Posted on 10/13/2015 6:17:12 AM PDT by marshmallow
Welcomed by crowds of teary-eyed faithful, the remains of St. Maria Goretti, the youngest saint canonized by the Roman Catholic Church, arrived in Chicago at dawn Monday, with law enforcement officers serving as pallbearers for the young saint's glass casket.
"Just to see that moment of her convoy pulling up and to see people's reactions to that, really ecstatic. I think words like 'awe,' 'amazement' and 'beauty' best describe what people were experiencing at that moment," said the Rev. Joshua Caswell, a member of the Canons Regular, the religious order that runs St. John Cantius, 825 N. Carpenter St.
Revered as a model of mercy, St. Maria Goretti, an 11-year-old Italian girl stabbed to death while resisting a sexual assault in 1902, is believed to have forgiven her killer and appeared to him later in prison as an apparition, inspiring his conversion. Her famous words: "I forgive Alessandro Serenelli ... and I want him with me in heaven forever" were on display with her Monday.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
From the stories of Christian martyrs, victims of soebarkah’s isis experiment in Iraq and Syria, there appear to many on the path to sainthood, many very young.
My Knights of Columbus Council 13966 served as her Honor Guard and carried her remains into the Cathedral in Boston last week. We received 3rd Degree relics of her. It was quite an experience.
Yes, I’m sure it was. Very inspirational.
She was in Merchantville, NJ last Wednesday, 10-7. I took my counted cross stitch piece (just finished) of Our Lady of Guadalupe with me, pressed it against the glass, and now I have a 3rd class Relic. There’s also a very good movie of her life available on Netflix that I saw a couple of years ago, titled “Maria Goretti”.
I wish I were there. #3599-4th
If I recall correctly, the cathedral is in Nettuno, which is near Anzio, where the allies landed in WW11.
I learned her story and never forgot it....very touching.
Idol worship
I’m sure she was a sweet girl. Tragic story. Really. Not quite as tragic as the superstition and idolatry surrounding her today. All Christians are called to be saints. “You shall all be called brethren.” No one should be called father, except Our Father in Heaven. Praying to saints is Anti-Christian. “There is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus” — Paul the Apostle
I went to visit her in Chicago yesterday. I no more worshipped her than the dead at wakes and funerals I go to.
I don’t understand how one can slander Catholics like this. We clearly do not consider her God, and we clearly do not worship her.
Wow, amazing that you can make such a curt remark on a story of an 11 year old girl, who resisted a rape, and was killed for this. Yet before she died, she forgave her murderer, saying she hoped he would be with her in Heaven someday. Then later, he repented of his crime.
If you think that remembering this story and striving to have the chastity and forgiveness that she had is tragic, superstition, and idolatry, then perhaps you have your priorities wrong.
We honor, not worship, people like Ronald Reagan, so why not honor someone else who clearly lived heroically?
Thank you for posting this. Being there yesterday was truly amazing. They estimated that they could have as many as 20,000 people see her at St. John Cantius church in the 24 hours that she was there. And when I left I saw there was a line that stretched well around the block, and that was only the people who arrived after 7:30 PM Mass, for everyone at Mass got to see her first and waited inside.
The thing that is so hard for me to understand is the magnitude of the forgiveness she gave her murderer. Dying from her wounds, she expressed that she wished for him to make it to Heaven. Were the same to happen to me I would probably wish for him to go to the other place.
And to think, she was only eleven!
A pleasant interlude to the Synod shenanigans.....
Sancta Maria Goretti, ora pro nobis.
Nothing negative on the young lady. Praying to saints and ‘revering’ their remains is idolatry and giving to humans glory that belongs only to God is sinful. You ignored the meat of my post and grabbed a bone to attack the messenger since you couldn’t argue with the message.
Yes, you are certainly right about that. The temptation here of FreeRepublic is to despair, make personal attacks, and so on, as if that will help the synod.
Instead of panicking over the synod, Catholics should do something productive.
Actually you brought up various things, and I really did not feel like addressing them all, nor did I have the obligation.
But I will now respond anyway.
Praying is just asking. The phrase, “I pray thee,” is just another term for asking. Shakespeare used this phrase multiple times, meaning “to ask.” He also used another version “prithee,” which came from “pray thee.”
To ask someone whether on Heaven or on earth is not idol worship. The various prayers addressed to saints are all petitions where we ask the saint for something. (Yes, Jesus is our Mediator, yet He asked us to pray to God the Father.) Now I cannot prove by reason alone that the saints hear our prayers, just that it is not idolatry.
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