July 6: Saint Maria Goretti, martyr for purity
She was stabbed while resisting the impure advances of a young man. What better way is there to enter heaven than resisting lust! Saint Tancha was killed in 620 for the same reason.
Let us look a bit at the man who killed St. Maria Goretti. When very young, Allesandro's mother tried to drown him in a well. From this Allesandro became a teenage delinquent. Let us hear his own words: After my mother attempted to take my life, they locked her up. I loved my mother. She was a very good woman. I missed her terribly. That was the beginning of all my troubles. His being raised without a mother may have been part of the cause of St. Maria's death. We should learn from this two things. First never to be a bad parent and the second is the evil of premarital relations. Children need both parents. If God takes a parent by death, He can supply what is missing; if a parent takes himself or herself away through sin, then this sin may be visited upon the children.
PRAYER: Saint Maria, you were an innocent victim of an abused child. Protect all from child abuse, which is so rampant today that scarcely a child is not abused in some manner today. Amen.
