St. Maria Goretti :

World’s youngest saint

by Commodore Shemal Fernando, RSP, USP, MSc

Saint Maria Goretti is the youngest ever Saint of the Roman Catholic Church.

She was just 11 years 9 months and 21 days when she perhaps made the bravest choice on earth for love for God by shedding her blood and sacrificing her life on July 6, 1902. His Holiness Pope Pius XII stood on the steps of St.

Peter’s Square in Rome and pronounced Maria a Saint and Martyr of the Church on June 24, 1950. The Holy Father proposed her as the Patroness of Modern Youth and set July 6th as her Feast Day. Her mother was present at the ceremony and it was the only occasion a parent has witnessed her child’s canonization.

Young as she was, she made a choice, a choice based on her faith and the Church holds up to the world the life, death and faith of St. Maria Goretti.

Today, after 100 years we can look up to her inspiring example with admiration and respect. Parents can learn from her story how to raise their God-given children in virtue, courage, and holiness; they can learn to train them in the Catholic faith so that, when put to the test, God’s grace will support them and they will come through undefeated, unscathed and untarnished.

Carefree children and young people with their zest for life can learn from the virgin martyr’s story not to be led astray by attractive pleasures which are not only ephemeral and empty but also sinful.

Instead, they can fix their sights on achieving Christian moral perfection, however difficult that course may prove. With determination and God’s help all of us can surely attain that goal by persistent effort and prayer.

Birth and life

Maria Goretti was born to Lugi Goretti and Assunta Carlini on October 16, 1890 in the small hilltop village of Corinaldo in Italy. She was the second of the six living children of a very pious poor family.

Her mother consecrated the infant to the Blessed Virgin on the day of her baptism. Her courageous parents laboured under the sign of Christian poverty to support the children, but by 1896 their little plot of land proved insufficient to feed the growing family.

The father decided they would move down to the plains of Rome, where it was said that fertile farm land could be rented at low cost. The move to Ferriere di Conca, near Nettuno, proved fatal to the good Luigi, who after only four years, exhausted by the unhealthy climate, the heavy heat and his hard labour, died a Christian death on May 6, 1900.

His courageous widow could not follow his dying admonition to return to Corinaldo, since their contract obliged her to pay what she owed to their employer. Maria, eight and half years old and deeply affected by her father’s death, seconded her mother’s labour in the fields by taking over the care of her four younger brothers and sisters. She was an angelic child.

Maria was confirmed by the Bishop of Senigallia on October 4, 1896. Her fervor won her the grace to make her First Communion, as she begged to do, with the other children. Perhaps, it was the highlight of her life, which she dutifully prepared for and awaited with great anticipation.

When she asked that permission, her mother told her she did not know how to read or write, and they did not have the means to buy the shoes, robe, and veil she would need.

Maria replied that in the town a lady who knew how to read would teach her, and on Sundays she could go to a village where the priest taught catechism to all the children, and she was sure that God in His providence would care for her material needs.

She was right; she passed the questioning session by the Archpriest of Nettuno with honours, and kind benefactors gave what she needed.

Even at that age, Maria was known for her unusual serious-mindedness and piety, as well as for her pretty features. She would walk for miles for the privilege of hearing Holy Mass.

At Ferriere, there was neither a church nor a priest. Her mother gave her permission to walk to the village of Mazzoleni where she received her First Holy Communion on May 29, 1902, the Feast of Corpus Christi. She was to receive Holy Communion only four more times before her death.

Sacrifice of life

Living conditions for the little family of orphans were very difficult; they shared the same building with another family. This other family was motherless: the mother had died in an asylum, and the father was a drunkard.

His son, 19 years old, began to pay much attention to Maria, and the little girl, who wished to remain pure for her beloved Jesus, begged her mother never to leave her alone.

But one day in the torrid heat of summer, while Maria watched her baby sister and prepared the meal, Alessandro left the field where everyone was working and went to the house with evil intentions. No one heard Maria’s cries for help; it was only an hour or so later that a younger brother of Alessandro entered and found her bathed in blood on the floor.

Maria was just 11, when Alessandro tried to force his intentions on her and she repeatedly called out to him, “No! It is a sin! God does not want it!”

Failing in his efforts to molest her, Alessandro struck Maria no less than 14 times with a butcher’s knife and mortally wounded her around 3.30 p.m. on July 5, 1902. She lived 20 painful hours to tell the priest who came to her in the hospital that she forgave her assassin and wanted him to be with her in Paradise.

Maria entered Heaven fortified with the Last Sacraments on the vigil of the Feast of the Most Precious Blood on July 6, 1902. Her last earthly gaze rested upon a picture of the Blessed Mother.

The story did not end there. Alessandro was condemned to 30 years of imprisonment on October 11, 1902. Gruff and totally impenitent, he was mistrusted by the guardians. But the Bishop of the Diocese, Monsignor Blandini, wanted to save his soul, and went to the prison, asking to talk with him. “My son,” he said, “Your bishop wants to greet you and comfort you.” “I didn’t ask for your visit, and I don’t need comfort or your sermons,” was the reply.

But when the prelate told Alessandro how, during her last minutes, Maria had forgiven him and wished to have him near her in Heaven; the nonchalant young man was overcome.

“That is not possible!” he exclaimed. Before the Bishop left, Alessandro had fallen into his arms, weeping; and in the hours of solitude which followed, he began to pray. Three years before the end of his term, for his good behaviour he was set free on March 7, 1929.

While in prison, Alessandro had a vision of Maria. He saw a garden where a young girl, dressed in white, gathered lilies. She smiled, came near him, and encouraged him to accept an armful of the lilies. As he took them, each lily transformed into a still white flame and Maria then disappeared.

On December 24, 1935, he went to Corinaldo to see the mother of Maria. When he fell on his knees and begged her pardon, like her little daughter she gladly forgave him. They went to the village church at Christmas; and there was no inhabitant who did not rejoice with a Christian joy in this new proof of the sanctity of Maria.

Canonization

On March 25, 1945, His Holiness Pope Pius XII proclaimed that she was truly a martyr and needed no proof of miracles, to be raised to the Dignity of a Beatified. On April 27, 1947, the same Pope beatified her.

On May 4, 1947, a woman deadly sick with dropsical pleurisy, after praying to Maria was instantly cured. On May 8, 1947, a man whose entire foot was crushed to pieces by a mountain landslide, invoked Maria’s name and his foot instantly returned to normal.

On June 24, 1950, His Holiness Pope Pius XII, before a gathering of 250,000 including her mother and the murderer, solemnly canonized her in St. Peter’s Square.

On June 25, 1950, the Pope offered Mass to her at St. Peter’s Basilica and her mother and family were present for these rites of the church. Maria is buried in the Passionist Church of Our Lady of Grace, Nettuno, Italy, where she was buried more solemnly on January 26, 1929.

In his sermon during the Canonization, Pope said: “We greet you, oh beautiful and lovable saint! Martyr on earth, and angel in heaven, look down from your glory on this people, loving, venerating, glorifying and exalting you.

On your forehead you bear the full brilliant and victorious name of Christ; in your virginal countenance may be read the strength of your love and the constancy of your fidelity to your Divine Spouse; as His bride espoused in blood, you have traced in yourself His own image.”

Pope further said, “To you, therefore, powerful intercessor with the Lamb of God, we entrust these our sons and daughters, and those countless others who are united with us in spirit. For while they admire your heroism, they are even more desirous of imitating your strength of faith and your inviolate purity of conduct.

Fathers and mothers have recourse to you, asking you to help them in their task of education. In you, through our hands, the children and all the young people will find a safe refuge, trusting that they shall be protected from every contamination, and be able to walk the highways of life with that serenity of spirit and deep joy which is the heritage of those who are pure of heart.”

(The writer sought intercession of the saint on 23rd October 2005 under distress circumstances at the only church in her name in Sri Lanka in the hamlet of Kindigoda in Dandugama by the Dandugam Oya and was miraculously favoured within a few hours. Later, the writer had a vision of the beautiful saint on 25th May 2007).