July 6 Maria Goretti

John and Thommy

good morning
i love you


Maria Goretti, VM (AC)

Born at Corinaldo, near Ancona, Italy, October 16, 1890; died near Nettuno, Italy, July 6, 1902; beatified 1947 by Pope Pius XII; canonized in 1950; feast day formerly July 5.
Maria was 22 when she died. My brother Jimmy was five. Grandma was 77. grandpa is already almost 82. Who knows when, how, why, where, we’ll die. … we know as much about that as when, why, … we were born. Created! To know, love and serve God…. As I drove in to work this morning and remembered it’s first Friday [fortunately we have noon mass nearby] and said our prayer to the Sacred Heart. Oh Sacred Hear of Jesus, I offer you this day, all my thoughts, words, and actions. Help me do everything for you. Simple enough.


Maria was the daughter of a farm laborer, Luigi Goretti, and his wife, Assunta Carlini. She showed marked signs of youthful holiness. There were five other children. The family moved in 1896 to Ferriere di Conca, near Nettuno and Anzio in the Roman Campagna. Soon after, Luigi died of malaria. His wife struggled to support the family, receiving much help and encouragement from Maria. She was well known to her neighbors for her cheerful unselfishness and religious disposition.
We don’t get to pick our parentage or our station in life. Maria got a typical family for her time and place. As did you. As did I. I got the second generation irish catholic family from nyc. You got, unfortunately not a patermaterque. But what has so far wound up being an awfully divorced two parents. I am sorry for your losses and challenges and hurts because of that. With better choices and leveraging of your talents and graces you will do better with this reality than you have so far. And when I [and/or your mother] make better us of our graces, you’ll benefit too…. I am sorry.]
Each of you showed signs of holiness. Unfortunately you were separated, it seems, for a significant source/channel of your holy choosings. Unfortunately, a divorce when there is no pater materque especially, creates mutually exclusive choices. It would be called splitting were there a pater materque. When the mother and father have already split themselves and have patently different lives, faith, values, etc. then the choices become personified. So far, you’ve made too many wrong choices….
Your parents moved apart. Your father did not die – is not dead. And yet, within the shroud of 308 and 2502, you have been a source of encouragement/help for your mother – too often in a way detrimental to your well being and goodness; your original holiness that continues to be infused into your soul but suppressed too much…. I am sorry.
How well are you known among your neighbors. Mine might recognize the car. A few would know that I lived around here somewhere. None would know my name or what I do. And yours? How well do your neighbors know you? Do they receive your cheerfulness? Your unselfishness? Your faith? Give and give again….

In 1902, as Maria sat on the front step mending a shirt, an 18-year-old neighbor, Alexander Serenelli, the son of her father's partner, who lived in the same house with the Gorettis, beckoned Maria into a bedroom, but she refused to go. He grabbed her and pulled her in. She struggled and tried to scream, but he choked her. She cried that she would rather be killed than submit. Alexander began to pull her clothes off and struck her with a dagger. She cried out that she was being killed, and he repeatedly stabbed her in the back and ran away.
Imagine this scene. Be a gestaltist. Take each role unto yourself. Be the girl, the cheerful, holy, unselfish girl, sitting on the stoop [that’s what we cityfolk call the front steps to the apt bldg.]. see the world, see the scene, from her eyes. [kitty Genovese, nyc, years ago. Be her. Be her attacker. Be the people who heard and heard again and heard some more and not one called out, not one called the police.]
we know that abuse is likely to come from someone you know. The son of Maria’s father’s partner! Sharing the same roof. Yes, under the same room can live the source of evil and trials – the challenges for your holiness to shine through….
See the scene, feel the world, from Alexander’s soul. An 18 y.o. boy, raging hormones. Converted to a belief of ‘love’? transformed to a believe of ownership? I want therefore she’s mine? Therefore she must? Of course those are feelings many boys have.
Remember, no means no. period. [and without all the nuances of well maybe she does not mean no, maybe it’s really not yet or not now or not here. No means no. simple. It does not mean ‘don’t ask again’ – key word, ask! It does mean no.]
Who was there to help Maria? Of course, say it outloud, how could God allow this to happen? Greeley would answer, how could God allow holiness and beauty to happen? How do we help Maria. Or your cousin Kelly? Or the girls in your class? Your girl friend? Any girlfriend, ever? “I do it because I love you” – see the Evan movie – some God in that pic.
Go back to the scene. Be inside Alexander’s skin. Feel the power of his lovelust. The rage of his anger. The panic of his being rejected once he had exposed his love and desire. When you feel similar experiences, and you will, how will you respond better? How will you draw on your goodness and your graces and your talents and the resources God has given you [note, there was only Maria there to help Alexander and he was nuclear against her presence and “help” to be good and do right.]

She was taken to the hospital, but it was clear she would not live. In her last hours she forgave her murderer, whom it was revealed she had feared for a long time but did not want to cause trouble by naming. She died within a day of the attack.
We each experience attackers, even murderers. Daily. Possibly, like Alexander, living under the same roof as us – not uncommonly under the same roof. How often do you forgive. [seven times seventy…. Forgive even as Our Father has forgiven.] so did God give Maria so that she would learn to forgive? That she might give grace to Alexander and thus receive the key to the kingdom from him?
(Another version of the story says that Alexander attacked her when they were working together in the fields.)
There are many versions to each story. Be gestalt. Be each person in the story. Be each component of the story. E.g., be the knife. Be the sewing…. Many versions, maybe only one theme: grace comes from many sources….

Alexander was sentenced to 30 years of penal servitude and for eight years was unrepentant. One night he had a dream in which Maria gathered flowers and offered them to him, and he experienced a change of heart. He served 27 years, and his first act as a free man was to beg forgiveness from Maria's mother. On Christmas Day 1937, Alexander and Maria's widowed mother received Communion side-by-side. He has been cited as an example by those who advocate for the abolition of the death penalty.
Reconciliation. Will it require years in the prison of separation – behind the Tower’s walls? There is reconciliation. That is at the source of the secret of a father’s, The Father’s love.
In 1947, Maria was declared blessed by Pope Pius XII, who appeared on the balcony of Saint Peter's with Maria's mother and three of her sisters and brothers. In 1950, she was canonized for her purity in front of the largest crowd ever gathered for a canonization. Alexander was still alive. At the time of her canonization, some 30-40 miracles were recorded as a result of her intercession (Attwater, Benedictines, Delaney, Encyclopedia, White).

Maria Goretti is the patron saint of teenagers, particularly girls, and of the Children of Mary (White).
Another way for you to know teenage girls is via Maria Goretti. Another way for you to know young adult girls is via Maria Goretti. Look for Maria in the girl you think [and feel] you want to be close to. If she is not a Maria, if she is not a Mary, then she is not the right person, yet….

I love you,
Dad.