Saint Maria Goretti is an Italian saint honoured as a martyr who offered her life in the pursuit of holy purity. In 1902, in a coastal district of Lazio near Rome, the 11 year old Maria was violently seized by a neighbour, Alessandro Serenelli, who attempted to violate her. Her resistance caused Alessandro to stab her. Transferred to hospital, she prayed: “Yes, for the love of Jesus I forgive him … and I want him to be with me in Paradise.” Maria died two days later. She was canonised in 1950.
“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, which 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 idolises 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.”
St John Paul II, Message to the Bishop of Albano for the Centenary of the Death of St Maria Goretti, 2002.
(Image: Pallanza, Piedmont, Italy, Church of St Joseph, Fresco of Maria Goretti)