Flowers

Perhaps, God is asking for my example so that the person who offends me can receive it as the bouquet of flowers that Saint Maria Goretti offered to Alessandro? 

Saint Maria Goretti (Photograph)

Gosh it is easy for us to hang onto resentment.  At least, it is certainly easy for me to do this…

It is a very self-fulfilling thing to consider the hurts that someone has done to me and to nurse those hurts and constantly remind myself about them so that I can never get myself to a place where I can forgive and forget.  And I can make any list of excuses for why this is acceptable.  I can say to myself that someone caused me some hurt or someone acted badly towards me.  I can say that a person did an unforgiveable thing.  But all of these excuses are simply temptations.  And I know this for two reasons.  Firstly, God forgave every sin – even His own torture and death on the Cross (so there is actually no sin at all that could be greater than that committed to me that I could not forgive).  And, secondly, the Saints have set an example of forgiveness that I have a responsibility to follow…

Saint Maria Goretti was a well developed twelve year old child when an eighteen year old boy from her village tried to rape her.  As she fought him off, he stabbed her multiple times and she died a day later of the injuries sustained.  Alessandro – the eighteen year old – was arrested and sentenced to thirty years on gaol.  He served twenty-seven years for the crime that he committed.  And yet – before her death – that little Saint forgave her murderer.  Even despite this forgiveness and the loss of her life, Alessandro spent many many years in prison completely unrepentant for the crime that he had committed.  Then, one night, he had a vision (or dream) of Saint Maria Goretti, where she offered him a bouquet of flowers.  That night he understood the gift of forgiveness and his life changed.

When he was sixty-six years old Saint Maria Goretti was canonised and Alessandro attended that canonisation in Rome along with a quarter of a million other people (and the Saint’s own mother, who was eighty-five years old, and her siblings).

And I have been reflecting on that example of faith.  In modern times with victim-shaming being a serious consideration, people can become lost in this story; however, I wonder if the example of Saint Maria Goretti was not for her own sanctification, but rather to save the soul of Alessandro…  After all, a girl who could forgive such a heinous crime – even despite her attacker showing no remorse – would likely have lived a very holy life all her life.  She would likely have become a Saint under any circumstances.  However, the fact that Alessandro required the Saintly intervention of Saint Maria Goretti to convert is perhaps the most important part of that story.  Perhaps that Saint was a martyr for HIS redemption…

And this makes me think that perhaps I am asked to be a martyr to the redemption of every single person who has hurt or offended me.  Perhaps, God is asking for my example so that the person who offends me can receive it as the bouquet of flowers that Saint Maria Goretti offered to Alessandro?  Perhaps that the point of the entire exercise…?

For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.