A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Matthew. As Jesus moved about, he saw a man named Matthew at his post where taxes were collected. Jesus said to Matthew, follow me. Matthew got up and followed Jesus. Now it happened that while Jesus was at table in Matthew's house, many tax collectors and those known to be sinners came to join Jesus and his disciples at dinner.
The pharisees, of course, saw this and complained to our lord's disciples. What reason can the teacher have for eating with tax collectors and those who disregard the law? Overhearing the remark, Jesus said, people who are in good health do not need a doctor. Sick people do. Go and learn the meaning of these words.
It is mercy I desire and not sacrifice. I have come to call not the self righteous but sinners. And this is the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. Today, we are celebrating the feast of a little girl who died, was murdered at the age of 12 in 1902 in Italy near Rome.
Was only 12 years old and was murdered in 1902 by a young boy of 19, her next door neighbor, Alessandro. This little girl was the housekeeper in a household of a widow, her mother, and five other small children. She could neither read nor write. In May, she made her first holy communion, and in July, she was murdered. Now the point I wanna make isn't the fact that she was murdered.
Plenty of people are murdered. Plenty of girls are raped. It's commonplace. And above all, today, the little matter of fornication is considered a mere picadillo. As a matter of fact, it's not even considered that.
I have read some figures. How reliable they are, I have no idea. But that maybe as many as eighty five percent of girls leaving high school have lost their virginity. And nothing's made of this. The only thing we want to be sure of is that the girls, and the boys too, I suppose, know how to use contraceptives.
That's the thing, we must educate. Now, the point I'm making is in 1902, this illiterate girl at the age of 12 was the intended victim of a seducer named Alessandro, this 19 year old boy, her next door neighbor, who came into her home when her mother was out trying to make some money to support the family. As I say, Maria was the house she was running the household. He came in and all he wanted to do was to have relations with her, to commit what we used to call fornication, what we now call being sexually active. See, no idea of sin at all.
And what was now notice, she was being compelled. She was being forced at that dagger point to submit to this man, 19 year old man. She could have she didn't have to lay down her life. I don't know whether she knew enough moral theology for this, you understand. The poor little thing was couldn't read or write.
All she knew was three things. And these three things she told the boy. First, that god does not wish it. Secondly, it is a sin. And third, you will go to hell.
Notice she felt it was her responsibility to keep him from committing a sin which was against god's will, which would send him to hell. Notice those three things. All three of them today are nonoperational. All three of them. We don't talk about sin as regards sexual activity anymore.
Of course not. That means you're putting a moral print imprint upon it. We don't talk about that action of fornication being against God's will. We may say, well, you know you have to be careful. You mustn't get a venereal disease.
You must be careful about herpes. Or you must be careful about getting pregnant. These are the things we talk about, but we don't talk about God. No. God isn't in the picture at all.
I had the excruciating misery I repeat, excruciating misery of listening word by word to a very popular bit of so called music today called New York, where such things as infanticide, putting a baby in a garbage container, a little bit of adultery, a little bit of fornication. It's all fun and games, and it's extremely popular with our young people. And they laughed. It's all great stuff. This girl of 12 who didn't have to lay down her life or her virginity, you don't have to do that.
But she said, you you cannot do this. It's against god's will. It is a sin, and you will go to hell for it. And so he stabbed her and murdered her. And she has been declared a martyr.
Why shouldn't she be declared a martyr? How could it how could a martyrdom be any clearer? That is when you offer your life, that's commonplace. See, that's not the important thing about being a martyr. You can get martyrs for any cause.
Really. There are plenty of people who seem to be eager to be martyrs. The main thing about martyrdom is you die for Christ. You die for God. That's the important thing.
And this girl certainly did at the age of 12 in 1902. Now I've been talking the last few mornings about our relationship with God in our daily lives. You see, is God in our daily lives? When we face these moral issues, do we ask do do we bring god into it at all? I'll tell you that world out there does not.
You pick up your money and it says, in god we trust, forget it. Most people haven't the faintest idea that it's on the coins. And if you say, in god we trust, what in the world do you mean by that? What do I mean by that? I'm not talking to you.
I'm talking to myself. I'm mister monologue. So let us come back to these ideas. There is a hell. There is sin.
And I know god's will in the most important affairs of my life. Without a doubt, I know God's will because the first thing I know that God wills is that I live according to his law. That's positive. Notice I didn't say avoid sin. That communion rail avoids sin.
That communion rail is completely sinless. So being sinless isn't the gray isn't great, you see. What god wants me to do is to is to keep his commandments, to love him, to love myself, and to love my neighbor as I love myself. And I separate myself. I don't he doesn't leave me.
I leave him. How? By getting sick, by being poor, by losing a job, by all the tragedies of life? Not a bit of it. Not a bit of it.
The only thing that separates me from god is sin. And in the last analysis, that's all that matters. Do you see, do we it's easy to say these things, but do we mean it? Does do our lives reflect this as this little girl of 12? I the the this is a direct quotation.
Now how reliable it is, I don't know. But let me tell you, this young man named Alessandro, of course, he went to jail for his crime and was a very unpleasant prisoner, a brutalized man, and he suffered what we call a conversion, whatever that is. He became a changed person. He attributed to the girl that he had murdered. And once he got out of jail, he devoted his life to her beatification.
Now that's a turnabout, isn't it? Now, you see, we we are living in a world where there's a lot of talk about a lot of things, about religion, about ceremonies, about ritual, about theology. But you see, you cannot get away from the basics. You can't. They are what matters.
God, myself, neighbor, heaven, hell, virtue, sin. There you have it. And the church of Jesus Christ exists to keep me on course, on course. Without it, I am without, as we say, rumb line. Do you know what the rumb line is?
It means I'm on course. I have a destiny, and I know I'm getting there when the compass turn points me. That's the church. The church points me in the right direction. The church gives me support in that direction.
The church allows me to come back when I falter and when I fail. The church of Jesus Christ teaches and has always taught, and I dare say will always teach. There is a god. There's a law of god. Violations of that are sin.
And in violation of it, I can go to hell. That's a real possibility. Or by clinging to Jesus Christ, my savior, I can go to heaven. In the name of the father and the son and holy spirit. Amen.