St. Ma. Goretti

Feast Day: July 6

“I forgive Alessandro Serenelli… and I want him with me in heaven forever.”

Maria Goretti is the Patroness of Mercy. Extremely popular St. Maria Goretti, the youngest canonized saint in the Catholic Church, embodied mercy. She was only 11 years old when she died July 6, 1902, after she was stabbed 14 times during a rape attempt. As she lay dying in the hospital, her last words were of mercy towards her attacker: “I forgive Alessandro Serenelli… and I want him with me in heaven forever.”

ALESSANDRO Serenelli, now a reformed man, venerating an image of the girl who he killed – St. Maria Goretti. Note the flowers in the vase – the kind she gave to him in a vision. Maria had become his special patron and intercessor. (Adapted)

Less than fifty years later, Maria Goretti was declared a saint and martyr. Both Maria’s mother and Alessandro, who had completed a thirty-year imprisonment for his crime, attended her canonization. The beautiful, incorrupt body of Saint Maria Goretti has been placed in the Church of Our Lady of Mercy in Nettuno, Italy.

Sources:
National Catholic Register
Catholic Apologetics

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