The Sorrow of a Christian Mother,

Yesterday I wrote about St Maria Goretti, whose forgiveness of the boy who raped and stabbed her to death was heroic and made her a saint.   This morning on TV  I watched a woman no less as heroic as Maria.   She was a Christian and a black woman whose two teenage daughters had been attacked by a white man because they were black.   He attacked them with a knife and brutally stabbed both of them to death.   Like Alessandro with Maria, he stabbed them numerous times in his frenzy.     The woman was complaining that her daughters assailants by being put into prison may become radicalised and come out even worse than he was before.     But her motives were not understood by her interviewer, she was not so concerned by future victims, though I am sure she was, she really really wanted this man to come out reformed.   The interviewer asked the Christian lady if she could ever forgive the murderer of her daughters and her reply was "I have already forgiven him.   If I was to give in to hate this hate would dominate my life, but I will not let him destroy me"   In later bulletins the BBC headlines was about her remark that she feared he would be radicalised, but they did not understand that her concern was for the young man himself.

We meet many saints in our every day life.    Many we do not recognise for they are just ordinary people like this beautiful mother in sorrow for her daughters, yet reaching out as a Christian to the Cross.   I would count myself blessed indeed in her company.   

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