Saint Maria Goretti (1890-1902)
Image: Catholic Online
(EWTN) Born in Italy Corinaldo, Maria was the daughter of a sharecropper, had no opportunity to attend school according to Franciscan Media and never learned to read or write.
On a hot July afternoon, Maria was setting on top of the stairs at her home mending a skirt — she was not yet quite 12 yrs old, a cart stopped outside and 20 yr old neighbor Alessandro Serenelli ran up the stairs, abducted her and pulled Maria into a bedroom, she struggled to get away and tried calling for help, “No, God does not wish it,” Maria cried out. “Its a sin, you would go to hell for it,” Maria told her attacker but to no avail as Alessandro began striking her with a long knife.
Following this brutal attack and attempted rape, Maria was found and taken to a hospital, her final hours were marked by the usual compassion of the good and concern where her mother may rest, forgiveness of her assailant (Maria in fear of him did not say anything so not to cause trouble for his family) as Maria welcomed the Eucharist and last Holy Communion–she died the next day at the age 0f 11 year old.
Maria’s assailant was found, subsequently convicted and sentenced to 30 years in prison. For a long time, Alessandro was unrepentant and bad tempered, One night he had a vision of Maria according to SQPN she was in a garden dressed in white and was gathering Lilies, Maria smiled and came near him, encouraging him to accept the armful of Lilies–As Alessandro took them, each Lily transformed into a still white flame. Maria then disappeared. This vision of Maria, changed his life and led to Alessandro’s conversion — he would later testify at her cause for Beatification.
When Alessandro was released from prison his first act was to go to Maria’s Mother and beg for forgiveness.
Devotion to Maria grew, “the sweet little martyr of purity…she did not break God’s Commandments in spite of being threatened with death,” said Pope Saint John Paul II in 2002 at the 100th Anniversary of Saint Maria Goretti’s murder.
“What a shining example for young people. The noncommittal mindset of much of our society and culture today sometimes has a struggle to understand the beauty and value of chastity. A high and noble perception of dignity, her and that of others emerges from the behavior of this young Saint, was mirrored in her daily choices, given them the fullness of human meaning. Is not there a very timeless lesson in this? In a culture that idolizes the physical aspect of the relations between a Man and a Woman, the Church continues to defend and to champion the value of sexuality as a factor that involves every aspect of the person and must therefore be lived with an interior attitude of freedom and reciprocal respect, in the light of God’s original plan. With this outlook, a person discovers he or she is being given a gift and is called, in turn, to be a gift to the other.”
Maria Goretti was Beatified in 1947 where her mother (then 82 yrs old) two sisters and a brother appeared with Pope Pius XII at the Balcony of St. Peter’s — Three years later at Maria’s Canonization, Alessandro (now 66 yrs old) knelt and wept among the 250,000 people at St. Peter’s Square in Rome.
Related: For Today’s Holy Scripture Readings for the Memorial of St. Maria Goretti, Visit: -USCCB
The Fifteenth Crimson Lily –Maria Goretti.org
Tweet