The Feast of St. Maria Goretti

In 1902, just 2 months before her 12th birthday, Maria was accosted by the young man Alessandro Serenelli. Alessandro threatened her with death if she would not have an immoral relationship with him. Maria's response was, "No! No! it is a sin!" On July 5, 1902, the frustrated Alessandro was to stab Maria 14 times, causing her to suffer an agonizing death. She succumbed the next day of her wounds. She had repeatedly warned Alessandro he was risking eternal damnation.

As she lay dying, when the parish priest of Nettuno brought her Holy Viaticum and asked whether she forgave Alessandro, she replied, "Yes, I forgive him and want him to be in Paradise with me some day."

Alessandro was sentenced to 30 years of prison. Showing no remorse for his crime, Alessandro had a remarkable dream during his 8th year of imprisonment. "The dream was so vivid he could not distinguish it from reality. The prison bars and walls fell away and his cell was a sunlit garden blooming with flowers. Towards him came a beautiful girl dressed in pure white. He said to himself: 'How is this? Peasant girls wear darkish clothes.' But he saw it was Marietta. She was walking among flowers, smiling, and without the least fear. He wanted to flee from her but could not. Marietta picked white lilies and handed them to him saying, 'Alessandro, take them!' He accepted the lilies, one by one, fourteen of them. But a strange thing took place. As he received them from her fingers, the lilies did not remain lilies but changed into so many flaming lights. There was a lily turned to purifying flame for every one of the 14 mortal blows he struck her on the fatal day in Ferriere. Marietta said smilingly, 'Alessandro, as I have promised, your soul shall someday reach me in heaven.'"

From that time on, he was consumed to make reparation for his crime. After 27 years of imprisonment, Alessandro was released, spared 3 years of confinement due to being a model prisoner. He went to Maria’s mother, Assunta Goretti, whom he had last seen 31 years before at his trial. Begging Assunta's forgiveness, she placed her hands on his head, caressed his face and gently said, "Alessandro, Marietta forgave you, Christ has forgiven you, and why should I not also forgive. I forgive you, of course, my son! Why have I not seen you sooner? Your evil days are past, and to me, you are a long-suffering son." (DiDon ato, p. 142)

Alessandro would testify at length at the canonical process for the beatification of Maria Goretti- the only witness who could detail what had actually happened in a brutal murder. He died at the age of 89 after a long life of prayer and penance in expiation of his crime, always invoking the intercession of St. Maria Goretti as his "protector".

On June 24, 1950 at the canonization of St. Maria Goretti in the open Piazza of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. "Never before had a million souls come to St. Peter's Basilica all at one time, nor in Catholic history had there ever been present at the ceremony of canonization the mother of the Saint." (Di Donato)

Pius XII who would canonize her, noted that St. Maria Goretti stood not only for purity of soul and body but also for "mastery of the spiritual over the material, for docile love of her parents, for sacrifice in harsh, daily labor, for poverty accepted as the Gospel teaches us to accept it, for love of prayer and of Jesus in the Eucharist, for charity in her heroic forgiveness [of her murderer]."

The Safe Environment program is the Omaha archdiocesan response to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishop’s Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People. For more information go to http://www.archomaha.org/pastoral/se/index.html.

The text on St. Maria Goretti was taken from the website http://www.mariagoretti.org/ and the icon above was written by Fr. William McNichols. More information on Fr. McNichols and his icons is available at http://puffin.creighton.edu/jesuit/andre/information.html.