St. Agatha

February 5,2004

by Rev. Herbert Nichols

Picture yourself awaking in bed and Jesus standing in you room. No you are not dead, yet. But he is there to prepare you for what all of us must ultimately face as the inevitable. Your heart might begin pounding with anticipation and fear; you can conjure up excuses, a dime a dozen, but, I think Jesus would probably smile at your timidity and foolishness and say, as he did to his apostles: Go out there and face the world. Tell, whomever you meet, how much I love them, and accept the consequences.

Many, perhaps some of you, do just that when you teach or taught CCD, perhaps intimidated much less by a group of teenagers than by an individual person. But we have nothing to fear if we have the love of God working us. Perfect love casts out fear.

Today we honor a young woman of the third century; a very young girl who refused the pre-arranged marriage for her that was the custom of the day. She refused the marriage, because her fiancée refused to convert to Christianity, nor would she abandon the beliefs of her faith.

Sometimes today such marriages are attempted and have some success, but in those days her stubbornness subjected her to great public indignity and torture and ultimate martyrdom.

But there is more here than a rejection of marriage, and even of conjugal union. It is about how sexuality is viewed. Many studies today show that sexuality and personality are connected on very deep levels. Our sexuality is a very critical part of who we are. Contrary to modern theory, sexuality and spirituality are intrinsic not contradictory.

Yet, this is also an age when people tend to sever sexuality from their deepest core and trivialize actions, loosing focus on beings. It should be no surprise that when trivialized in this fashion, that self-respect plummets. Again with irony, we live in age that holds high regard for emotional integrity, political integrity, financial integrity, and to some extend religious integrity, but sexual integrity is something to be felt as shameful and secret.

Agatha stands before the world today for sexual self-respect. Whatever she may have meant to previous generations in terms of heroic loyalty to the faith; to our own generation she shows a person who refused to compromise her own personal dignity.

We have seen the chastisement and purification brought through repentance for the sins of David; but why do the innocent suffer? Perhaps for the purification and the enlightenment of others.

Is that why Jesus, the fruit of David’s loin; the apple that fell from the tree, came as a suffering Messiah.

In the first reading David realizes that he is about to die. He summoned his son, Solomon, (Jedidiah), to be his successor as king. He wanted Solomon to clearly understand the conditions that he would have to follow if he wanted to stay in the Lord’s favor. But all David could do was instruct Solomon; for death would separate them leaving the young king to mature for himself.

Eventually for Solomon, he would meet his own Goliaths and fall even deeper into sin than his father. The united kingdoms, upon the death of Solomon, would again become divided and destroyed.

But the love that David was unable to communicate to his son, Jesus has been able to communicate through his vicarious suffering and death.

If we truly come to believe as David did that God loves me; if you can come to believe as Agatha did that God has given me self-dignity, not because I am worthy, but because I am in need of His love, than you too can fearlessly share that good news with anyone.