Apostleship of Prayer - Saints
July 6 - Saint Maria Goretti
At the canonization of Maria Goretti, assembled the greatest crowd that had ever gathered in St Peter's Square, a crowd of over a quarter of a million. Maria's father was one of the many poor tenant-farmers that lived in Italy. Thus Maria had not education; she could not read nor write. She made her first Holy Communion just before her twelfth birthday.
Maria was mending a shirt, while sitting outside on the top stairs as the weather so hot in July. A neighbour's son was driving by and espied her. He ran up the stairs and dragged her into a bedroom. As she would not submit to him, he stabbed her with a long knife. When found she was rushed to hospital where she lived for another twenty-four hours.she was worrying about her mother and forgave her murderer. Her goodness was shown in her comapssion and in the way she received Holy Viaticum.
Alessandro Serenelli was sentenced to thirty years in jail. He was released after twenty-seven years. For years he was unrepentant and surly until he had a vision of Maria offering to him a bunch of flowers. He reformed and his first act, after his release, was to visit Maria's mother to ask for forgiveness. She was cannonized in 1950, twenty-five years after her death. Miracles were worked through her intercession.
She was a person of simple faith and part of that faith was to love God at all cost.
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