St Maria Goretti

MARIA GORETTI was not yet 12 years old when she was faced with that momentous decision in July of 1902: Sin or death. Maria’s answer to her assailant was clear: “No! No! It is a sin! God does not want this!” Alessandro stabbed Maria 14 times, and little Maria became another virgin martyr in the line of St. Agnes and St. Cecilia. Here is the beautiful true story of Maria’s virtuous life that led to her heroic choice, of the Goretti family’s terrible poverty, Maria’s First Holy Communion, her great maturity in shouldering adult responsibilities, her forgiveness of her murderer, her lingering death, then finally her public elevation to sainthood in 1950—in the presence of her mother, her family and the largest crowd ever before seen at a canonization—over half a million people. A contemporary classic, this is truly a book for all—because people of any age will be inspired by St. Maria Goretti’s purity and love of God—which triumphed over her love for life and even over the anonymity of death.

St. Maria Goretti was only a child when she died a martyr’s death. Yet today, she inspires millions who find in her a perfect model of purity and holiness. Read here about her great holiness in the midst of tremendous suffering , how she died at the hands of a vicious murderer who tried to defile her purity, and how she visited this very same murderer years later in his jail cell to forgive him. Fr. Jeffrey Kirby examines the life of this little saint as he reflects on the Beatitudes and how she, along with her family, lived them each day. In a world where purity is corrupted in the darkness of the night and mercy is abandoned in the name of vengeance, let us turn to St. Maria Goretti and see her as the dawn of a new day, where the light of Christ shines on each of us and guides us into His Kingdom.

We trace the Life of Saint Maria Goretti. We travel to Corinaldo, Italy, where St. Maria Goretti was born and lived her early years, and Nettuno, Italy, and the house where she died defending her virginity against her attacker. Discover artifacts of the life of the young Saint, including: her birthplace in Corinaldo, Italy the room in which she lived, her bed, her shrine in Corinaldo, photographs of her mother with her attacker who was at her Canonization, and was forgiven by her mother.