The Memorial of Saint Maria Goretti
It will be in that day," says the Lord, "that you will call me 'my husband,' And no longer call me 'my master.'
For I will take away the names of the Baals out of her mouth, And they will no longer be mentioned by name. In that day I will make a covenant for them with the animals of the field, And with the birds of the sky, And with the creeping things of the ground. I will break the bow, the sword, and the battle out of the land, And will make them lie down safely.
It will happen in that day, that I will respond," says the Lord. "I will respond to the heavens, And they will respond to the earth; And the earth will respond to the grain, and the new wine, and the oil; And they will respond to Jezreel.
Every day I will praise you. I will extol your name forever and ever. Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised! His greatness is unsearchable.
One generation will commend your works to another, And will declare your mighty acts. I will meditate on the glorious majesty of your honor, On your wondrous works.
Men will speak of the might of your awesome acts. I will declare your greatness. They will utter the memory of your great goodness, And will sing of your righteousness.
The Lord is gracious, merciful, Slow to anger, and of great loving kindness. The Lord is good to all. His tender mercies are over all his works.
While he told these things to them, behold, a ruler came and worshiped him, saying, "My daughter has just died, but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live."
Jesus got up and followed him, as did his disciples. Behold, a woman who had a discharge of blood for twelve years came behind him, and touched the fringe of his garment; For she said within herself, "If I just touch his garment, I will be made well."
But Jesus, turning around and seeing her, said, "Daughter, cheer up! Your faith has made you well." And the woman was made well from that hour.
When Jesus came into the ruler's house and saw the flute players and the crowd in noisy disorder, He said to them, "Make room, because the girl isn't dead, but sleeping."
They were ridiculing him. But when the crowd was sent out, he entered in, took her by the hand, and the girl arose. The report of this went out into all that land.
We begin today with a young woman who said no — and paid for it with her life. Maria Goretti, an eleven-year-old Italian girl, was stabbed to death in 1902 after refusing the sexual advances of a neighbor. She is not just a martyr for purity; she is a martyr for human dignity, for the conviction that some things matter more than survival.
And then we open Hosea, and something unexpected happens. God speaks to a people who have wandered, who have chased after other gods, who have called on the Baals — the false masters — instead of the living God. And rather than condemning them, God says: come back. Not as servants. As a spouse. "You will call me 'my husband.'" The movement here is from transaction to intimacy, from obligation to belonging.
Notice how that reframes everything. The woman in the Gospel who has been bleeding for twelve years — ritually unclean, socially invisible, exhausted by a condition that has cost her everything — she doesn't ask for an audience. She just reaches out and touches the hem of a garment. And Jesus stops. He turns. He calls her *daughter*. Not a case. Not a problem. A daughter.
There's a tenderness in that word that deserves to sit with us. The ruler's daughter is raised from the dead. The bleeding woman is healed. Maria Goretti forgave her killer from her deathbed. What connects all of these is the conviction that human beings are not disposable — not by illness, not by death, not by violence, not by sin.
We are called *daughter*, called *beloved*, called back into covenant. That is the ground we stand on, even on an ordinary Wednesday in July.
What have we quietly written off as beyond healing — in ourselves, or in someone we love? Where are we still calling God "master" instead of letting ourselves be loved? What would it look like, today, to simply reach out and touch the hem?