to near zero. The pain followed me into adulthood.

It didn’t take much to trigger the anguish and an abundance of tears. Just seeing a photo or hearing a song from that time period could set me off. It wasn’t an everyday occurrence, but about once a year again the tears would flow.

“It was so long ago,” my husband said. “Why can’t you get over it?”

That was a good question. Why couldn’t I? I knew I had to forgive Sister Ann and my other tormentors, so I did. I forgave them again and again. And again. And again. And yet again.

Why did it still hurt so much?

Then one day I discovered a way to let go. I was in pain, wasn’t I? What are you, as a Catholic, supposed to do with your pain?

You’re supposed to offer it up.

And then, like a light bulb brightening over my head, it occurred to me to offer up my pain for the souls of my tormentors.

When you think about it, this is what Jesus did for us on the cross. Those were my sins that crucified Him, yet He offered up his agony for the sake of my soul.

This kind of forgiveness didn’t make the pain stop immediately. But it did diminish it. Every time the anguish returned, I offered up the pain for my abusers. And every time I did that, the pain lessened.

So now, there I was, staring at Facebook. Sister Ann had died.

“My all-time favorite teacher!” one poster gushed.

If anything was going to evoke another crying fit, this was it.

And I did feel pain. But it was just a twinge.

What kind of comment could I leave? “Praying for the repose of her soul,” I typed.

In every Our Father, we recite, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” It is my fervent prayer that God forgives me the cruelties I’ve inflicted on others the same way I’ve learned to forgive those who inflicted them on me.

Visit A.J. Avila at her website: https://reflections911.wordpress.com/author/ajavilanovels/

Door A or Door B by A.J. Avila

Church, Divine Mercy, Morality, Penance and Reconciliation, Uncategorized

doors-for-blog

When I was growing up, there was a game show on television called Let’s Make a Deal. The host, Monty Hall, would give members of the studio audience the opportunity to swap one prize for a different, unknown prize inside a box or behind a curtain. Sometimes the recipient got a better deal by making the trade. Sometimes not.

Of course, if you could see beforehand what was in the box or behind the curtain, you would know whether or not making the trade was a good idea.

I was reminded of this when considering something St. Faustina said in her Diary. She describes being led by an angel into Hell itself. The images she paints of the torments there are staggering. (Diary, 741)

I was more shocked, though, by what she said at the end of it all.

She said she would rather undergo incredible agonies and the greatest sufferings until the end of the world than offend God by the least sin.

So let me get this straight. You have two doors, and you have to choose one of them. Behind Door A is incredible pain and suffering until the Second Coming. Behind Door B is stealing a cookie.

And she’s saying she would choose Door A. Because, apparently, that’s the better deal.

What’s difficult to accept is that she’s right.

We all have a tendency to downplay sin, especially venial sin. Well, yeah, I told a lie, but it’s not like it was a big lie. Not like lying on the witness stand or something. It was just fudging a bit on my taxes. It was just claiming the light was green instead of red when I entered the intersection. No big deal, right? Sheesh, it’s not like I’m Hitler or something!

When we start comparing ourselves to Hitler instead of the Person we should be comparing ourselves to (namely, Jesus), we’ve lost sight of just how diabolical sin is. God is infinitely greater than the universe, and I, little mote of dust that I am, sinned against That? Against Utter Perfection? Against Grace?

That’s exactly what I’ve done. And that’s exactly what Jesus went to the Cross for.

See how much my sins cost? How can sins paid for by such a great price be considered “little”?

That’s why, despite what I’ve heard out of the mouths of a couple of priests, there’s no such thing as a “little sin.” Yes, some are incredibly bigger than others, so big, in fact, that they destroy God’s grace in our souls. But none of them are small.

And that’s also why God wiping them out is such an incredible act of mercy.

 

Visit author, A.J. Avila at her blog at https://reflections911.wordpress.com/