Our Lady of America

Purity

The Pure in Heart

Our Lady of America told Sister Mildred:

I desire that my children honor me, especially by the purity of their lives. . . . I wish [America] to be the country dedicated to my purity. . . . I desire that they be children of my Pure Heart. I desire, through my children of America, to further the cause of faith and purity among peoples and nations. Let them come to me with confidence and simplicity, and I, their Mother, will teach them to become pure like to my Heart that their own hearts may be more pleasing to the Heart of my Son. (Diary 6-7).

Our Lady’s words remind us of those of her Son Jesus who said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Matt. 5:8). The “heart” is the seat of our moral personality. (CCC 2517). “Pure in heart” refers to those whose intellects and wills are in tune with the demands of God's holiness, chiefly in three areas: charity; chastity and the love and belief of the truth. (CCC 2518). We can’t “see” God if our hearts are impure and covered with sins. We need to have them washed away by the sacraments of Baptism and Confession. Only with pure hearts can we “see” God who made us in His image of purity.

God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” (Gen. 1:26). We are made in the image of God to “see” Him with a pure heart and to be happy with Him forever in heaven.

Who shall stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart.” (Ps. 24). Pope Benedict XVI wrote:

The organ for seeing God is the heart. The intellect alone is not enough. In order for man to become capable of perceiving God, the energies of his existence have to work in harmony. His will must be pure and so too must the underlying affective dimension of his soul, which gives intelligence and will their direction. Speaking of the heart in this way means precisely that man’s perceptive powers play in concert, which also requires the proper interplay of body and soul, since this is essential for the totality of the creature we call “man.” The heart – the wholeness of man – must be pure, interiorly open and free, in order for man to be able to see God.
(Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, pp. 92 - 93).

To see God in eternal life is a great gift of God’s goodness. Everything that God created is very good and we are the crown of His creation. We are inherently dignified by our very existence. It is not earned or granted. This dignity and worth comes from God as a free gift.

Each and every person - regardless of age, sex, religion or national background – has a dignity and worth that is unconditional and inalienable. Because of this, human life itself from conception to natural death is sacred; human rights are innate and transcend any legal order and the fundamental unity of the human race demands that everyone be committed to building a community which is free from injustice and which strives to promote and protect the common good.

God created us in His own image with an immortal soul having an intellect to know the truth, a free will to love and to do good and a heart to see Him. We are the only creatures who are able to love God and others in a communion of love. Man was honored by God and placed above every other creature. We are the image of the true light, Jesus Christ, who said, “I am the light of the world. No follower of mine shall ever walk in darkness; no, he shall possess the light of life.” (Jn. 8:12). It is this divine life and light that dwells within us that we are called to let shine before others. Jesus also said, “You are the light of the world. . . . your light must shine before men so that they may see goodness in your acts and give praise to your heavenly Father.” (Matt. 5:14-16).

Our light is His light. When we contemplate this light, we become like Him. His light is reflected from our purity of heart and we can “see” Him whose light dwells and shines from within our hearts. It is as if our hearts were like black coal before our sacramental receptions of Baptism and Confession that were then turned into diamonds whose facets reflect the light of God’s grace. Nothing else that exists can measure up to our greatness.

We recognize within us the reflection of the divine light. Purifying our hearts, we return to being, as we were in the beginning, a clear image of God, beauty itself. This is how we can “see” God by purifying ourselves, as do the pure in heart. In common speech we often say, “I see”. We don’t mean that we literally see with our eyes but we mean that we understand. Similarly, we don’t literally see God with our eyes but we “see” Him by understanding Him.

We understand His love for us and come to an awareness of His divine indwelling presence. This is how Our Lady of America “sees” God. She told Sister Mildred that she is “the Tabernacle of the Indwelling Trinity.” She appeared to Sister Mildred wearing on her breast the Triangle and Eye with God’s all-seeing eye at the center of the triangle of the Most Holy Trinity.

By seeing God as dwelling within us, we are better able to know, love and imitate Jesus. This is Pope John Paul II’s plan for the Third Millennium. He wrote in his apostolic letter, At the Beginning of the New Millennium, that the program “ultimately has its centre in Christ himself, who is to be known, loved and imitated, so that in Him we may live the life of the Trinity, and with Him transform history until its fulfillment in the heavenly Jerusalem. . . . This program for all times is our program for the Third Millennium.”

If we live in the truth and love with a pure heart, we will wash away the evil that has corrupted our hearts, the divine beauty will shine and reflect from us, we will “see” God face to face, be like Him and we will be happy and blessed as Jesus promised the pure in heart. “Purity of heart is the precondition of the vision of God. Even now it enables us to see according to God.” (CCC 2519). “Now we see indistinctly, as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.” (1 Cor. 13:12). “What we shall later be has not yet come to light. We know that when it comes to light we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as he is. Everyone who has this hope based on Him keeps himself pure, as He is pure.” (1 Jn. 3:2-3).

God’s plan for our eternal well-being is to see Him and to be with Him forever in heaven. Our end is the contemplation of God. Only in Him can we find our fulfillment. Our hearts were made for Him and they will be restless until they rest in Him. St. Augustine said, “Man, so small a part of your creation, wants to praise you: this man, though clothed with mortality and bearing the evidence of sin and the proof that you withstand the proud. Despite everything, man, though but a small a part of your creation, wants to praise you. You yourself encourage him to delight in your praise, for you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”

Our total fulfillment consists in holiness which is a life lived with God, the true light, through which we become light for others. Pope John Paul II wrote in his apostolic letter, At the Beginning of the New Millennium:

It is necessary therefore to rediscover the full practical significance of Chapter 5 of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, dedicated to the “universal call to holiness” . . . “holiness”, understood in the basic sense of belonging to Him who is in essence the Holy One, the “thrice Holy”. (See Is. 6:3). To profess the Church as holy means to point to her as the Bride of Christ, for whom He gave Himself precisely in order to make her holy. (See Eph. 5:25-26). This as it were objective gift of holiness is offered to all the baptized.

But the gift in turn becomes a task, which must shape the whole of Christian life: “This is the will of God, your sanctification.” (1 Th. 4:3). It is a duty which concerns not only certain Christians: “All the Christian faithful, of whatever state or rank, are called to the fullness of the Christian life and to the perfection of charity”.

As the Council itself explained, this ideal of perfection must not be misunderstood as if it involved some kind of extraordinary existence, possible only for a few “uncommon heroes” of holiness. The ways of holiness are many, according to the vocation of each individual.

Our holiness and purity in heart enable us to “see” God which causes our blessedness which than blesses the whole world in God’s kingdom of love, peace, joy and happiness. To be pure in heart implies that our love is wholly directed towards God and the good of other people. We are not divided in our love but we love God with our whole heart, soul, mind and strength, as He commanded us through Moses in the book of Deuteronomy. (See Deut. 6: 4-5).

We must also love our neighbors as ourselves as Jesus commanded us. (See Mk. 12:29-31). This purity is possible because God first loved us. (See 1 Jn. 4:10). It is His light that we reflect from our pure hearts. As disciples of Jesus Christ, we are called to the happiness that comes from a pure, clean and undivided heart. Our model for this pure heart is the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

The Immaculate Heart of Mary

Our Lady of America told Sister Mildred that she desired us to “be children of my Pure Heart.” The “Pure Heart” is the Immaculate Heart of Mary which is like a prism diffusing all graces from the pure light of the Most Holy Trinity in all its varied colors to us. Our Lady told Sister, “My Immaculate Heart is the channel through which the graces of the Sacred Heart are given to men.” (Diary 12). It is the gate of heaven through which passes the love of God to renew the face of the earth. As a mirror, her heart reflects the most pure light of the Trinity where the Father finds His design intact and perfectly realized from which He receives His greatest glory from a creature.

The word “heart” as used in Scripture often means the higher part of the soul, the interior perfections. With reference to Mary, it refers to her Immaculate Conception, fullness of grace and blessedness. (See Lk. 1:28, 42). Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart exists in her glorified body which still loves and suffers for all humanity. Our Lady’s heart is immaculate because it is without sin as a consequence of her Immaculate Conception.

Her Immaculate Heart is the center of her being symbolized by her physical heart as the seat of her love and her spiritual heart as the seat of her interior perfections and her entire interior affective and moral life. Her Immaculate Heart perfectly loves God and us. As she is united with the Sacred Heart of Jesus, so too is she united with our hearts and our lives, joys and sorrows.

Her Immaculate Heart also symbolizes her interior life (See Lk. 2:19, 51), from which she reflected her joys and sorrows; her virtues and hidden perfections; her virginal love for God and her maternal love for Jesus and all humanity. Her heart is also the heart of a mother, a real living motherly heart which watches over us, hears our cries and helps us by her tender care for us. She knows at every moment everything that concerns us – our fears, anxieties, faults, temptations and sins. As our spiritual mother, her Immaculate Heart mediates our prayers to God and dispenses God’s graces to us.

Traces of special devotion to the heart of Mary appear from the thirteenth century. However, it is a devotion reserved for these latter times when sin is so rampant. It is as if Jesus reserved this best grace for humanity for the end as He reserved the best wine for the end at Cana. (See Jn. 2:10).

The devotion gained popularity in the nineteenth century through the “Miraculous Medal” and “Green Scapular” apparitions. The former were to St. Catherine Labouré in 1830 which revealed the heart of Mary pierced with a sword. The latter were to Sr. Justine Bisqueyburu in 1846 which revealed the requested prayer, “Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us now and at the hour of our death”.

In the early twentieth century, Our Lady revealed her Immaculate Heart to the children at Fatima. She said that Jesus wants to establish in the world devotion to her Immaculate Heart. Blessed Jacinta said at Fatima that God has entrusted peace to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Later, in the mid-twentieth century, Our Lady of America revealed her Immaculate Heart to Sister Mildred on her robe encircled by roses, which symbolize her suffering for our sins, and sending forth flames of fire. She said, “My Immaculate Heart desires with great desire to see the kingdom of Jesus my Son established in all hearts.” (Diary 11). She wants us to “be children of my Pure Heart” so that we can be like her through the purification of our hearts.

Purification of the Heart

We are purified from all sins by Baptism but we continue to struggle for our whole lives against the demands of the flesh and disordered desires. (CCC 2520). We can’t purify our hearts alone but only with God's grace. Jesus said, “Out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication. . . .” (Mt. 15:19). So we must continually purify our hearts through the grace of the sacraments, especially Confession and the Eucharist. The pure of heart must be pure of body and “perceive the human body – ours and our neighbor’s – as a temple of the Holy Spirit, a manifestation of divine beauty.” (CCC 2519).

We will be pure of heart by practicing the virtue and gift of chastity; by purity of intention which consists in seeking and fulfilling God’s will, the true end of man; by purity of vision through discipline of feelings and imagination refusing all complicity in impure thoughts and by prayer. (CCC 2520). Purity of heart brings freedom from the eroticism so prevalent in the modern means of communication and entertainment

Purity requires modesty which exists as an intuition of the spiritual dignity proper to human beings. Modesty protects the intimate center of the person. It means covering in clothing the parts of the body that should be covered. It means discreetness in speech practicing silence or reserve where there is evident risk of unhealthy curiosity. (CCC 2521-2524).

Sister Mildred said that those who wear the medal of Our Lady of America with great faith and fervent devotion to her will receive the grace of intense purity of heart.

Living a Life of Purity

By His grace, Jesus enables us to live a life of purity. He redeemed the human race from the original sin of Adam and Eve and purchased us with the price of His own life which He voluntarily gave up for us into the hands of brutal soldiers who crucified Him. St. Paul said, “You have been purchased at a price. Therefore glorify God in your body.” (1 Cor. 6: 20). Even when through sin, man had fallen and seriously injured this gift of our dignity; God continued to love us and sent us a Redeemer. We were purchased – and at a great price!

When Jesus became a man in His Incarnation, God united Himself in some way with every human person. By Christ’s passion, suffering, death and resurrection from the dead, He won a definitive victory for us over Satan and evil. He enabled us to have eternal life with Him through the forgiveness of our sins in the sacraments of Baptism and Confession.

Jesus came to restore creation to the purity of its origins. In doing so, he brought us back to the Creator’s original intent of the married as “one flesh” and therefore marriage as a life-long indissoluble union excluding divorce. Jesus said, “What God has joined together, let not man put asunder.” ( Matt. 19:6).

Jesus also restored the understanding that sexual acts should proceed from a pure heart. The sixth commandment that prohibited adultery also prohibited impure sexual thoughts. Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matt. 5:27-28). The sixth commandment encompasses the whole of human sexuality (CCC 2336) while the ninth commandment in particular encompasses coveting your neighbor’s wife. “You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his ass, or anything that is your neighbor’s.” (Ex. 20:17).

Concupiscence is a consequence of original sin. It is the spiritual battle between the senses and right reason, between the flesh and the spirit. It is a struggle to be pure when the senses attract us to impurity. Although it is not in itself a sin, it inclines us to commit sins.

St. John distinguishes three kinds of covetousness or concupiscence: lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and pride of life. (See 1 Jn. 2:16). The remedy for concupiscence is the practice of the good habits of purity. This is the virtue of chastity. The psalmist prayed, “Create a clean heart in me O God.” (Ps. 51:12). We live a life of purity with a clean heart by practicing the virtue of chastity integrating our sexuality into our persons and exercising it according to God’s plan.

Chastity

Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Mk. 12: 29 -31). He also said, “As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.” (Jn. 13:34). So the only response to yourselves and to other human beings is to love, to do what is best for yourself and them according to God’s plan. We may never use ourselves or others as objects for our own pleasure. The structure of true love is interpersonal communion. It’s like a reflection of the Blessed Trinity as a communion of love.

People are to be loved and not to be used. We do this through the practice of the virtue of chastity by using our sexual faculties according to Gods plan. Through the virtue of chastity we love truly. Through the vice of lust we use ourselves or others.

Chastity is not a virtue of “no” to impure sexual acts, but a virtue of “yes” to yourself and to another person as persons with innate human dignity and not as objects to be used. Chastity may involve saying “no”, but that “no” is always in the service of a greater “yes”, the respect of human dignity.

Sin separates us from God while virtue seeks to unite us to God. Virtue is a habitual and firm disposition to do the good. As we grow in virtue, we seek to become more like God, more holy. Sin weakens our moral fiber while virtue strengths it. Either we govern our passions and find peace, or we let ourselves be their slaves and become unhappy.

St Paul tells us, “Every athlete exercises discipline in every way . . . to win an imperishable crown.” (1 Cor. 9:25 ). Self-mastery is a long and exacting work and it presupposes renewed effort at all stages of life, especially in adolescence. But God does not propose the impossible to us. He gives us the grace to be chaste if we want it, ask for it and work at it. In this way, we imitate the purity of Christ.

Chastity requires self mastery of our sensual passions through the use of right reason so that our sexual faculties are exercised only in marriage. Through the virtue of chastity, we integrate our sexuality within our whole person so that there is an inner unity of our person in our bodily and spiritual being. It is outwardly expressed only in the relationship of one person to another, in the complete and life-long mutual gift of a man and a woman in marriage.

All Christ's faithful are called to lead a chaste life in keeping with their particular state of life. Some profess virginity or consecrated celibacy with perfect sexual continence which enables them to give themselves to God alone with an undivided heart in a remarkable manner. Married people are called to live conjugal chastity by being faithful to each other and not using one another. In marriage, a man and a woman practice chastity by exercising a total, exclusive, faithful, life-long union of two individuals as one open to new life. In their love for one another, married couples reflect Christ’s love for His Church.

St. Joseph told Sister Mildred, “Let fathers also imitate my great purity of life and the deep respect I held for my Immaculate Spouse. Let them be an example to their children and fellowmen, never willfully doing anything that would cause scandal among God’s people. Fatherhood is from God, and it must take once again its rightful place among men.” (Diary 18).

The unmarried practice chastity in continence by refraining from the exercise of sexual acts. Those who are engaged to marry should see in this time of testing a discovery of mutual respect, an apprenticeship in fidelity, and the hope of receiving one another from God. They should reserve for marriage the expressions of affection that belong to married love. They will help each other grow in chastity. In these ways, we exercise sexual acts according to God’s plan.

We are called to practice sacred sex and not “safe” sex as touted by the modern media. No sex is safe unless it is practiced according to God’s plan, only in marriage. All so-called “safe” sex, commonly meaning fornication and adultery with the use of condoms, is outside of His plan.

“God created man in His own image . . . male and female He created them.” (Gen. 1:27). He blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply.” (Gen. 1:28). “That is why a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh.” (Gen. 2:24). “God inscribed in the humanity of man and woman the vocation, and thus the capacity and responsibility, of love and communion.” (CCC 2331). This is particularly so in the sacrament of Matrimony.

God’s plan for sacred sex is that sexual acts should be exercised only by those who are married and whose sexual acts are faithful, exclusive to them, united in love and open to new life. The sexual union of man and woman in marriage is a way of imitating in the flesh our Creator's generosity and fecundity.

Chastity calls us to love as God loves. It is ordering our sexuality according to the plan of God. Chastity is how we love others in sincerity and truth.

Offenses against Chastity

When our human sexuality is not integrated, it provides the means whereby our fallen human nature expresses itself in deep and sometimes horrific ways. Adultery, fornication, prostitution, rape, sexual abuse and exploitation, including sexual slavery, pornography and crimes of passion all illustrate this fallen aspect of our human nature.

Sin makes us less human and separates us from one another and from God. The grace of Christ restores us and our relationships with Him and one another. Sexual acts are morally disordered when they are sought for themselves, isolated from their procreative and unitive purposes. They may take the forms of masturbation, fornication, adultery, homosexual sexual acts and marital sexual acts using artificial contraception.

Masturbation is the deliberate stimulation of one’s genital organs in order to derive sexual pleasure. Adultery is carnal union between a married person and another non-spouse. Fornication is carnal union between an unmarried man and an unmarried woman. Homosexual sexual acts are those committed between those of the same sex. All of these sexual acts involve sexual pleasure sought outside of true mutual self-giving and openness to human procreation which is found only in true married love.

Homosexual sexual acts are intrinsically disordered. They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

However, the number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible, especially in our culture which offers it as just another choice. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. Homosexuals must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.

Like all people, homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually reach purity.

Pornography consists in removing sexual acts from the intimacy of marriage, in order to display them deliberately through the media to third parties. It is an offence against chastity because it perverts the conjugal act, the intimate giving of spouses to each other. It does grave injury to the dignity of its participants (actors, vendors and the public), since each one becomes an object of base pleasure and illicit profit for others. It immerses all who are involved in the illusion of a fantasy world and corrupts all those who are exposed to it.

Prostitution is the commercial offering of sexual acts for a price. It does injury to the dignity of the person who engages in it, reducing the person to an instrument of sexual pleasure. The one who pays sins gravely against himself. Prostitution is a social scourge which usually involves women, but also men, children, and adolescents.

Rape is the forcible violation of the sexual intimacy of another person. It deeply wounds the respect, freedom, and physical and moral integrity of the victim. Even worse is the rape of children committed by their parents (incest) or those responsible for the education of the children entrusted to them.

All of these sexual sins are offenses against chastity and are objectively morally disordered and evil. However, an individual’s personal responsibility for them varies according to the degree of formation of the conscience and the psychological and moral development of the person. God is their judge.

The Family

God’s plan is that indissoluble marriage be the foundation of the family which is the basic unit of society. The family has its origin in that same love with which the Creator embraces the created world. Jesus entered into human history through the family. He fully discloses man to himself beginning with the family in which He chose to be born and to grow up. Jesus appeals to “the beginning,” seeing at the very origins of creation God’s plan, on which the family is based, and, through the family, the entire history of humanity.

Pope John Paul II wrote in a Letter to Families:

There is a certain similarity between the union of the divine persons and the union of God’s children in truth and love. Their unity, however, rather than closing them up in themselves, opens them towards a new life, towards a new person, as parents. Begetting is the continuation of Creation. Marriage is a unique communion of persons, and it is on the basis of this communion that the family is called to become a community of persons.

Man is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself. Man cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of self. To love means to give and to receive something which can be neither bought nor sold, but only given freely and mutually. The indissolubility of marriage flows in the first place from the very essence of that gift: the gift of one person to another person.

The two dimensions of conjugal union, the unitive and the procreative, cannot be artificially separated without damaging the deepest truth of the conjugal act itself. The logic of the total gift of self to the other involves a potential openness to procreation: in this way the marriage is called to even greater fulfillment as a family. . . .

The family is fundamental to the civilization of love. Everything contrary to the civilization of love is contrary to the whole truth about man and becomes a threat to him; it does not allow him to find himself and to feel secure, as spouse, parent, or child. So-called “safe sex,” which is touted by the “civilization of technology,” is actually, in view of the overall requirements of the person, radically not safe, indeed it is extremely dangerous. It endangers both the person and the family. And what is this danger? It is the loss of the truth about one’s own self and about the family, together with the risk of a loss of freedom and consequently of a loss of love itself.

Our Lady of America and St. Joseph gave Sister Mildred several messages concerning the family. She said that it was made known to her interiorly that her mission was to converge towards the sanctification of the family.

On November 8, 1954, Our Lady spoke to her in these words:

It is the wish of my Son that fathers and mothers strive to imitate me and my chaste spouse in our holy life at Nazareth. We practiced the simple virtues of family life, Jesus our Son being the center of all our love and activity. The Holy Trinity dwelt with us in a manner far surpassing anything that can ever be imagined. For ours was the earthly paradise where once again God walked among men.

As in our little home no sin was to be found, so it is the wish of the Heart of my Son and my Immaculate Heart that sin should, as far as possible, be unheard of in the homes of our children.

The Divine Trinity will dwell in your midst only if you are faithful in practicing the virtues of our life at Nazareth. Then, you also, my children, you also will become another paradise. God will then walk among you and you will have peace.

On the evening of March 19, 1958, St. Joseph appeared to Sister and said:

Dear child, I was king in the little home of Nazareth, for I sheltered within it the Prince of Peace and the Queen of Heaven. To me they looked for protection and sustenance, and I did not fail them. I received from them the deepest love and reverence, for in me they saw Him whose place I took over them.

So the head of the family must be loved, obeyed, and respected, and in return be a true father and protector to those under his care. In honoring in a special way my fatherhood, you also honor Jesus and Mary. The Divine Trinity has placed into our keeping the peace of the world.

The imitation of the Holy Family, my child, of the virtues we practiced in our little home at Nazareth is the way for all souls to that peace which comes from God alone and which none other can give.

On the evening of the Feast of the Most Holy Rosary, October 7, 1957, Our Lady again appeared and said. “Making the Rosary a family prayer is very pleasing to me. I ask that all families strive to do so. But be careful to say it with great devotion, meditating on each mystery and striving to imitate in your daily lives the virtues depicted therein. Live the mysteries of the Rosary as I lived them, and it will become a chain binding you to me forever. They who are found in the circle of my Rosary will never be lost. I myself will lead them at death to the throne of my Son, to be eternally united to Him.”

Offenses Against Marital Dignity

Adultery, masturbation, sterilization, artificial contraception and artificial insemination are offenses against marital chastity. These acts do not respect the true love of a union that is total, faithful, exclusive and open to fertility. These acts are lies against the truth of marital sexual acts which should be a mutual giving and receiving between husbands and wives united in marital love and open to new life.

Pope John Paul II taught a “theology of the body” by which the bodies of husband and wives have an innate language that expresses itself in truth through their sexual intercourse by their total reciprocal self-giving. This language becomes a lie when it expresses itself through artificial contraception. He said:

The innate language that expresses the total reciprocal self-giving of husband and wife is overlaid, through contraception, by an objectively contradictory language, namely, that of not giving oneself totally to the other. This leads not only to a positive refusal to be open to life but also to a falsification of the inner truth of conjugal love, which is called upon to give itself in personal totality. . . . The difference, both anthropological and moral, between contraception and recourse to the rhythm of the cycle [natural family planning] . . . involves in the final analysis two irreconcilable concepts of the human person and of human sexuality.
(Pope John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation, Familiaris Consortio 32).

The language of artificial contraception is that one spouse does not totally accept the other. Its language says that one spouse does not accept the other’s fertility. It is a lie of total love which is total giving and receiving, accepting each other totally in sexual intercourse that is united and open to the transmission of human life.

Artificial contraception is intrinsically evil. (CCC 2370). However, “for just reasons, spouses may wish to space the births of their children.” (CCC 2368). This may be done through natural family planning through “periodic continence, that is, the methods of birth regulation based on self-observation and the use of infertile periods [which] is in conformity with the objective criteria of morality. These methods respect the bodies of the spouses, encourage tenderness between them, and favor the education of an authentic freedom.” (CCC 2370).

The Church is the leading institution in the world that celebrates human life itself. It does not urge that couples have unlimited children but that they be free to morally decide for themselves, considering all the circumstances. It hopes that all children will be accepted as gifts from God and supports couples that generously choose to have large families.

Sterility is a great cross for a husband and wife to carry and the cause of much suffering and anguish. However, there is no natural right to fertility. Children are a gift from God. “Only the child possesses genuine rights: the right ‘to be the fruit of the specific act of the conjugal love of his parents,’ and ‘the right to be respected as a person from the moment of his conception.’ ” (CCC 2378).

Artificial insemination of wives by husbands is immoral since it involves acts of masturbation of the husband and disrupts the unitive aspect of marital sexual acts. (CCC 2377). When this involves another male person as a “donor” of sperm it is gravely immoral. (CCC 2376).

Bodily Impurity

Morality requires respect for the life of the body. We must “perceive the human body – ours and our neighbor’s – as a temple of the Holy Spirit, a manifestation of divine beauty.” (CCC 2519). “The virtue of temperance disposes us to avoid every kind of excess: the abuse of food, alcohol, tobacco, or medicine.” (CCC 2290). The use of drugs inflicts very grave damage on human health and life. Their use, except on strictly therapeutic grounds, is a grave offense.” (CCC 2291).

All of the offenses against chastity, marital dignity and the life of the body bring Our Lady of America to tears. On September 27, 1956, she appeared to Sister Mildred. She held the world in her hands. From her eyes tears were flowing upon it, as though she longed to cleanse it from its guilt. It was then that Sister heard these words filled with sorrow and longing:

Behold, O my children, the tears of your Mother! Shall I weep in vain? Assuage the sorrow of my Heart over the ingratitude of sinful men by the love and chasteness of your lives. Will you do this for me, beloved children, or will you allow your Mother to weep in vain? I come to you, O children of America, as a last resort. I plead with you to listen to my voice. Cleanse your souls in the Precious Blood of My Son. Live in His Heart, and take me in that I may teach you to live in great purity of heart which is so pleasing to God. Be my army of chaste soldiers, ready to fight to the death to preserve the purity of your souls. I am the Immaculate One, Patroness of your land. Be my faithful children as I have been your faithful Mother.

Through her tears, Our Lady of America called us to chastity and purity, to “be my army of chaste soldiers, ready to fight to the death to preserve the purity of your souls.” To the degree we are chaste and pure we can love others, follow her call and dry her tears. To the degree we are unchaste and impure we will use others, ignore her call and add to her tears. Chastity and purity will help to save us from what Pope John Paul II called the Culture of Death with its abortions, homosexual unions and euthanasia. We should imitate the virtues of St. Maria Goretti, model of purity.

St. Maria Goretti, Model of Purity

St. Maria Goretti lived in early twentieth century Italy. When she was 11 years old, she worked with her widowed mother, Assunta, as peasant tenant farmers in a rural town. They shared their humble home with another tenant farmer family that included 20 year-old Alessandro Serenelli. He read sexually arousing material and began to make several sexual advances towards Maria, all of which she rebuffed. He became increasingly filled with lust and desire for her.

On July 5, 1902, Maria was on the second story landing of the stairway leading into their home. She was watching her baby sister, Teresa, and mending Alessandro‘s shirt. He came up the stairway, brushed beside her, went inside and called for her. She went in to help him but he grabbed her and tried to drag her into his bedroom. She resisted strenuously, shouting, “No! It is a sin! God does not want it!”

Alessandro went into a rage and began stabbing her as she struggled. He stabbed her 14 times, threw the bloody knife on the floor and locked himself into his bedroom, pretending sleep. Teresa’s cries attracted Maria’s mother who found her bleeding to death on the floor. She brought her to the doctor who tried to surgically heal her without anesthesia. When asked if she forgave her attacker, Maria calmly replied, “Yes, for the love of Jesus I forgive him and I want him to be with me in Paradise.” After 20 hours of suffering, Maria died from her wounds on July 6, 1902.

Alessandro was unrepentant and insisted on his innocence. But when he was confronted by the overwhelming evidence of his guilt, he finally confessed.

Alessandro was sentenced to 30 years in prison at hard labor. He was a hardened criminal inmate for six years. Then one night he had a dream of Maria. She appeared to him dressed in white in a garden and held out to him lily flowers. This is the same flower that Our Lady of America holds out to us in her image. It was a symbol of Maria’s purity. He accepted them and was converted by her forgiveness and love for him

When Alessandro was released from prison, he went to Maria’s mother and begged her forgiveness. “If my daughter can forgive him, who am I to withhold forgiveness,” she said. Then she went to Mass with him. He confessed his sin to the whole congregation and asked their forgiveness. He later joined a Capuchin monastery and worked as a gardener brother with them.

On June 24, 1950, Alessandro and Maria’s mother both attended Maria’s canonization by Pope Pius XII. St. Maria Goretti is a model of purity, especially for youth. She practiced heroic virtue by her unwillingness to consent to fornication and her forgiveness of her attacker which led to his redemption. Alessandro died on May 6, 1970 in the Capuchin monastery. He left the following testimony, dated May 5, 1961, as his spiritual legacy:

I'm nearly 80 years old. I'm about to depart. Looking back at my past, I can see that in my early youth, I chose a bad path which led me to ruin myself. My behavior was influenced by print, mass-media and bad examples which are followed by the majority of young people without even thinking. And I did the same. I was not worried.

There were a lot of generous and devoted people who surrounded me, but I paid no attention to them because a violent force blinded me and pushed me toward a wrong way of life.

When I was 20 years-old, I committed a crime of passion. Now, that memory represents something horrible for me. Maria Goretti, now a Saint, was my good Angel, sent to me through Providence to guide and save me. I still have impressed upon my heart her words of rebuke and of pardon. She prayed for me, she interceded for her murderer. Thirty years of prison followed.

If I had been of age, I would have spent all my life in prison. I accepted to be condemned because it was my own fault.

Little Maria was really my light, my protectress; with her help, I behaved well during the 27 years of prison and tried to live honestly when I was again accepted among the members of society. The Brothers of St. Francis, Capuchins from Marche, welcomed me with angelic charity into their monastery as a brother, not as a servant. I've been living with their community for 24 years, and now I am serenely waiting to witness the vision of God, to hug my loved ones again, and to be next to my Guardian Angel and her dear mother, Assunta.

I hope this letter that I wrote can teach others the happy lesson of avoiding evil and of always following the right path, like little children. I feel that religion with its precepts is not something we can live without, but rather it is the real comfort, the real strength in life and the only safe way in every circumstance, even the most painful ones of life.

It is only through “religion with it precepts”, as Alessandro wrote, that we will have peace.