Saint Maria Goretti

Maria Goretti was born on October 16, 1890, in Corinaldo, Italy, into a poor farming family that later moved to Le Ferriere, near Nettuno, south of Rome. After her father died of malaria in 1900, Maria cared for her younger brothers and sisters while her mother worked the fields. She was cheerful, prayerful and longed to receive her First Communion.

On July 5, 1902, Alessandro Serenelli, a twenty-year-old neighbor, tried to force himself on her. When she resisted, saying it was a sin, he stabbed her fourteen times. Before she died the next day, July 6, in the hospital at Nettuno, she forgave him and said she wanted him with her in heaven. In prison Alessandro had a dream of Maria offering him lilies, and he repented. He later asked her mother's forgiveness and spent his last years with the Capuchins. Pope Pius XII canonized Maria in 1950, with her mother present.

Her body rests in the shrine of Our Lady of Graces in Nettuno, where young people make pilgrimages, and her relics have toured parishes worldwide. Youth groups and confirmation classes often take her as a model of courage, chastity and the power of forgiveness.