The Heroic Child Martyr: Maria Goretti

I find the feast of Maria Goretti deeply disturbing; born in 1890, killed in 1902, beatified in 1947, canonised in 1950, her story is really one of child abuse and the pre-Concilliar Church's response to it.
She was killed at the age of twelve, it seems as if there had been previous attacks on her which she had resisted. Sexual attacks on children are as ancient as humanity, the subtext of her Canonisation is that the preparation and investigation of her cause happened during the WWII, a time when so many children suffered a similar fate to St Maria.
The Church has never patronised children, this under nourished twelve year old is celebrated with the same rites as some ancient nun who suffered martyrdom. Its expectation is that faith in Christ demands heroic resistance to evil, even from children. Its expectation is that faith demands that parents should teach their children how to live and even die for Christ.
The photograph of Maria's mother at her canonisation and the presence of her repentant attacker Allessandro Serenelli speak poignantly about forgiveness and conversion, the flowers of innocence blood shed in Jesus Christ.




Her feast as a 'virgin martyr' reminds us that other children have followed the same fate, when I visit St Agnes in Rome the smallness and fragility of this Roman virgin martyr skull is a reminder that so many of those we honour under this heading were in fact little girls with heroic faith.



May their example and prayers encourage us to strive against the evils that attack the innocent, especially our children.

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Chant Forum at Quarr

Clare our director of music has just returned from the Chant Forum at Quarr Abbey (and St Cecelia's?) on the Isle of Wight
read her account here.

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Both Popes appear today

Video
On the day their joint encyclical was issued both Pope Francis and the Pope Emeritus appeared, the occasion was the blessing of a statue of St Michael.

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Lumen Fidei

The Text of Lumen Fidei is available here

The joint work of Popes Francis and Benedict which was released this morning.
After a quick read, it is beautiful.
It is Benedictine for the most part.

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Gender Neutral Husbands and Wives

Her Majesty's Government have decided that the terms husband and wife may be either male or female.
It is all part of the legislation to prepare for the redefinition of marriage, Mr Cameron's terrifying untried experiment.

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Flowers from Thorns

I like "spiritual bouquets", I remember the one I got for my ordination in 1984 which had something like a hundred plus Rosaries, one person promised to go, or had been, to Benediction 33 times. There were a few  promises to fast too and a large number of Communions offered for me but the most pleasing thing was that there were quite a few people who promised to go to Sunday Mass for me and a dozen or so 'spiritual communions' but the vast majority were prayers that could be said at home.

The thing was that someone had gone out to gather these 'flowers', to encourage people to pray for me. The pledges of 'Sunday Masses' were from people who were normally lapsed, who were encouraged to make the effort to go to Mass for me, the 'spiritual communions' were from the divorced and remarried who were unable to offer actual communions. I was ordained in what was then one of the most liberal parishes in the diocese. Half the Parish Council seemed to write for the Tablet. The contributors to the bouquet were not from the middle class members of the parish but from the 'peripheries' the people of the two large estates of people who hardly ever set foot in their own parish church, who found its religion had moved on from them - Joe Shaw has an interesting post on the loss of the working classes. I had spent the month or so before my ordination visiting and inviting people to my ordination, not with much success, most had lapsed in the previous 15 years but some good soul had followed me around, picking flowers from thorns.

Pope Francis was a bit 'sniffey' recently when a trad group gave him a spiritual bouquet of 3,525 rosaries, he called it 'Pelagian', I suppose it could have been but I would prefer to think of it as being an act of evangelisation, a way of getting people to pray or make sacrifices and also to get people to catechise people in prayer. In Seoul at the moment there is a campaign to get people to pray for the Canonisation of "Fr. Choi Yang-oeb, Paul Yun Ji-choong and his 123 companions, killed in hatred of the faith during the persecutions of the XVIII - XIX century. The purpose is to recite 100 million mysteries for each martyr, a total of 12.5 billion prayers."

That is a lot of bead counting, is it a bad thing or is it a good way of promoting devotion to the Mother of God and these holy martyrs?

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London Oratory taken to task

I was rather taken by this from the Provost of the London Oratory, it is from a letter on St Mary Magdalen, our parish's Holy Patroness: 

Recently the Oratory Fathers were taken to task at the end of a Sunday High Mass. An elegant woman marched towards the Provost through the lingering fog of incense and demanded to know what we Oratorians thought we were playing at. The causes of consternation included expensive-looking flower arrangements at the Lady Altar, vestments and golden vessels that had been spotted in the Sanctuary. Surely these extravagances were from funds that should have been given to the poor?
It was explained that the flowers were leftovers from a wedding the day before and that the silver gilt chalice and ciborium had almost certainly been picked up for a song in the 1850s when ecclesiastical Swabian rococo was not much in vogue. The vestments are thread-bear from a century and a half of use and, while still charming for their faded beauty, are too far-gone to fetch good money at auction. The dialogue ended in a slightly more serene atmosphere than it had begun and the articulate woman drove away placated in a gleaming new car which Google searches revealed to have cost £90,000.

I commend the Oratory on its "green credentials", recycling, "making do" with what is in its store rooms, and embracing poverty by wearing the threadbare, with a degree of grace and elegance.
I am not sure I would have the perspicacity to check the cost of the lady's car on Google, but it always tends to be the contented rich who say to the Church, "this could have been sold ... and the money given to the poor", then expecting the poor to pay up to fill the hole made by the hole.
How much money was paid out after the Council on refurbishments that were not called for and that impoverished the Church? And how much will have be paid to put things right? "Altar rails" and "turkeys" come to mind.

"A poorer Church", is fine but I think the Gospel seems to be encouraging a more generous Church and more generous Christians.
Picture source NLM 

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