Tuesday, July 6
Maria Goretti
Dear Little Saint Maria Goretti! Teach me that God must be my first love and that all other love is based on Him and Him alone. Obtain for me the grace to cease toying with the occasions of sin and to remember that my body and the bodies of all in grace are temples of the Holy Spirit, destined someday for a glorious resurrection.
Through your beautiful example, teach me the value and dignity of Christian modesty. Grant that I may never be the occasion of dragging others into Hell, by suggestive words or evil deeds of any kind. Through the merits of your Martyrdom, obtain for me the grace to turn aside from sin, no matter what the cost, so that one day I may enjoy Heaven with you and all the other saints. Amen.
--Prayer to St. Maria, to be said before a Date
Today is the feast of that sweet little flower of Christian girlhood, St. Maria Goretti of Corinaldo, martyred at the age of eleven in 1902 by Alessandro Serinelli, a twenty-year-old neighbor who had attempted unsuccessfully to rape her. She was attacked on July 5, and died July 6, having forgiven her assailant, who himself later repented of his crime. She is patroness invoked against impoverishment, against poverty, of children, of Children of Mary, of girls, of loss of parents,of martyrs, of rape victims and young people in general. For those of us navigating the troubled waters of personal relationships in this day and age, she is a fine patron to call upon.
In one of the most strange and wonderful twists in the history of the Catholic Church, her family and her murderer, now contrite, were present at her canonization in 1950 by Pius XII. Hers is a tale out of the Golden Legend--an innocent, impossibly young child laying out her blood like a little snow-white lamb. And yet, it happened a little more than a hundred years ago, in an age too busy for heroism. It's hard not to love a girl like this, and as a Christian man I should hope some day for a beautiful little daughter just as singleminded in her faith. Though I would probably want to keep an eye on any young neighbors named Alessandro...
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