06 July - Mary Goretti - known as Marietta - was born on 16 October 1890 in Corinaldo, in the region of the Italian Marches, whose capital is the port of Ancona, to a pious and very poor family. In 1899, the plot of land that her family cultivated was no longer sufficient to feed them and the Goretti's were forced to move to Le Ferriere di Conca, in the diocese of Albano, south of Rome.
The family lives in a tiny apartment that they share with Giovanelli Serenelli, a widower with a 17-year-old son, Alessandro. Soon after, nine-year-old Maria lost her father to malaria. Being the eldest, she has to take care of her siblings, cooking and cleaning while her mother Assunta and her nine-year-old brother Angelo work in the fields all day. The owner, abusing the illiteracy of the villagers, has made them all sign a contract of employment that puts them at a disadvantage. Marietta's mother, a widow with three dependent children, had no choice but to accept. Very serious and extremely pious, Marietta is prepared for her first communion by the Passionist fathers of Nettuno. The poverty of the family is known by their entourage but the people of the village contribute to offer Marietta her First Communion dress.
At the age of eleven, Maria Goretti is more than her age, hence her nickname "Marietta". The young Alessandro Serenelli, twenty years old, taking advantage of the fact that she is often alone, starts to pursue her assiduously. The young girl, not daring to tell her mother, takes refuge in prayer, her only recourse, while taking care never to remain alone with the young man.
However, on 5 July 1902, at about three o'clock in the afternoon, while she was taking a shirt from the staircase landing, alone with her little sister Teresa who was taking a nap on a blanket, the rest of the family being busy grinding the grain, Alessandro arrived and forced the girl inside, into the large kitchen. She struggles, exclaiming: "Alessandro, God doesn't want these things! If you do this, you will go to hell!" Angry and mad at not being able to overcome Marietta's resistance, the young man grabs a 27 cm long punch and hits her fourteen times. Alerted by the heckling, the neighbors intervene. Marietta was taken to the Orsenigo hospital in Nettuno, where she died the next day, after receiving communion for the last time. Before giving her the holy host, the priest asked her if she would forgive her attacker. She answers: "Yes, for the love of Jesus, I forgive. I want him to come with me also to Heaven. May God forgive him, for I have already forgiven him". She died on July 6, 1902 at 3:45 p.m.
Alessandro Serenelli was sentenced to thirty years in prison. After eight years in prison, one night in 1910, he dreamt that Maria offered him lilies that turned into sparkling lights. This dream made him realize the evil he had done and he repented. He was released in 1929, after twenty-seven years in prison. On Christmas Eve 1934, he went to Corinaldo, where Marietta's mother, Assunta Goretti, who at that time was in the service of the parish priest, and begged her forgiveness. She accepted, saying: "God has forgiven you, my Marietta has forgiven you, I also forgive you". Both attended Mass together the next day, receiving Holy Communion, one beside the other, under the astonished gaze of the parishioners.
It was also together that on 27 April 1947 they attended the ceremonies of Marietta's beatification and canonization on 24 June 1950 by Pope Pius XII, who declared her a saintly martyr of the Roman Catholic Church. It was the first time that a mother attended the canonization of her daughter. Alessandro Serenelli, who became a member of the Franciscan Third Order, had been working since 1936 as gardener at the convent of the Capuchin fathers of Ascoli Piceno. He died in the convent of Macerata on May 6, 1970, at the age of 87, after having written a most edifying will.
His remains rest in the crypt of the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Graces in Nettuno, south of Rome. In the shrine there is a wax statue, the work of the sculptor Volterrano Volterrani, containing the main parts of her reconstructed skeleton: the skull, the spine, the upper and lower limbs, with the exception of the ulna or small bone of the right arm, which was given to the saint's mother to take to Corinaldo, her native village, where it is displayed in a reliquary in the Shrine of St. Maria Goretti. The phalanges and ribs were used to prepare the relics to be displayed for veneration by the faithful. On the 100th anniversary of his death in 2002, Pope John Paul II addressed a special message to the Bishop of Albano, underlining the topicality of this martyrdom of purity.
