Catholic Blesseds, Saints, Solemnities & Holy Days

Maria Teresa Goretti was born on October 16, 1890, in the small Italian town of Corinaldo, the third of six children in a devoutly Catholic family. Her childhood was marked by hardship from an early age. When Maria was just six years old, economic difficulties forced her family to abandon their farm and move to Ferriere di Conca, where they sought work as laborers for other farmers, a common fate for many poor Italian families at the turn of the twentieth century.

When Maria was nine, tragedy struck their already struggling household. Her father contracted malaria and died, leaving her mother Assunta to care for six children alone. As the eldest daughter, eleven-year-old Maria shouldered enormous responsibility, taking on the roles of cook, seamstress, and caretaker for her infant sister while her mother and siblings worked long hours in the fields. Despite their poverty, the Goretti family remained united by their deep faith and love for one another.

To make ends meet, the Gorettis shared their modest living quarters with another family, the Serenellis, which included the widowed Giovanni Serenelli and his twenty-year-old son Alessandro. This arrangement, born of economic necessity, would ultimately lead to tragedy.

On July 5, 1902, while Maria was alone in the house caring for her baby sister, Alessandro Serenelli approached her with evil intentions. The twenty-year-old threatened to rape the eleven-year-old girl, but Maria courageously refused, telling him that what he wanted to do was a mortal sin and warning him that he would go to hell if he persisted. With remarkable spiritual maturity for her age, she fought desperately to defend her purity, repeatedly crying out that God did not want this and that it was a grave sin.

When Maria declared she would rather die than submit to him, Alessandro first attempted to strangle her. Still she refused, so in his rage he stabbed her eleven times. As the wounded girl tried to crawl toward the door to seek help, he stabbed her three more times before fleeing, inflicting a total of fourteen wounds on the small child.

Maria's crying baby sister alerted the adults, and when Giovanni Serenelli and Assunta Goretti discovered what had happened, they rushed Maria to the nearest hospital. She underwent surgery without anesthesia, and halfway through the procedure, she regained consciousness. Despite her agony, Maria displayed extraordinary grace and spiritual strength.

Just twenty hours after the brutal attack, as she lay dying, Maria expressed forgiveness for her attacker and declared her desire to see Alessandro in heaven with her. When the hospital pharmacist asked her to remember him in Paradise, she gladly promised she would. Maria died while gazing at a beautiful image of the Blessed Mother and clutching a crucifix to her chest, passing from this world as a virgin martyr at the tender age of eleven.

Alessandro was quickly captured and sentenced to thirty years in prison. For three long years, he remained completely unrepentant and refused to communicate with anyone. His transformation began when Monsignor Giovanni Blandini visited him in prison. Alessandro began corresponding with the bishop, describing a powerful dream in which Maria Goretti appeared to him, offering him lilies that immediately burned in his hands. This vision marked the beginning of his complete conversion.

After his release from prison, Alessandro sought out Maria's mother, Assunta, and begged for her forgiveness. In a moment that exemplified Christian mercy, she granted it, saying that if Maria had forgiven him on her deathbed, she could do no less. The next day, the mother of the murdered child and her daughter's killer attended Mass together and received Holy Communion side by side, demonstrating the transformative power of forgiveness.

Alessandro's conversion proved to be complete and lasting. He prayed daily to Maria, whom he affectionately called "My Little Saint," and even attended her canonization ceremony in 1950. He became a Lay Brother with the Capuchin Franciscans, spending his remaining years serving as receptionist and gardener at their monastery. He lived a life of penance and prayer until his peaceful death in 1970. Before he died, Alessandro testified that Maria had successfully defended her virginity, confirming that she truly died as a pure virgin martyr.

The story of St. Maria Goretti represents one of the most powerful examples of Christian forgiveness and the triumph of purity over violence. Her martyrdom at age eleven demonstrates that sanctity knows no age limits, while her extraordinary act of forgiveness from her deathbed shows the transformative power of Christian mercy. Even more remarkably, her forgiveness did not end with her death but continued to work in the world, ultimately converting her attacker into a saint-like figure who spent his life in prayer and penance.

Today, St. Maria Goretti continues to inspire Catholics worldwide as a model of courage, purity, and forgiveness. Her story proves that even in the face of the gravest evil, the power of Christian love can overcome hatred and transform even the most hardened hearts. She remains a beacon of hope for all who suffer violence, showing that forgiveness, rather than revenge, opens the path to true healing and redemption.