Read Anywhere and on Any Device!

Subscribe to Read | $0.00

Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!

Create Free Account

Quick and Easy Sign Up!

It takes less then 1 minute to sign up, then you can enjoy Unlimited eBooks.

Sign Up Browse

Popular Genres

Read Anywhere and on Any Device!

  • Download on iOS
  • Download on Android
  • Download on iOS

St. Maria Goretti: A Journey into Forgiveness and Redemption

St. Maria Goretti: A Journey into Forgiveness and Redemption

Bret Thoman
4.6/5 ( ratings)
Read Download
On July 5, 1902, 12-year-old Maria Goretti, the daughter of peasants, fought off her would-be rapist. In a fit of rage, Alessandro Serenelli brutally stabbed her to death. In the years and decades that followed, the heroic sanctity of the obscure peasant girl was revealed. At the same time, Alessandro Serenelli began his 30-year odyssey through four prisons where he experienced a dramatic conversion.

The author not only recounts the dramatic story that touched the heart of Catholics in Italy and throughout the world, the author brings the reader to the places where St. Maria Goretti and her killer, Alessandro Serenelli, lived.
Interspersed throughout the narrative, author Bret Thoman revisits their birth homes in Corinaldo and Paterno , to Paliano where they met, and to Nettuno where the “deed” took place. He brings the reader to the places one can visit on pilgrimage today.

The Gorettis were a peasant family from Corinaldo, an idyllic hill town near the Adriatic Sea in the central Italian region of the Marches. They were poor, and raised their children with strong Christian values.

Migration affected almost half of all Italian families in that era, and Maria’s parents were no exception. They forced to leave their native city for the Agro Romano, or the Roman countryside, near a city called Paliano where her father found work on a farm owned by a Roman senator.

The three years they worked there was uneventful, except for the fact that they began a collaboration with a father and son, Giovanni and Alessandro Serenelli. Though they appeared normal, two years later, the son would do something so dramatic and awful that it would shock the newly unified country of Italy.

After the elder Serenelli argued with the landlord, the two families were forced to migrate once again to an area further south – the dreaded Pontine Marshes, infamous for its high mortality due to malaria.

Two years later, indeed, on May 6, 1900, at 41 years old with five children to support, Luigi Goretti died of malaria. While Maria’s mother took over her late husband’s work in the fields, she took over her mother’s housework and looked after her four siblings.

Alessandro Serenelli, now twenty years old, had grown up in awful circumstances. His mother was committed to an insane asylum where she died, and his father, an alcoholic, was gone much of the time. With severe personality disorders, he began making inappropriate proposals to young Maria, who was pure, serious, eager, and open to beauty.

On July 5, 1902, Alessandro stabbed her to death after she rejected his advances a third time. The next day, after an excruciating surgery, she died. Before she did, she not only forgave her killer, but she said she wanted him “to be with her in Heaven.”

Her story quickly spread and people began making pilgrimages to her tomb. Many reported receiving special graces, healings, and even miracles. When Maria Goretti was proclaimed a saint in 1950, half a million people came to St. Peter’s. It was the first time a canonization Mass was held in the square, and it was also the first time the mother and relatives of a person being canonized were present for the ceremony.

Perhaps the most sensational miracle was the conversion of her killer. While in prison, Alessandro Serenelli was visited by Maria Goretti in a dream. That initiated a series of events that led to his redemption.

After he was released from prison, he lived for thirty-four years in two different Capuchin friaries. He never took vows, though he lived the life of a friar. At the age of 88, on May 6, 1970 -- the same day and the same month of the death of Maria’s father, Luigi, Alessandro died in the Capuchin friary of Macerata.
Format
Kindle Edition

St. Maria Goretti: A Journey into Forgiveness and Redemption

Bret Thoman
4.6/5 ( ratings)
Read Download
On July 5, 1902, 12-year-old Maria Goretti, the daughter of peasants, fought off her would-be rapist. In a fit of rage, Alessandro Serenelli brutally stabbed her to death. In the years and decades that followed, the heroic sanctity of the obscure peasant girl was revealed. At the same time, Alessandro Serenelli began his 30-year odyssey through four prisons where he experienced a dramatic conversion.

The author not only recounts the dramatic story that touched the heart of Catholics in Italy and throughout the world, the author brings the reader to the places where St. Maria Goretti and her killer, Alessandro Serenelli, lived.
Interspersed throughout the narrative, author Bret Thoman revisits their birth homes in Corinaldo and Paterno , to Paliano where they met, and to Nettuno where the “deed” took place. He brings the reader to the places one can visit on pilgrimage today.

The Gorettis were a peasant family from Corinaldo, an idyllic hill town near the Adriatic Sea in the central Italian region of the Marches. They were poor, and raised their children with strong Christian values.

Migration affected almost half of all Italian families in that era, and Maria’s parents were no exception. They forced to leave their native city for the Agro Romano, or the Roman countryside, near a city called Paliano where her father found work on a farm owned by a Roman senator.

The three years they worked there was uneventful, except for the fact that they began a collaboration with a father and son, Giovanni and Alessandro Serenelli. Though they appeared normal, two years later, the son would do something so dramatic and awful that it would shock the newly unified country of Italy.

After the elder Serenelli argued with the landlord, the two families were forced to migrate once again to an area further south – the dreaded Pontine Marshes, infamous for its high mortality due to malaria.

Two years later, indeed, on May 6, 1900, at 41 years old with five children to support, Luigi Goretti died of malaria. While Maria’s mother took over her late husband’s work in the fields, she took over her mother’s housework and looked after her four siblings.

Alessandro Serenelli, now twenty years old, had grown up in awful circumstances. His mother was committed to an insane asylum where she died, and his father, an alcoholic, was gone much of the time. With severe personality disorders, he began making inappropriate proposals to young Maria, who was pure, serious, eager, and open to beauty.

On July 5, 1902, Alessandro stabbed her to death after she rejected his advances a third time. The next day, after an excruciating surgery, she died. Before she did, she not only forgave her killer, but she said she wanted him “to be with her in Heaven.”

Her story quickly spread and people began making pilgrimages to her tomb. Many reported receiving special graces, healings, and even miracles. When Maria Goretti was proclaimed a saint in 1950, half a million people came to St. Peter’s. It was the first time a canonization Mass was held in the square, and it was also the first time the mother and relatives of a person being canonized were present for the ceremony.

Perhaps the most sensational miracle was the conversion of her killer. While in prison, Alessandro Serenelli was visited by Maria Goretti in a dream. That initiated a series of events that led to his redemption.

After he was released from prison, he lived for thirty-four years in two different Capuchin friaries. He never took vows, though he lived the life of a friar. At the age of 88, on May 6, 1970 -- the same day and the same month of the death of Maria’s father, Luigi, Alessandro died in the Capuchin friary of Macerata.
Format
Kindle Edition

More books from Bret Thoman

The Pandemic of Padre Pio: Disciple of Our Lady of Sorrows

4.1/5 ( ratings)

St. Clare of Assisi: Light From the Cloister

4.4/5 ( ratings)

Bergoglio's List: How a Young Francis Defied a Dictatorship and Saved Dozens of Lives

4/5 ( ratings)

Saint Francis of Assisi: Passion, Poverty & the Man Who Transformed the Catholic Church

4.1/5 ( ratings)

Becoming Italian: A Personal Journey (Going South Book 1)

5/5 ( ratings)

Becoming Italian: through Family, Food, and Life in the South

5/5 ( ratings)

A Knight and a Lady: A Journey into the Spirituality of Saints Francis and Clare

5/5 ( ratings)

From Worldly Princess to the Foot of the Cross: The Life and Writings of Saint Camilla Battista Varano

5/5 ( ratings)

Becoming Italian : through Family, Food, and Life in the South

5/5 ( ratings)

The Road to Peace in Assisi

5/5 ( ratings)

From Worldly Princess to the Foot of the Cross: The Life and Writings of Saint Camilla Battista Varano, OSC

5/5 ( ratings)

“My Rosary”: The Beloved Prayer of an Exorcist (The Mission of Fr. Gabriele Amorth: Rome's Exorcist Book 1)

5/5 ( ratings)

The Diary of St. Veronica Giuliani: A Compendium: “Tell Everyone Love has been found!”

5/5 ( ratings)

The Diary of St. Veronica Giuliani: A Compendium: “Tell Everyone Love has been found!”

5/5 ( ratings)

Padre Pio and I: Memoirs of a Spiritual Son

5/5 ( ratings)

The Life of Mary of Nazareth: Reflections of an Exorcist (The Mission of Fr. Gabriele Amorth: Rome's Exorcist Book 2)

5/5 ( ratings)

The St. Francis Camino: A Spiritual Walking Pilgrimage from Greccio to Assisi

5/5 ( ratings)

Rate this book!

Write a review?

loader