Salve, Regina, Mater Misericordiae.
Honor the memorial of St. Margaret of Cortona,
a sinner of what can be called the modern era,
although she lived several centuries ago,
but she has much to teach our modern world.
For St. Margaret, like most of the modern world,
was caught in the sin of impurity.
Indeed, she publicly flaunted her sin of impurity,
but she had a rather pleasant personality,
and so she was, I guess the modern expression would be,
the life of the party.
Everyone loved to be with her.
Everyone loved to carouse with her.
But at the death of her paramour,
St. Margaret began to take account of her life.
And it is most important for us to understand
for how many of us, when our loved ones
are caught in sins of impurity,
not only do not pray for them
or try to give them some type of loving and private correction,
but indeed often we wink an eye at them
and give that smile that often indicates
only if I were a little younger
or in some other way condones the behavior.
But it is most important because Margaret came to grips
with the fact that she was living
a sinful life, an extraordinary sinful life
that had led her even to the sin of sacrilege
as often is the case with sins of impurity.
And so it is important that we learn from the lesson
of St. Margaret of Cortona,
that sin is sin, and modern man
cannot change the definition of sin.
If we are offend God, he is truly offended
and we must repent of the sins
that we have offended Almighty God with.
St. Margaret would repent
repent in an extraordinary way, and for the rest of her life she would offer prayer and penance,
make sacrifices in reparation for her sinful life.
Most especially, she would perform extraordinary acts of charity for the poor and the sick
around the area of Cortona in Italy, and so she truly came to know the love of the Lord.
But St. Margaret, as is often the case with repentant sinners, also, as it were,
fell into certain faults and failings, because even in our conversions we have to grow in life.
And so our Lord would frequently appear to St. Margaret, and St. Margaret noticed that,
unlike many of the other special souls that were given the extraordinary grace of our Lord appearing to them,
our Lord would refer to her as his child rather than his daughter.
And so, one day, St. Margaret would ask the Lord,
Lord, why do you refer to me as a child and not as your daughter,
as you have to?
And so our Lord instructed St. Margaret,
Well, Margaret, when you cease complaining about the penances that you are doing,
then I will refer to you as my daughter.
It was as if he were to say,
When you begin to act like a daughter, I will call you a daughter.
It is not to point out that our Lord was telling her that she was sinning,
but she was begrudgingly doing all of those things in reparation for her sins that she was doing.
And so St. Margaret was brought along,
each and every day of her life, more and more, into the mystery of our repentance.
And indeed, in the opening prayer of the Mass, we learn from the Church itself how serious God takes sin.
For it says that St. Margaret was taken from the path of damnation.
That is, if she had not repented from her sin, she would have lost her soul for all eternity.
And so, it is most important that we understand this, for our modern world has found a way to explain away sin.
It is not necessary to list the untold thousands of ways in which the modern world tells us a sin is not a sin.
And indeed, unfortunately, even within the mystical body of Christ,
one of the most popular moralists to read says that in order to determine whether we have committed a mortal sin,
we must, as it were, conform to what he refers to as 18 modes of responsibility.
How contrary this is to the advice of the saints.
For instance, St. Francis de Sales tells us, in trying to discern whether we have committed a mortal sin or not,
he said, oh, it is easy, you will know it, it's like an elephant in the living room.
No 18 modes of responsibility which we must conform to, simply very practical advice.
When we offend God grievously, we know we offend God grievously, and we need to repent of that sin.
And so, it is very important that we learn from the life of great sinners,
just like St. Margaret, the way to repent, especially that way by which even in our repentance,
we still have a long way to go.
For indeed, each and every one of us, whether we have never violated our baptismal purity,
or whether we have violated that baptismal purity, have a long way to go in the spiritual life.
St. Teresa, the little flower, had to progress just like St. Margaret of Cortona.
Indeed, many theologians,
asked the question in heaven, they would like to sit in on the debate,
that debate that would determine who loves God more,
the one who has never lost the innocence that the soul receives in baptism,
or the soul, after having received that innocence, loses it and reclaims it,
and enters into a life of penitence like St. Margaret of Cortona.
It is an interesting debate, but none of us will know it in this life.
We know only that we have to repent,
repent of our sins, and then, as it were, thank God for the rest of our lives,
for the gift he has given us in our repentance.
St. Margaret's paramour died.
We do not know the state of his soul.
We can only pray that God gave him the grace to make a perfect act of contrition
before he parted this life.
But in his death, St. Margaret would take account of her life.
And so, we too, are dead when we fall into the state of mortal sin.
And so, let us rise like St. Margaret of Cortona,
showing ourselves to be truly repentant,
and let us especially show, as St. Margaret understood,
that once we have entered into the life of penitence,
we must become a good witness to all souls.
St. Margaret came to understand that it was not only her sins
that she had to make reparation for, but it was the sins of all.
And that is why we can have hope for St. Margaret's paramour,
and that he was given that,
that extraordinary grace to make a perfect act of contrition.
For God foresees all that we have done.
It does not matter whether a sinner has passed from this life
before we have existed in this life.
God foresees our prayers and our penances
for all sinners, past, present, and future.
And he can apply those graces at its most dire need.
And certainly, that man would have been in dire need
as he was undergoing the ordeal of his death.
And so,
let us truly, simply like St. Margaret, put our hands to the plow,
go forward in the life of prayer and penitence,
and offer that prayer and penance in reparation for both our sins
and for the sins of the whole world,
so that the world may again come to know its salvation,
as the opening prayer tells us.
She was taken from the path of damnation
and put on the path of salvation.
And so, she would give everything back to God,
because she knew it was to God that she owed her very repentance.
Often it is we fall into those faults that St. Margaret of Cortona fell into,
because we think somehow the grace of our repentance
was in some way manufactured by us.
Indeed, we see that often being detrimental into the prayer life,
where our soul believes if they offer so many prayers
and spend so many hours in prayer,
then they will receive this amount of grace.
It is as if the spiritual life was a mathematical formula.
Indeed, all the spiritual writers tell us it is not the case.
We need merely to pray and to do penance,
and we will let God determine how much grace He wishes to give us.
There is no mathematical formula,
because repentance is not, as it were, a secular science.
It is a divine science, and hence, it is a science of love.
And so, let us love greatly,
because as St. Margaret of Cortona came to know,
as much as St. Teresa the little flower knew,
to whom much is given, much will be expected.
Our salvation is given to us freely by God.
We did nothing to merit it in our baptism.
Our repentance was a grace given to us freely by God.
We did nothing to merit it.
And so, let us simply strive to show, like St. Margaret,
that we are grateful and that we are truly sorrowful for our sins
and for the sins of the whole world.
And let us always remember, as the opening prayer points out to us,
and as the Church will point out until the end of time,
sin still remains sin, fornication still remains fornication,
usury still remains usury,
and all the sins of our modern world are still sinful in the eyes of God.
And so, the modern world needs penitents
like St. Margaret of Cortona,
who simply go about showing the Lord how sorrowful they are,
and hoping and praying that He will give the world the grace
to see how sorrowful it should be.
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