Saint Maria Goretti
(1890 – 1902). His feast is celebrated on July 6.
Mary had seen the light on October 16, 1890, in Corinaldo, province of Ancona, Italy, in the bosom of a poor family of earthly goods but rich in faith and virtues: common prayer and rosary every day, and on Sundays Mass and Holy Communion. Maria is the third of the seven children of Luigi Goretti and Assunta Carlini. The day after her birth she is baptized and consecrated to the Virgin. She will receive the sacrament of Confirmation at the age of six.
After the birth of his fourth child, Luigi Goretti, too poor to be able to subsist in his native region, emigrated with his family to the great plains of the Roman countryside, still unhealthy at the time. He settled in Ferriere di Conca, in the service of Count Mazzoleni, where Maria soon revealed precocious intelligence and maturity. There is not a single hint of caprice, disobedience, or lies in her. She really is the angel of the family.
After a year of exhausting work, Luigi contracts an illness that kills him in ten days. For Assunta and her children a long ordeal begins. María often mourns the death of her father, and she takes advantage of any occasion to kneel in front of the cemetery fence. Perhaps her father is in purgatory, and since she does not have the means to order masses for the repose of her soul, she tries to compensate with her prayers. But don’t think that the girl practices kindness effortlessly, as her amazing progress is the fruit of her prayer. Her mother will say that her rosary was necessary for her and, in fact, she always wore it wrapped around her wrist. From the contemplation of the crucifix, Mary is nourished by an intense love for God and a deep horror for sin.
“I WANT JESUS”
Mary longs for the day when she will receive the Holy Eucharist. As was customary at the time, she had to wait until she was eleven years old, but one day she asked her mother:
-Mom, when will I take Communion? I want Jesus.
-How are you going to take it, if you don’t know your catechism? Besides, you don’t know how to read, we don’t have money to buy your dress, shoes and veil, and we don’t have a spare moment.
-Well, I’ll never be able to take Communion, Mom! And I can’t be without Jesus!
-What do you want me to do? I can’t let you go to Communion like a little ignorant girl.
Finally, Maria finds a way to get ready with the help of a local person, and the whole town comes to her aid to provide her with communion clothes. She receives the Eucharist on May 29, 1902.
The reception of the Bread of the angels increases in Mary the love for purity and encourages her to take the resolution to preserve that angelic virtue at all costs. One day, after hearing an exchange of dishonest phrases between a boy and one of her classmates, she says indignantly to her mother:
-Mom, that girl speaks badly!
-Try never to take part in those conversations.
-I don’t even want to think about it, mom; Rather than do it, I’d rather…
And the word to die remains on his lips. A month later, the voice of her blood will finish the sentence.
Entering the service of Count Mazzoleni, Luigi Goretti had associated himself with Giovanni Serenelli and his son Alessandro. The two families live in separate apartments, but the kitchen is shared. Luigi immediately regretted that union with Giovanni Serenelli, a very different person from his, a drinker and lacking discretion in his words. After the death of Luigi, Assunta and her children had fallen under the despotic yoke of the Serenelli, Maria, who has understood the situation, tries to support her mother:
-Courage, mom, don’t be afraid, we’re getting older. It is enough that the Lord grant us health. Providence will help us. We will fight and we will continue fighting!
Since the death of her husband, Assunta is always in the country and doesn’t even have time to take care of the house, or the religious instruction of the little ones. Maria takes care of everything, as far as possible. During meals, she does not sit at the table until she has served everyone, and she serves her own leftovers. Her obsequiousness extends equally to the Serenellis. For his part, Giovanni, whose wife had died in the Ancona psychiatric hospital, does not care at all about his son Alessandro, a robust nineteen-year-old, rude and vicious, who likes to wallpaper his room with obscene images and read books. indecent On his deathbed, Luigi Goretti had sensed the danger that the company of the Serenelli represented for his children, and he had repeated endlessly to his wife:
-Assunta, return to Corinaldo! Unfortunately Assunta is in debt and bound by a lease.
AN IMMACULATE LILY
Being in contact with the Goretti, some religious sentiments have taken their toll on Alessandro. He sometimes joins in the prayer of the rosary that they do with the family, and on holidays he hears Mass. He even confesses from time to time. But all this does not prevent him from making dishonest proposals to the innocent María, which he does not understand at first. Later, guessing the boy’s evil intentions, the young woman is on notice and rejects the flattery and threats. She begs her mother not to leave her alone at home, but she doesn’t dare to clearly explain the causes of her panic, because Alessandro has threatened her: -If you tell your mother something, I’ll kill you. Her only recourse is prayer. On the eve of her death, Maria asks her mother again, crying, not to leave her alone, but, receiving no further explanations, she considers it a whim and does not attach any importance to her repeated plea.
On July 5, about forty meters from the house, they are threshing the beans on the threshing floor. Alessandro drives a cart drawn by oxen. He spins it over and over over the beans spread on the ground. Around three in the afternoon, when Maria is home alone, Alessandro says:
-Assunta, would you please lead the oxen for me for a moment?
Suspecting nothing, the woman does. María, sitting on the threshold of the kitchen, mends a shirt that Alessandro has given her after eating, while she keeps an eye on her little sister Teresina, who sleeps next to her.
–Maria! Alessandro shouts.
-What do you want?
-I want you to follow me.
-So that? -Follow me!
-If you don’t tell me what you want, I won’t follow you.
Faced with such resistance, the boy violently grabs her arm and drags her to the kitchen, barring the door. The girl screams, but the noise does not reach the outside. Failing to get the victim to submit, Alessandro gags her and wields a dagger. Maria begins to tremble but does not succumb. Furious, the young man violently tries to rip her clothes off, but Maria undoes her gag and screams:
-Don’t do that, it’s a sin… You’ll go to hell.
Little careful of God’s judgment, the unfortunate man raises his gun: -If you don’t let yourself go, I’ll kill you.
Faced with this resistance, he traverses gashes. The girl starts screaming: -My God! Mom!, and she falls to the ground. Believing her dead, the murderer drops the knife and opens the door to flee from her, but, hearing her moan again, he retraces her steps, picks up the weapon and runs it through again; later, he goes upstairs to lock himself in her room.
Maria has received fourteen serious injuries and has fainted. Upon regaining consciousness of her, she calls out to Mr. Serenelli: – Giovanni! Alessandro has killed me… Come on.
Almost at the same time, woken up by the noise, Teresina lets out a shrill cry, which her mother hears. Scared, she tells her son Mariano: -Run to look for Maria; tell her that Teresina is calling her.
At that moment, Giovanni Serenelli goes up the stairs and, seeing the horrible spectacle that appears before his eyes, exclaims: -Assunta, and you too, Mario, come!
Mario Cimarelli, a day laborer on the farm, climbs the ladder in a hurry. The mother also arrives: -Mom!, moans Maria. -It’s Alessandro, who wanted to hurt me!
They call the doctor and the guards, who arrive in time to prevent the excited neighbors from killing Alessandro on the spot.
NOT A DROP OF WATER!
After a long and painful trip by ambulance, around eight in the evening, they arrive at the hospital. The doctors are surprised that the girl has not yet succumbed to her injuries, as she has been hit in the pericardium, heart, left lung, diaphragm and intestine. Verifying that she has no cure, they send for the chaplain. Maria confesses lucidly. After her, the doctors lavish care on her for two hours, without putting her to sleep. Mary does not lament, and she does not stop praying and offering her sufferings to the Blessed Virgin, Mother of Sorrows. Her mother gets them to let her stay at the head of the bed. Mary still has the strength to comfort her:
– Mom, dear mom, I’m fine now… How are my brothers and sisters?
María is devoured by thirst: -Mom, give me a drop of water.
-My poor Maria, the doctor doesn’t want to, because it would be worse for you.
Surprised, Maria continues saying: -How is it possible that you can’t drink even a drop of water? She then turns her gaze on the crucified Jesus, who had also said I thirst!, and resigns herself.
The hospital chaplain paternally assists her and, at the moment of giving her Holy Communion, questions her: -Maria, do you forgive your murderer with all your heart?
She, repressing an instinctive repulsion, replies: -Yes, I forgive him for the love of Jesus, and I want him to come with me to paradise. I want him to be by my side… May God forgive him, because I have already forgiven him.
In the midst of these feelings, the same ones that Jesus Christ had on Calvary, Mary receives the Eucharist and Extreme Unction, serene, calm, humble in the heroism of her victory. The end is coming. She is heard saying: -Dad.
Finally, after a last call to Mary, he enters the immense glory of paradise. It is July 6, 1902, at three in the afternoon. She was not yet twelve years old.
YOU ARE WASTING YOUR TIME, MONSIGNOR
Alessandro’s trial takes place three months after the drama. Advised by his lawyer, he confesses: -I liked it. I provoked her twice to evil, but I couldn’t get anything. Disgusted, I prepared the dagger I was to use. He is sentenced to thirty years of hard labor. He appears to feel no remorse for the crime. He is sometimes heard shouting:
– Cheer up, Serenelli, in twenty-nine years and six months you will be a bourgeois! But Maria does not forget it. A few years later, Monsignor Blandini, bishop of the diocese where the prison is located, is inspired to visit the murderer to lead him to repentance. -He is wasting his time, monsignor -says the jailer-, he is a tough guy!
Alessandro receives the bishop grumbling, but before the memory of Mary, of her heroic forgiveness, of God’s infinite goodness and mercy, he allows himself to be overtaken by grace. After the prelate leaves, he cries in the solitude of the cell, before…