Maria Gorreti.

Apostleship is most effectively through sincere repentance

Brothers and sisters, you can imagine how much time, effort, worry, and money it takes to build a family home. Many of you have made it. And you will agree with me when I say that you had to prepare thoroughly for the construction of such a work. It was not enough to think about the whole thing, but it was also necessary to find resources. After all, what would you do without money, materials, masons, workers? Nothing! Your plans would not materialize.

The Lord Jesus also decided today to build a great work. He decided to send the apostles to proclaim the message of salvation. We have heard him send apostles among men and give them power over unclean spirits. Christ cares so much about the man that after the proclamation of the message of salvation, he shows the apostles to discard all secondary things and interests.

Brothers and sisters, you may say: Perhaps two thousand years ago, the apostle could proclaim the Gospel according to Jesus’ desire. The world was different, less developed, and less demanding. But today? Today we need much more to preach the Gospel. What can we do without the necessities of life that Jesus forbids us? But it is inhuman. Jesus sends us as universal priests to man. And precisely for man to accept us, I must be deeply human. We have to be healthy, sober, not weird. In this world, everyday personal needs can no longer be enough to proclaim the Gospel. We need the press, television, radio, schools, theaters, and cultural houses for the apostolate. Don’t our brethren who proclaim atheism have all this? Acknowledge us, Chaplain, that we are far behind them. In a word – we need all available means because otherwise, it is impossible to the apostolate.

Yes, brothers and sisters, I acknowledge. You are right. Indeed, our time requires different practices, different forms of apostolate than the time of the apostles. But please, let’s look at the past together and find a surprising fact. You who are older here and remember well when the church had many of these means in their hands, you remember when schools, offices, and workplaces were highly ecclesiastical. You remember when the youth had their Catholic organizations. Even today, there are states in which the church has all this, at a high level. I ask you, brothers and sisters when you say that today, in proclaiming the message of Christ, the means mentioned are the most important, how is it possible that, where they have all this, the results are not very satisfactory? How is it possible that where the church is free to implement her principles and principles, there is a terrible moral and religious emptiness? And I’m not talking about violence, murder, and other inhumanity. How is it possible that some people who were brought up in a time of ecclesiastical influence are now explicitly unbelievers? Tell me, how is that possible ?!

We now see that it is not the external means that are most important to the true apostolate, but something else. What do you think, brothers and sisters, what can it be? Right! It is an inner force that comes from God’s favor and grace. God’s truth is a paradox that, throughout the history of salvation, is most effectively proclaimed not by human power but by weakness. The apostle Paul is fully aware of this when he says, “God has chosen what is weak in the world to be ashamed of the mighty” (1 Cor 1:27). The interior is the most important. Must the apostle be full of Jesus How? There are a thousand counsels to do this, but only one way, and that is sincere repentance, such repentance that means not only confession but pity, but much more repentance that means real effort and effort to be better and more perfect This is an apostleship  has extreme power in itself That it is true, look at this event with me.

Many of you have read or seen on television the novel by the French writer Victor Hugo, Paupers.

The main character Jean Valjan is imprisoned for six months because he stole bread for his sister’s hungry children. He experiences inhuman conditions in prison. That’s why they try to escape twice, but they always catch him. His sentence increased from six months to a full 19 years. During this time, abandoned and often nailed to a wooden log, he learned what human anger and cruelty were. He thoroughly believed in the right and love of man. Scourge and the violence in him aroused indescribable hatred.

Once the prisoners repaired the stone walls, he managed to escape. The hungry and exhausted will ask for help in one house. The old lady is frightened when she looks at Valjan’s inhuman face. In fear, he catches a broom and expels a stranger. It was the house of a bishop who, when he noticed a rough and overgrown man, said, “Leave him alone!” Brother, like it, come to the bottom. – After a moment of surprise, Jean enters and sits down at the table, startled. He examines with his eyes what kind of person is sitting in front of him. He sees a pastor in front of him, who shows him an incomprehensible tenderness. He thinks: What kind of person has accepted me as his best friend? He can’t keep his thoughts a secret and asks: – Tell me, why didn’t you fire me? Why are you giving me to eat? Why are you helping me? – The bishop smiles at him and answers: – Because you are my brother. And all this mine – it’s yours too. –
At night, he gets up quietly, steals the silver cutlery, and leaves. The bishop saw it. He folded his arms helplessly and prayed silently. Jean Valjean did not go far with the stolen valuables. In the morning, he was caught by two gendarmes and brought to the bishop. Jean froze, waiting for sharp, threatening words and remorse. But instead, the bishop takes two silver candlesticks and hands them to him with the words: – You have forgotten these candlesticks here. Why didn’t you take them, because I gave them to you too? – So it’s true – the gendarme jumps in, – that you, Excellency, gave it to him? We thought he stole it from you. – No, – the bishop replies, – I actually gave it to him. –
And at that moment, something incredible happens. Jean will feel human kindness for the first time after 20 years in prison. The goodness of man with wonderful love manifested in the form of forgiveness. All his long-term stubbornness is broken.
He falls to his knees and cries. The bishop stretches out his hands over him and, moved, says, “The devil no longer has power over you.” From now on, you belong only to God. – At the moment, Jean is becoming a new person. He leaves, and his next life is filled with the apostolate of sincere repentance. He not only believes himself but also proclaims the goodness and love of God for man. Jean has become the mayor of the city and shakes his hand mainly to the poorest. He takes a little girl with him, whose mother dies and takes care of his upbringing all his life. Wherever he walks, he does as well as Christ once did. And to the question: Why do you do it, he always answered: – Because I have met a man in my life who has helped me a lot. Can I not help? -Brothers and sisters, have you understood now that a true apostleship does not require as much human means as sincere repentance?
Although today’s saint – Maria Goretti lived a pure life and did not need repentance, her life and death were an address to many, but especially to her murderer. Maria Goretti was born as the third of seven children in Corinaldo near Ancona in central Italy.
Maria lost her father as a child. The mother was left alone to raise seven children. Although misery, like hunger and weak clothing, were daily guests in the Goretti family, there were never any complaints of Providence.
The mother prayed and accustomed her children to prayer and the fear of God. They prayed the rosary daily. During that prayer, Marienka developed respect and love for the Blessed Virgin every day.
From the first Holy Communion, she lived exclusively for the Divine Heart. She begged the Heavenly Mother to protect her so that she would be as pure on the last day of her life as she is now.
Her last day came soon.
Barely 12-year-old laid down her life to maintain her purity, stabbed with the dagger of 18-year-old Alexander Serenelli.
Suffering and bleeding, Marienka could still express her Golgotha forgiveness to her killer: – Out of love for the Lord Jesus, I forgive with all my heart, and I want to have him by my side in heaven! –

The apostleship of Mary Goretti is fulfilled after her death.
The strength of her forgiveness was later answered by the life of her murderer, who died in penance in 1970. He announced his punishment in writing to the whole world: – I ask the entire world for forgiving my crime against the martyr Maria Goretti and against purity. I swear to everyone to protect themselves from immorality, immoral theaters, dangers, and every opportunity that could lead them to sin. –
How do we respond to this challenge and the apostleship of the little martyr? Let us all realize what the apostleship asks of us. Above all, it is a change in our lives for the better. It will be useful if we take a little commitment together today. Let us try to understand our religion and the proclamation of Christ’s message of salvation, not only as a duty to go to church on Sundays and feasts. Let’s stop saying that when we go to church, we’re better than those who don’t. But we will judge our religion, our apostleship, according to our relationship with a man. And how can we most effectively establish a loving relationship with everyone? An apostleship of sincere repentance!

Brothers and sisters, we now know that both the construction of a family house and every human work, to have any hope of success, must be based on strong means. It must be based on power, knowledge, and the favor of society. However, God’s work is based on the opposite. To win is based on the defeat of the cross. And the apostleship is the work of God. His success does not depend on human means as well as on God’s grace. Don’t we forget that?