Our Lady of Everlasting Help
In 1886 Luigi Goretti, a poor farm labourer, married Assumpta Carlina.
Among their little wedding presents was a picture of Our Lady of Everlasting Help, the ancient image in which Christ is depicted as an infant with His mother, clutching her right hand with both His Hands for comfort.
This picture must have provided most of what was colourful in the poverty-stricken life of the couple's little daughter Maria, who was born to them on a small farm near Ancona, Italy, on 16 October 1890, after Assumpta had borne two sons, the first of whom had died soon after birth.
The second son was named Angelo.
The day after Maria was born, she was baptised.
She in her turn brought colour into her parents' lives, for her mother would one day describe her as "happy, good, openhearted, without whim but with a sense and seriousness beyond her years and never disobedient."
Lodgers
By the time Maria was nine four more children had been born, named Mariano, Alessandro, Erzilia and Teresa.
The poor have little choice of privacy in their lives.
Necessity dictated the sharing of a house by the family with Luigi's partner Giovanni Serenelli, a widower, and his son Alessandro, both of them lapsed Catholics.
The partners were working on the estate of Count Mazzoleni at Ferriere di Conca, Campagna, a spot situated some seven miles from the nearest town, Nettuno.
The house where they stayed was small.
A flight of wornout stone steps led to a humble yard.
The family lived in poverty.
Yet the picture of Our Lady of Everlasting Help retained its place of honour in the quarters used by the Goretti family.
Mass at Nettuno
It took four hours on Sundays to walk to and fro from Mass at Nettuno.
Maria, small though she was, never missed a Sunday Mass.
She would take her brothers along and tell them stories on the way to make the distance appear shorter.
It grieved her that she could not attend catechism lesons and was therefore unable to receive the Blessed Eucharist.
In the year of 1900 on the sixth of May, Luigi Goretti died.
Afterwards Maria took charge of the family's daily recitation of the Rosary.
Assumpta worked on the fields while her little daughter took care of the house and the family.
Catechism lessons were arranged in the vicinity of the farm and two years later, in May 1902, at the age of eleven, Maria Goretti and her brother Angelo made their First Holy Communion.
As usual, they walked the seven miles to Nettuno and back.
Assumpta could not even go with them - such was their poverty which barred them from hiring transport so that the family could have shared in their joy.
Maria had been to Confession on the previous day but at Nettuno she begged the priest to hear her confession again.
Though surprised, he acceded to her request.
Maria radiated joy as she first received the Holy Eucharist and the long walks to and from the church at Nettuno appeared short to her in relation to her happiness at being able to share in the reception of the Eucharist.
Decision
The death of Luigi had not touched Alessandro Serenelli, the son of Luigi's partner.
Allessandro, now ninenteen years old, did not pray and avoided church-going.
In his room he had placed suggestive pictures and Maria hated going inside it to perform chores.
Alessandro cast his eye on Maria, now that Luigi was out of the way and Assumpta was alternately labouring in the fields and caring for her children.
He decided to seduce Maria.
About a month after her first Communion, in the middle of June, when Assumpta was working in the fields he tried to take Maria in his arms and told her of his intentions.
He threatened her that if she told her mother he would kill both of them.
She held her tongue and wound her rosary around her wrist for protection.
Threats
A week later Alessandro renewed his overtures, again resorting to threats when his advances were spurned.
On one occasion in June Maria asked her mother not to leave her to go to the land because she herself was afraid.
Assumpta told her not to be silly - God would look after her.
Assumpta, noticing Maria's coolness towards Alessandro, berated her for what she believed to be rudeness, while Alessandro, burning with resentment at having been turned down twice by Maria, planned his revenge.
He procured a 20 cm awl - a sharp shoemaker's tool used for making holes in leather.
In front of Assumpta he told Maria that he was leaving his shirt on this bed for her to mend.
When he was gone she fetched it quickly and started sewing in the courtyard.
Meanwhile Alessandro requested Assumpta to look after his cart as he was leaving for a short while.
She agreed without suspicion.
At the house, Alessandro rushed past Maria and called her.
When she refused to come in, he ran out and dragged her inside.
Again he made overtures to her.
Maria's horror overcame her dread of him.
"What are you thinking of, Alessandro?" she asked. "No! No!"
Alessandro pulled out the awl and showed it to her.
Despite her overwhelming fear,Maria remained adamant in her refusal.
"No, Alessandro!" she said.
In a frenzy of hatred and frustrated passion, Alessandro lifted his weapon above her head, then drove it several times into her body.
She tried to fight back, kicking, scratching and evading him.
The awl was driven into body eight times before she lost consciousness and collapsed.
When she recovered consciousness she tried to crawl to the door.
Alessandro stabbed her six more times before abandoning her and runing away.
Agony
Alessandro's father, Giovanni Serenelli, found Maria in his room and called a neighbour, Mrs Caremelli, with whom Maria had arranged to go to Mass the following day.
They alerted Assumpta who ran in and crouched down on the ground beside her daughter.
When Maria regained consciousness, she groaned in agony, then whispered: "Mother! Mother!"
"What happened to you, dearest?"
"It was Alessandro who did it."
"But why?"
"Because he wanted me to commit sin and I kept saying "No! No! No!"
Serenelli Senior brough a doctor who administered first aid.
The seven mile ambulance journey to Nettuno across the rutted road and farmtracks that followed was a nightmare.
At Nettuno, the horrified staff operated that night and Maria's dreadful thirst could not be alleviated.
Conscious
Maria remained conscious during most of the two hour operation, calling on the names of Jesus and Mary with great love.
Next morning, the 6th of July, Father Signori, a Passionist priest, came to the hospital to give Maria the Sacrament of the Dying.
Before granting her absolution he spoke of Christ's forgiveness on the Cross.
"And you Maria, do you forgive Alessandro for what he has done to you, for the love of Our Lord Jesus Christ?"
In her weakness, Maria could barely whisper her reply but it was made with great conviction:
"Yes, I forgive him! I forgive him for the love of Jesus and I wish him to join me in heaven!"
Remaining on his knees, the priest invested her with the blue ribbon and medal of the Child of Mary which she kissed repeatedly.
Ward off attack
After the priest had left, Maria appeared to be reliving the scene of her martyrdom.
Those gathered around her bed heard her gasp: "What are you doing Alessandro" Don't touch me or you'll go to hell!"
With these words she raised herself and moved her arms as though to ward off an attack.
She fell back on the bed, dead.
It was early afternoon of 6th July, 1902.
Compassion
At the trial of Alessandro Serenelli for her daughter's murder, Assumpta Goretti begged the judge for compassion.
"My daughter and I have forgiven him," she said.
Yet, despite her intercession on his behalf, Alessandro failed to repent of his crime for many years.
Meanwhile preparations for the declaration of Maria's sainthood were under way.
A booklet of the event found its way into Alessandro's cell and he read it.
That night he had a dream in which Maria appeared to him.
She was in a garden, where beautiful lilies grew in abundance.
She plucked them one by one and offered them to him as a bouquet.
As the lilies touched his hands, they seemed to him to turn into flames.
When he awoke, Alessandro asked for permission to confess his sins and to beg Assumpta's pardon.
He was released from jail for good behaviour after twenty-seven years.
He went to visit Assumpta and she took him to Mass with her to the astonishment of the congregation.
Canonisation
Half a million people were present at Maria's canonisation on 24 June 1950.
From a window in the Vatican, Assumpta looked down.
She and her daughters Erzilia and Teresa wept when they heard Pope Pius XII place Maria Goretti among the number of Saints of the Church and ordered her feast to be kept on July 6, the anniversary of her death.
never before had a mother been present during the canonisation of her child.
During his sermon, the Pope addressed himself to the children in the audience.
"Oh my dearly beloved children, boys and girls," he said.
"Tell me: Are you firmly resolved to resist at all costs with the help of divine grace, every attempt that may be made against your purity?"
In reply, all the children present on St Peter's Square shouted: "Yes! We will!"
After the ceremony, the Holy Father presented Assumpta with a white box, which contained the picture of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour; the second one she had received since her wedding 64 years earlier.
Kissing the picture, she said: "As the Madonna helped my daughter, so she will come to the aid of her mother."
Bibliography
Models of youth - Maria Goretti by Rev Wm Raemers, C SS R, Glasgow, John S Burns & Sons
Die Grossen der Kirche by Georg Popp unter Mitarbeit von . . . Dr Ronald Ross. Wurtzbur: Arena-Verlag
Lives of the Saints by Hugo Hoever S O Cist, Ph D. 1977. New York: Catholic Book Publishing Co.
See link
Prayer St Maria Goretti
http://www.mariagoretti.org/
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