From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   How we should live here and now   
      
      As a preparation for our life after the resurrection, our Lord   
   tells us in the gospel how we should live here and now. He teaches us   
   to be peaceable, long-suffering, undefiled by desire for pleasure, and   
   detached from worldly wealth. In this way we can achieve, by our own   
   free choice, the kind of life that will be natural in the world to   
   come.   
      Through the Holy Spirit we are restored to paradise, we ascend to   
   the kingdom of heaven, and we are reinstated as adopted children.   
   Thanks to the Spirit we obtain the right to call God our Father, we   
   become sharers in the grace of Christ, we are called children of   
   light, and we share in everlasting glory. In a word, every blessing is   
   showered upon us, both in this world and in the world to come. As we   
   contemplate them even now, like a reflection in a mirror, it is as   
   though we already possessed the good things our faith tells us that we   
   shall one day enjoy. If this is the pledge, what will the perfection   
   be? If these are the first fruits, what will the full harvest be?   
   --St. Basil the Great   
      
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   July 6th - Saint Maria Goretti, Virgin and Martyr   
   (1890-1902)   
      
   This little Italian girl, who before reaching the age of twelve was   
   slain for having preferred death to sin, was beatified and canonized   
   before fifty years had passed. Saint Maria Goretti, born in October,   
   1890 in the small hilltop village of Corinaldo near Ancône, was the   
   second of the six living children of a very pious poor family. Her   
   mother consecrated the infant to the Blessed Virgin on the day of her   
   baptism. Her courageous parents labored under the sign of Christian   
   poverty to support the children, but by 1896 their little plot of land   
   proved insufficient to feed the growing family. The father decided   
   they would move down to the plains of Rome, where it was said that   
   fertile farm land could be rented at low cost. The move to Ferriere di   
   Conca, near Nettuno, proved fatal to the good Luigi, who after only   
   four years, exhausted by the unhealthy climate, the heavy heat and his   
   hard labor, died a Christian death.   
      
   His courageous widow could not follow his dying admonition to return   
   to Corinaldo, since their contract obliged her to pay what she owed to   
   their employer. Maria, nine years old and deeply affected by her   
   father’s death, seconded her mother’s labor in the fields by taking   
   over the care of her four younger brothers and sisters. She was an   
   angelic child whose piety was observed by all who knew her. Her fervor   
   won her the grace to make her First Communion, as she begged to do,   
   with the other children. When she asked that permission, her mother   
   told her she did not know how to read or write, and they did not have   
   the means to buy the shoes, robe, and veil she would need. Maria   
   replied that in the town a lady who knew how to read would teach her,   
   and on Sundays she could go to a village where the priest taught   
   catechism to all the children, and she was sure that God in His   
   providence would care for her material needs. She was right; she   
   passed the questioning session by the Archpriest of Nettuno with   
   honors, and kind benefactors gave what she needed.   
      
   Living conditions for the little family of orphans were very   
   difficult; they shared a kitchen with another family. This other one   
   was motherless: the mother had died in an asylum, and the father was a   
   drunkard. His son, 19 years old, began to pay much attention to Maria,   
   and the little girl, who wished to remain pure for her beloved Jesus,   
   begged her mother never to leave her alone. But one day in the torrid   
   heat of summer, while Maria watched her baby sister and prepared the   
   meal, Alessandro left the field where everyone was working and went to   
   the house with evil intentions. No one heard Maria’s cries for help;   
   it was only an hour or so later that a younger brother of Alessandro   
   entered and found her bathed in her blood on the floor. Her love of   
   purity had cost her fourteen grievous wounds, nine of which were very   
   profound. She lived long enough to tell the priest who came to her in   
   the hospital that she forgave her assassin and wanted him to be with   
   her in Paradise. She received the Last Sacraments in peace and joy,   
   dying on July 6, 1902.   
      
   The story did not end there. Alessandro was condemned to thirty years   
   of prison. Gruff and totally impenitent, he was mistrusted by the   
   guardians. But the bishop of the diocese, Monsignor Blandini, wanted   
   to save his soul, and went to the prison, asking to talk with him. “My   
   son,” he said, “your bishop wants to greet you and comfort you.” “I   
   didn’t ask for your visit, and I don’t need comfort or your sermons,”   
   was the reply. But when the prelate told Alessandro how, during her   
   last minutes, Marietta had forgiven him and wished to have him near   
   her in heaven, the nonchalant young man was overcome. “That is not   
   possible!” he exclaimed. Before the bishop left, Alessandro had fallen   
   into his arms, weeping; and in the hours of solitude which followed,   
   he began to pray. Three years before the end of his term, for his good   
   behavior he was set free, and in 1937, at the age of 55, he went to   
   see the mother of the little victim. When he fell on his knees and   
   begged her pardon, like her little daughter she gladly forgave him.   
   They went to Communion in the little village church at Christmas; and   
   there was no inhabitant who did not rejoice with a Christian joy in   
   this new proof of the sanctity of Maria, to whom they all attributed   
   his wondrous conversion. Pope Pius XII beatified the new Saint Agnes   
   in April 1947, and in June of 1950, she was inscribed among the   
   Saints.   
      
   Source: Sainte Marie Goretti, Vierge et Martyre, by Fr. M.-Ludovic   
   Bastyns, Marist (Éditions Marie-Médiatrice: Chateau-Richer, Québec,   
   1964).   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   "I have always something to repent for after having talked, but have   
   never been sorry for having been silent."   
   --St. Arsanius the Great, The Tutor of the Emperor's Children.   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own   
   selves. For if a man be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he shall   
   be compared to a man beholding his own  countenance in a glass. For he   
   beheld himself, and went his way, and presently forgot what manner of   
   man he was.  (James 1:22-24)   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   What Holy Communion can do and why It doesn't. Whom shall we believe?   
      
   11. St. Francis de Sales (Doctor, 1567-1622) - "Practical   
   Piety",(Burns & Lambert, 1851, p. 253 & p.251)   
      
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)