On July 6th 1902, Maria Goretti was brutally stabbed to 14 times, dying of her wounds later that day.
Her killer was a 20 year old called Alessandro Serenelli, who had tried to force her to have sex with him. She forgave him for his crime before she died. After serving 27 years in prison, Alessandro sought forgiveness from Goretti’s mother, which he obtained. They even attended Mass together after she had decided to do so. He later became a lay brother in a Capuchin Monastery.
She stands as a model for chastity, purity and forgiveness.
On the centenary of her death in 2002, Pope John Paul II reflected:
A hundred years ago, on 6 July 1902, Maria Goretti died in the hospital at Nettuno, brutally stabbed the day before in the little village of Le Ferriere, in the Pontine Marshes. Her spiritual life, the strength of her faith, her ability to forgive her murderer have placed her among the best-loved saints of the 20th century. Appropriately, therefore, the Congregation of the Passion (C.P.), entrusted with the care of the shrine where the saint's remains repose, wanted to celebrate the anniversary with special solemnity.
St Maria Goretti was a girl whom God's Spirit endowed with the courage to stay faithful to her Christian vocation even to the point of making the supreme sacrifice of her life. Her tender age, her lack of education and the poverty of the environment in which she lived did not prevent grace from working its miracles in her. Indeed, it was precisely in these conditions that God's special love for the lowly appeared. We are reminded of the words with which Jesus blesses the heavenly Father for revealing himself to children and the simple, rather than to the wise and learned of the world (cf. Mt 11,25).
It was rightly observed that St Maria Goretti's martyrdom heralded what was to be known as the century of martyrs. It was in this perspective that at the end of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, I stressed that "this lively sense of repentance ... has not prevented us from giving glory to the Lord for what he has done in every century, and in particular during the century which we have just left behind, by granting his Church a great host of saints and martyrs" (Novo Millennio ineunte, n. 7).
Maria Goretti, born in Corinaldo in The Marches on 16 October 1890, was soon obliged to emigrate with her family, and after sometime they arrived at Le Ferriere di Conca in the Pontine Marshes. Despite the hardships of poverty which even prevented her from going to school, little Maria lived in a serene and united family atmosphere, enlivened by Christian faith, in which the children felt welcomed as a gift and were taught by their parents self-respect and respect for others, as well as a sense of duty based on love of God. This enabled the little girl to grow up peacefully, nourishing her simple but deep faith. The Church has always recognized the role of the family as the first and fundamental place for the sanctification of its members, starting with the children.
In this family environment Maria assimilated steadfast trust in God's provident love, which she showed in particular at the death of her father, who died of malaria. "Mother, be brave, God will help us", the little girl was in the habit of saying in those difficult times, bravely reacting to her deep feeling of loss at her father's death.
In the homily for her canonization, Pope Pius XII of venerable memory pointed to Maria Goretti as "the sweet little martyr of purity" (cf. Discorsi e Radiomessaggi, XII [1950-1951], 121), because she did not break God's commandment in spite of being threatened by death.
What a shining example for young people! The non-commital 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 own and that of others emerges from the behaviour of this young saint, was mirrored in her daily choices, giving them the fullness of human meaning. Is not there a very timely 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.
In the Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio ineunte I noted that "in the Christian view of marriage, the relationship between a man and a woman - a mutual and total bond, unique and indissoluble - is part of God's original plan, obscured throughout history by "hardness of heart', but which Christ came to restore to its pristine splendour, disclosing what had been God's will "from the beginning' (Mt 19,8). Raised to the dignity of a sacrament, marriage expresses the "great mystery' of Christ's nuptial love for his Church (cf. Eph 5,32)" (n. 47).
It cannot be denied that today the threats to the unity and stability of the family are many. However, at the same time there is a renewed awareness of the child's right to be raised in love, protected from every kind of danger and educated so as to be able to set out in life with confidence and fortitude.
In the heroic testimony of the saint of Le Ferriere, her forgiveness of the man who killed her and her desire to be able to meet him one day in heaven deserve special attention. This spiritual and social message is of extraordinary relevance in our time.
A year later, as the centenary came to a close, Cardinal Sodano stated:
Of course, evil exists in the world, but the saints show us that God's grace is stronger than evil. St John's Gospel mentions Jesus' bitter observation: "The light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light" (cf. Jn 3: 19).
Our great poet, Giacomo Leopardi, used these words of Christ as the epigraph to his beautiful poem on broom. On a journey to the slopes of Vesuvius, he was astonished at the sight of the flow of ashes and lava which had once sown desolation and death, and then paused to reflect on a sweet-scented bush of broom that was struggling to survive in those harsh conditions.
We too can often contemplate fragrant flowers of holiness shining among our human misery: they are the saints and, in particular, they are the martyrs of all times.
An extraordinary girl
Maria Goretti is one of these heroic figures of God's holy Church: she was 12 years old but her life was full of many noble ideals and a greatness of soul that still amazes us today. This is the merit of the Christian family she came from. It is the fruit of her response to God's grace. Our dear Fr Alberti wrote in his biography of "Marietta" (as her family called her) that she did not become a saint "in five minutes" (G. Alberti, Maria Goretti, Rome 2000, p. 243), since holiness is not improvised but is the fruit of constant effort and daily acceptance of the prompting of the Holy Spirit who dwells in the hearts of believers.
In reading the life of this marvellous girl, we are surprised by the depth of her interior life. In her there is such faith in divine Providence that she can say to her mother, Assunta, in the hour of her suffering: "Mother, do not be distressed, God will never leave us". There is love for her family that impels her to say, after the death of her father: "I'll take care of the house now". There is a pressing desire to receive the Lord: "Mother", she exclaimed, "Mother, when can I make my First Communion?". There is a profound vision of the meaning of life and eternity when she says to Alessandro Serenelli: "But what are you doing, Alessandro? God is not pleased, you will go to hell". Finally, there is a true sense of Christian love which is also capable of forgiveness when, before dying, she speaks of the one who stabbed her, exclaiming: "Through love of Jesus, I forgive him with all my heart" (ibid., pp. 247-248). This is the masterpiece of grace that God worked in this blessed land. This is the Saint that Nettuno presents to young people today, reminding them that the Christian ideal is possible and that with the grace of God, it can be lived intensely.
A glorious epic
So it was in the past in pagan Rome with Agnes and Cecilia, with Tarcisius and Pancras. So it is today with Maria Goretti and so many heroic figures of our times. Among these I would like also to recall a young woman from my own region of Piedmont who was brutally murdered on 28 August 1944, during the last World War, by a German soldier who wanted to posses her: I am speaking of Teresa Bracco, like Maria Goretti a martyr of purity, whom Pope John Paul II beatified during his last Apostolic Visit to Turin on 24 May 1998.
In this case too, reading the life of Teresa, cut down in the flower of her 20th year, one can see that her heroism was the logical consequence of a sound Christian formation in a family full of faith and a fervent Christian community, as was that of Santa Giulia, set among the wooded Langhe of Alto Monferrato (cf. G. Galliano, Teresa Bracco. Un fiore ed una luce sugli orrori della guerra, Asti, 1998).
The same epic of holiness continues in the Church of Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit, "the Lord, the giver of life".
Nor, as I celebrate this holy thanksgiving Mass in a church belonging to the Passionist Fathers, could I possibly forget the centenary of the death of another Saint, St Gemma Galgani, who also ended her brief life in 1903, when she was just 25. In reading her life, we are ecstatic before the gifts with which God crowned her. In Lucca she was called "the little girl of grace". Poor, humble and simple, she came to be one of the greatest mystics of modern times: such are the marvels that God works in those who are open to his grace.
Then God's power is manifested even more visibly in the martyrs. Each one of them could justifiably repeat the Apostle Paul's words to the Philippians: "I can do all things in him who strengthens me" (Phil 4: 13).
The triumph of love
5. In the case of Maria Goretti, the power of divine grace was manifested not only in her fortitude, but also in her splendid gesture of forgiveness to young Alessandro Serenelli. The girl from the village of Ferriere di Conca had learned from her pious mother that it was impossible to separate love of God from love of neighbour. Even in her agonizing pain, she could pray for her persecutor.
This is a masterpiece of Christian tenderness, the most beautiful flower of love. It constitutes the beauty of our great little Saint. A well-known Russian writer, Dostoyevsky, wrote that beauty would save the world. He ought, perhaps, to have completed his sentence by saying that it is the beauty of love that will save the world. Yes, for it is love that truly saves us!
Pope John Paul II concluded the centenary in July 2003:
St Maria Goretti helps all young people to experience the beauty and joy of the evangelical Beatitude: "Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God" (Mt 5: 8).
Purity of heart, as with every virtue, requires a daily discipline of the will and a constant interior discipline. Above all, it calls for assidous recourse to God in prayer.
The many activities and accelerated rhythms of life make it difficult at times to cultivate this important spirutal dimension. Summer vacations, however, that for some begin during these days, can become an appropriate occasion to give new breath to the spiriutal life, if they are not wasted by squandering them and using them simply as entertainment.
Her story is a particularly powerful one, one which transcends any preconceptions about the Catholic life that imply mundanity or easiness, the most saintly lives are mystical, transcendent and often times, immensely difficult.
Ken Moore