When terrible crimes have been committed, like the assassination of Charlie Kirk and all the appalling shootings of the children in schools, there is always a lot of talk about the killers and how they should be dealt with: life in prison, the death sentence? When we are outraged by some terrible crime, it is normal to want to lash out and seek revenge. We should always seek justice, but that often becomes revenge, rather than justice.
In the Old Testament, from the law given to Moses, it says, ‘Whoever takes a human life, shall surely be put to death… an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth…whatever injury a man has given a person, shall be given to him.’ (Lev 24:17, 20, 21). That may seem like a call for revenge, but it is actually calling for a proportionate response, as opposed to revenge.
Then Jesus quotes that same law and takes it to a deeper level. He said, ‘You have heard how it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,’ but I say to you not to resist an evil person. If someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.’
Jesus is bringing that teaching to a deeper level, calling for mercy.
There is a friend of mine in Ireland who is a paramedic. One of the calls that he got was to a house where there had been a domestic dispute between a husband and wife. Something had happened and the father had snapped. He ended up stabbing his wife and accidentally killing his nine-year-old daughter. My friend didn’t realize what he was being called to and then found himself faced with a nine-year-old bleeding to death. She died from her injuries. That is the kind of scene that you never forget. When he was telling me about it he said, ‘That man should never be forgiven.’ I could understand his anger.
There is another perspective to it that we don’t usually think about. We usually think of someone’s death as being the end, their life is over. However, from a faith point of view, their life on earth is over, but now they have gone on to what we call heaven, where they are no longer suffering, but experiencing a joy that we have never had. Presuming they are in heaven, I wonder what the person killed would say. Would they demand justice, or revenge, or mercy?
I want to share with you the life of one of the youngest saints, Maria Goretti, which speaks for itself and can make us think differently.
St. Maria Goretti was born in Corinaldo, Italy, in 1890. She died just before her 12th birthday, in 1902. Her family were farmers, but her father died when she was young and so they ended up selling the farm and working as farm hands. Eventually they had to share a house with another family, the Serenellis, a father and two sons. The sons were into bad living and one of them, Alessandro, continually tried to seduce Maria. He tried to rape her twice, but she wouldn’t give in to him. Maria normally stayed at the house during the day, taking care of the younger children.
One day Alessandro arranged that he would be on his own with her in the house and he then tried to rape her. She refused and wouldn’t give in to him. She kept shouting that it was a sin and would offend God and that he could go to hell for it. In a fit of rage he stabbed her fourteen times and then fled the scene.
When Maria was found she was rushed to hospital but died two days later from her injuries. The surgeons were unable to give her anaesthesia as her body was too weak. During the surgery she woke up and told her mother what had happened and that Alessandro had tried to rape her two other times as well, but she was afraid to mention it as he had threatened to kill her if she did. While she was awake she also said that she forgave Alessandro and wanted him to go to heaven too. She died the next day from her wounds.
When the locals found out what had happened they tried to get Alessandro and would have killed him, but the police got there first. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
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| The only known photograph of St. Maria Goretti |
Initially when Alessandro was imprisoned, he was unrepentant and bragged about what he had done. However, several years later she appeared to him in a dream and gave him fourteen lilies. As he took each one it burned his fingers and disappeared. He realized that each flower represented each of the times that he had stabbed her and that she had forgiven him. From then on his life changed completely. He became deeply repentant and changed his behavior so much, that he was eventually let out of jail early (after 27 years) because of his exemplary behaviour.
After he was released he went to Maria’s mother Assunta and begged her forgiveness. He explained how she had come to him in a dream and had forgiven him. His mother said to him, ‘If Maria can forgive you, then I must forgive you too.’ They ended up going to mass and receiving Communion together on Christmas Eve.
Alessandro spent the rest of his life working as a layman in a Capuchin monastery as a receptionist and gardener.
Maria was canonised in 1950 and her mother and some of her siblings were present.
God is perfectly just and infinitely merciful. Even if people escape justice on earth, they will always be held accountable before God as we all will be. But God is also infinitely merciful, in a way that is hard for us to understand. That is one of the reasons why the Church teaches against the death penalty, as people can change, but being merciful doesn’t mean there is no justice.
'When they came to the place called the skull, they crucified him there along with two criminals… Jesus said, “Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”'
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