St. Maria Goretti (1890-1902)
(Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year A; This homily was given on July 19, 2020 in Rome, Italy; See Matthew 13:24-43)
Our Gospel for this weekend touches upon the question of evil. Theology sometimes refers to it as the scandal of evil, because it is a reality that causes many to stumble in their faith and to become confused in their relationship with God. The Catechism of the Catholic Church insists that there is no quick answer or facile solution to this question. Instead, it provides a more comprehensive and even expansive explanation, one that includes the entire story of creation, the fall, redemption and the final judgment:
Only Christian faith as a whole constitutes the answer to this question: the goodness of creation, the drama of sin, and the patient love of God who comes to meet man by his covenants, the redemptive Incarnation of his Son, the gift of the Spirit, his gathering of the Church, the power of the sacraments, and his call to a blessed life to which free creatures are invited to consent in advance, but from which, by a terrible mystery, they can also turn away in advance.
—CCC, #309
So much for quick solutions or easy answers! Basically, the entire Christian faith is alone sufficient to answer the question of evil. Importantly, the Catechism goes on to phrase that same answer, negatively, in a manner that is even more compelling: “There is not a single aspect of the Christian message that is not in part an answer to the question of evil.”
An essential way of engaging that mystery, then, would be to avoid any immediate or hasty solutions and basically to live fully the Christian faith in the particular circumstances of one’s life. That sounds rather simple, but in fact it is a very challenging thing to do. In particular, when we encounter the crosses of life or experience the question of evil in a particularly painful way, it requires faith and trust in God and dependency upon His amazing grace.
The Church gives us a remarkable example of this response in the life and canonization of St. Maria Goretti. Maria was born in Ancona, here in Italy, in 1890. The Goretti’s eventually moved to Nettuno where they shared a house with Giovanni Serenelli and his son, Alessandro. The arrangement allowed both families to share the expenses while maintaining together the farm connected to their property.
Alessandro, although 8 years older than Maria, developed a sinful desire for her and harassed her often with his unwanted sexual advances. Seeing her alone one day, he threatened her with violence if she did not give in to him. Maria outrightly refused, insisting, “It is a sin, and God doesn’t want it.” She also insisted that this sin would destroy him, and he would go to hell. In a rage, Alessandro turned on her and stabbed her multiple times, leaving her for dead.
Finding Maria bleeding to death on the floor of the house, the family brought her to the hospital where they operated on her without anaesthesia. At one point, when asked about Alessandro, she replied, “I forgive him out of love for Jesus. I want Alessandro to join me in heaven.” Maria died the next day. She was eleven years old.
Although Alessandro was convicted and sentenced to thirty years in prison, he remained impenitent. Far from showing any signs of remorse, he was menacing to the guards that watched over him. One evening, about six years after he entered the prison, Alessandro had a dream where Maria appeared to him and offered him a bouquet of lilies. Receiving those flowers, which are traditionally a symbol of purity, they immediately burst into flames and turned to ashes in his hands. When he awoke, his life began to change completely and he took responsibility for what he had done.
After 27 years, Alessandro was released from prison and he sought out Maria’s mother, Assunta, to beg her for forgiveness. Assunta considered how Maria, even as she lay dying, had forgiven Alessandro. She made the challenging decision to follow that same example. It was Christmas Eve, 1937. Not only did Assunta forgive him, but she also attended Midnight Mass with Alessandro, and the two knelt side-by-side at the communion rail to receive the Blessed Sacrament.
In 1950 Pope Pius XII Canonized St. Maria Goretti, at that time one of the largest canonization celebrations in the history of the Church. Both Assunta and Alessandro were present. Alessandro entered a Franciscan monastery after his imprisonment, and spent the rest of his life caring for the garden there and seeking to devote himself to the Christian faith. He certainly would have been told about St. Maria Goretti’s dying words, “I forgive him out of love for Jesus. I want Alessandro to join me in heaven,” and he spent the rest of his life seeking to make her desire a reality.
In the Gospel of Matthew this weekend, we listen to the “Parable of the Weeds and Wheat.” The servants of the field go to the owner, recognizing that there are weeds in the midst of the wheat that he had sowed. The owner responds, “An enemy has done this.” The servants are all too eager, of course, to solve that problem immediately:
'Do you want us to go and pull them up?' He replied, 'No, if you pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them. Let them grow together until harvest.
—Mathew 13:28-30
The owner goes on to say that the harvesters will do the sifting at the harvest time, and they will separate the weeds from the wheat. Later, in the interpretation of that parable, Jesus indicates that the harvesters are the angels.
Imagine, for a moment, if the angels did not have the chance to sift through the life of Alessandro Serenelli because those around him already did it for them! It would have been very easy, and perhaps would have even seemed just, if he had been condemned and forgotten in those years following the death of St. Maria. How much patience and forgiveness did Assunta have to have to remain steadfast in her own faith, and then to forgive the man that had taken away her daughter? How many others had looked upon Alessandro simply as a monster, and not a man worthy of life? Yet the drama of the Christian faith, in all its many facets, was being lived out in the circumstances that unfolded. It is no different in the drama of our own lives.
In his inaugural homily in April 2005, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI reflected on the mystery of evil and our need for patience when we encounter the trials of life. He spoke of how painful it can be to endure the misfortunes of evil, and how tempting it is for us to seek quick solutions:
In his inaugural homily in April 2005, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI reflected on the mystery of evil and our need for patience when we encounter the trials of life. He spoke of how painful it can be to endure the misfortunes of evil, and how tempting it is for us to seek quick solutions:
“How often we wish that God would show himself stronger, that he would strike decisively, defeating evil and creating a better world. All ideologies of power justify themselves in exactly this way, they justify the destruction of whatever would stand in the way of progress and the liberation of humanity. We suffer on account of God’s patience.
And yet, we need his patience. God, who became a lamb, tells us that the world is saved by the Crucified One, not by those who crucified him. The world is redeemed by the patience of God. It is destroyed by the impatience of man.”
Here at this altar, we draw near to Jesus, the lamb of God, who comes to take away the sins of the world. We come to receive Him, and ask for the grace to enter more deeply into the patience of God. May our lives, united to Christ in the power of the Eucharist, continue to be a living witness to God’s response to the problem of evil.
