I know in the modern calender that today ranks as a Memorial, but in the colloquial English, the English I learned, Saint's days were refered to as feasts. I'm certain that if the translators of the New American Bible can translate "flee fornication" as "avoid immorality" I can use a little linguistic license as well. And really, the two are not unrelated.
St Agnes is one of the martyrs mention in the Roman Canon--Eucharistic Prayer I in the current Roman Missal. An attempt to burn her failed, so she was either stabbed in the throat or beheaded, accounts vary. The circumstances of her martyrdom are interesting. Agnes was a lovely young woman, by all repute, and it is reported that even the pagans were disturbed to see such a lovely woman killed. That is part of why she was martyred. Agnes was what today we would call a consecrated virgin. She had given her virginity to god, consecrated her body to The Lords service. She said that she would only ever take Christ as her spouse. The son of a Roman official, named Procop,, had the hots for her (not to put to fine a point on it) and determined to make her his wife. She rebuffed him repeatedly until he denounced her as a Christian. She went to her death to keep her vow, killed in an action motivated by hatred of the faith and it's moral strictures. She as around 13. I guess the account of St. Agnes would be incomplete without mentioning tht when the powerfully placed young man found she wouldn't marry him because she had taken Christ as her spouse, she was first imprisoned in a brothel--and miraculously managed to preserve her virginity through the Angelic protection.
One of St. Agnes companions among that "Great Cloud of Witnesses" is St. Lucy. She too is mentioned in the Roman Canon. Lucy was another very pretty girl who was betrothed to a pagan groom, and refused, having taken Christ as her spouse and consecrated her virginity to the Lord. In order to derail the planned mariage, she distributed her dowry as alms to the poor. She too was martyred after being sent to a brothel. (I think this recurring theme was a form of slavery that various Roman officials inflicted upon pious Christian girls who strove to retain their virginity as consecrated to Christ--it's a recurring theme.) Her jailers were unable to transfer her there, and she told the official who sentenced her to such a life that it wouldn't matter, as any act performed on her there would be against her will, essentially being an act of theft against God. Licke St. Agnes, St. Lucy was stabbed in the throat, and like St. Agnes, she was about 13 years of age.
There is another Martyr, St. Charles Lwanga. Actually, this is a group of martyrs, for not only was St. Charles Lwanga canonized, so were his companions. Charles Lwanga was a convert to Christianity in Uganda in the 19th Century. The polity that he was in was called the Kingdom of Buganda under the rule King Mwanga. Wikipedia notes that Mwanga was killing Christians, including those at court, as part of his resistance to western influences and colonization. This account may be accurate, butit is certainly incomplete. For the dynamic of these martyrdoms was set into motion by a very simple thing, and a it's reminiscent of the Martyrdoms of St Agnes and St. Lucy. Mwanga like to rape adolescent boys, who were sent by his subjects to attend him. Charles Lwanga was a Catholic, and a Catechist who inherited the leadership of th eChristian Community a the Court of King Mwanga after the previous lay leader, Joseph Mkasa. Mkasa, was a Catolic, but was an official at court, who took King Mwanga to task for killing a Protestant missionary. The king was fed up with Mkasa's protection of youth from the raping lusts of the king, and this was the final straw,Mkasa was killed. But Charles Lwanga didn't bat an eye, he maintained the protection over the pages and attendants at court, and a frustrated King went on a killing spree, and killed the Christians at court. Had they stood silently by, and alowed the pederast to rape boys, they would have survived.
What these martyrs have in common is this--the victimization or attempted victimization of youth by those in secular authority. What we should ask their intercession for is this--our culture and society are becoming rapidly paganized, and the sexualization of youth is already occurring at high speed, and accelerating. The civil authorities are under the influence of those who would use our children. We have the NEA attempting to tech children starting in kindergarten a "sex education" curricula which flies in the face of morality, and we have GLSEN attempting to foist rules and policies that would attempt to erase gender as a meaningful concept, both of these in opposition to our Christian Faith. And they are trying very hard to use the coercive power of the state to do so. To protect our children and grandchildren we are going to have to face the fact that we will be facing the uthority of secular law arrayed against us. Already, we see a school district,which is part--although a low level part-- of the governmental machinery of our country, deciding to call opposition to Gay Adomption by students "bullying" and prohibiting speech to that effect. (Which seems to me to be bullying by the authorities against Christian students.) There are laws in some jurisdictions requiring even Church schools to implement this sort of indoctrination, and various agencies, under the guise of "protecting" young people encourage sexual activity through the distribution of condoms and other means. Planned Parenthood has been shown numerous times to cover up statutory rape in the name of "protecting girls". Even our 'Safe Schools Czar, Kevin Jennings wrote in his memoirs about facilitation the ongoing sexual abuse and exploitation of a teenage boy in the name of "protecting" his status as a gay. We have become as evil as Pagan Rome, or the Darkest episodes of Tribal Africa.
There once was a man named Alessandro Serenelli. He was doing hard time in prison for murder and assault. He had a vision of St. maria Goretti, who pressed into his hands lilies, which 'burned him like fire". Serenelli repented his sins, and whenhe finished his 30 year sentence, begged forgiveness of his victims family, and ended his days as a tertiary in a Capuchin monastery, doing menial tasks and penance. He was the man who killed St. Maria Goretti. She was another of those pretty young girls that evil seems drawn to. (If you doubt that, look around a public school, at pretty girls who have become hypersexualized, who are promiscuous, and realize most of them got that way through being introduced to sex at much too young an age, usually in circumstances that could be classed as abuse or rape.) He told her that she must do what ever he said, or he would kill her. Then he tried to have sex with her. She told him no, that it would be a mortal sin, and that if he forced her, he would go to hell. She resisted vigorously, and he killed her. It took her 20 hours to die, and part of that time included surgical work without anesthesia. She forgave Serenelli on her deathbed. St. Maria Goretti is accounted a saint and a martyr by the Church, and was canonized in 1947, 45 years after her death. Serenelli testified in prison that he did not complete his assault and she died a virgin. At twelve years old, she is one of the youngest Saints canonized by the Church. The true miracle, the one she worked that impresses me most, is the conversion of Alessandro Serenelli, and it proves something. it proves that our drive to sexualize youth and Children can be reversed, that the hearts and minds of people who think it best to allow and encourage sex to become the driving force in our society can be changed.
They will be changed though, only through the blood and prayers of martyrs, who will suffer imprisonment and death for the Truth of the Faith, that we are created in God's own image, and that gives us an intrinsic dignity that renders human sexuality sacred in a way that the most ecstatic rutting cannot capture or even reveal. We will need martyrs to purity in mold of St. Agnes, St. Lucy, St. Charles Lwanga, and St. Maria Goretti. What I fear is this--that many, or most , of us will not have that courage. And I know that there will those of us who will be given the choice of the white martyrdom of imprisonment or the shame of cooperation. Let's ask these martyrs to strengthen us now, so that we have the faith and spine to stand fast when our time comes.
St Agnes is one of the martyrs mention in the Roman Canon--Eucharistic Prayer I in the current Roman Missal. An attempt to burn her failed, so she was either stabbed in the throat or beheaded, accounts vary. The circumstances of her martyrdom are interesting. Agnes was a lovely young woman, by all repute, and it is reported that even the pagans were disturbed to see such a lovely woman killed. That is part of why she was martyred. Agnes was what today we would call a consecrated virgin. She had given her virginity to god, consecrated her body to The Lords service. She said that she would only ever take Christ as her spouse. The son of a Roman official, named Procop,, had the hots for her (not to put to fine a point on it) and determined to make her his wife. She rebuffed him repeatedly until he denounced her as a Christian. She went to her death to keep her vow, killed in an action motivated by hatred of the faith and it's moral strictures. She as around 13. I guess the account of St. Agnes would be incomplete without mentioning tht when the powerfully placed young man found she wouldn't marry him because she had taken Christ as her spouse, she was first imprisoned in a brothel--and miraculously managed to preserve her virginity through the Angelic protection.
One of St. Agnes companions among that "Great Cloud of Witnesses" is St. Lucy. She too is mentioned in the Roman Canon. Lucy was another very pretty girl who was betrothed to a pagan groom, and refused, having taken Christ as her spouse and consecrated her virginity to the Lord. In order to derail the planned mariage, she distributed her dowry as alms to the poor. She too was martyred after being sent to a brothel. (I think this recurring theme was a form of slavery that various Roman officials inflicted upon pious Christian girls who strove to retain their virginity as consecrated to Christ--it's a recurring theme.) Her jailers were unable to transfer her there, and she told the official who sentenced her to such a life that it wouldn't matter, as any act performed on her there would be against her will, essentially being an act of theft against God. Licke St. Agnes, St. Lucy was stabbed in the throat, and like St. Agnes, she was about 13 years of age.
There is another Martyr, St. Charles Lwanga. Actually, this is a group of martyrs, for not only was St. Charles Lwanga canonized, so were his companions. Charles Lwanga was a convert to Christianity in Uganda in the 19th Century. The polity that he was in was called the Kingdom of Buganda under the rule King Mwanga. Wikipedia notes that Mwanga was killing Christians, including those at court, as part of his resistance to western influences and colonization. This account may be accurate, butit is certainly incomplete. For the dynamic of these martyrdoms was set into motion by a very simple thing, and a it's reminiscent of the Martyrdoms of St Agnes and St. Lucy. Mwanga like to rape adolescent boys, who were sent by his subjects to attend him. Charles Lwanga was a Catholic, and a Catechist who inherited the leadership of th eChristian Community a the Court of King Mwanga after the previous lay leader, Joseph Mkasa. Mkasa, was a Catolic, but was an official at court, who took King Mwanga to task for killing a Protestant missionary. The king was fed up with Mkasa's protection of youth from the raping lusts of the king, and this was the final straw,Mkasa was killed. But Charles Lwanga didn't bat an eye, he maintained the protection over the pages and attendants at court, and a frustrated King went on a killing spree, and killed the Christians at court. Had they stood silently by, and alowed the pederast to rape boys, they would have survived.
What these martyrs have in common is this--the victimization or attempted victimization of youth by those in secular authority. What we should ask their intercession for is this--our culture and society are becoming rapidly paganized, and the sexualization of youth is already occurring at high speed, and accelerating. The civil authorities are under the influence of those who would use our children. We have the NEA attempting to tech children starting in kindergarten a "sex education" curricula which flies in the face of morality, and we have GLSEN attempting to foist rules and policies that would attempt to erase gender as a meaningful concept, both of these in opposition to our Christian Faith. And they are trying very hard to use the coercive power of the state to do so. To protect our children and grandchildren we are going to have to face the fact that we will be facing the uthority of secular law arrayed against us. Already, we see a school district,which is part--although a low level part-- of the governmental machinery of our country, deciding to call opposition to Gay Adomption by students "bullying" and prohibiting speech to that effect. (Which seems to me to be bullying by the authorities against Christian students.) There are laws in some jurisdictions requiring even Church schools to implement this sort of indoctrination, and various agencies, under the guise of "protecting" young people encourage sexual activity through the distribution of condoms and other means. Planned Parenthood has been shown numerous times to cover up statutory rape in the name of "protecting girls". Even our 'Safe Schools Czar, Kevin Jennings wrote in his memoirs about facilitation the ongoing sexual abuse and exploitation of a teenage boy in the name of "protecting" his status as a gay. We have become as evil as Pagan Rome, or the Darkest episodes of Tribal Africa.
There once was a man named Alessandro Serenelli. He was doing hard time in prison for murder and assault. He had a vision of St. maria Goretti, who pressed into his hands lilies, which 'burned him like fire". Serenelli repented his sins, and whenhe finished his 30 year sentence, begged forgiveness of his victims family, and ended his days as a tertiary in a Capuchin monastery, doing menial tasks and penance. He was the man who killed St. Maria Goretti. She was another of those pretty young girls that evil seems drawn to. (If you doubt that, look around a public school, at pretty girls who have become hypersexualized, who are promiscuous, and realize most of them got that way through being introduced to sex at much too young an age, usually in circumstances that could be classed as abuse or rape.) He told her that she must do what ever he said, or he would kill her. Then he tried to have sex with her. She told him no, that it would be a mortal sin, and that if he forced her, he would go to hell. She resisted vigorously, and he killed her. It took her 20 hours to die, and part of that time included surgical work without anesthesia. She forgave Serenelli on her deathbed. St. Maria Goretti is accounted a saint and a martyr by the Church, and was canonized in 1947, 45 years after her death. Serenelli testified in prison that he did not complete his assault and she died a virgin. At twelve years old, she is one of the youngest Saints canonized by the Church. The true miracle, the one she worked that impresses me most, is the conversion of Alessandro Serenelli, and it proves something. it proves that our drive to sexualize youth and Children can be reversed, that the hearts and minds of people who think it best to allow and encourage sex to become the driving force in our society can be changed.
They will be changed though, only through the blood and prayers of martyrs, who will suffer imprisonment and death for the Truth of the Faith, that we are created in God's own image, and that gives us an intrinsic dignity that renders human sexuality sacred in a way that the most ecstatic rutting cannot capture or even reveal. We will need martyrs to purity in mold of St. Agnes, St. Lucy, St. Charles Lwanga, and St. Maria Goretti. What I fear is this--that many, or most , of us will not have that courage. And I know that there will those of us who will be given the choice of the white martyrdom of imprisonment or the shame of cooperation. Let's ask these martyrs to strengthen us now, so that we have the faith and spine to stand fast when our time comes.
1 comments:
Amen, Redneck, and thank you!!
Post a Comment