[00:00] Today, we celebrate a special memorial of one of the saints that the Church has proclaimed an icon of the mercy of God. She is, par excellence, an image of God's mercy toward all of us. She had a chance to partake with our Lord in His sufferings and also to be an instrument

[00:36] of mercy to the one who caused that suffering, St. Maria Goretti, a humble girl born in 1880 in a poor village of Italy called Nettuno, or in English Neptune, but Nettuno, and she had a very hard life because her father passed away from malaria.

[01:08] He contracted malaria while working in the fields, which was common at that time, and St. Maria Goretti had to take on many different responsibilities so that her mother would be able to go in the fields and continue working on the farm. In fact, it was for their very livelihood because they didn't own the farm, it was someone else, another family who owned the farm and had different tenants who would work the farm, work the land in order to have a place to stay.

[01:41] So St. Maria Goretti, she took on all the responsibilities of the household, which we'll understand in a bit why that was such a big deal, I mean, it's a big deal, but the fact is that without her, it would put the whole family in a difficult situation. So St. Maria Goretti was doing all these responsibilities of cooking, cleaning, allowing

[02:14] her mother to take over the role that her father had, and when she was 12 years old in 1902, one of the tenants, one of the families who lived there who had a son named Alessandro, he became sort of impassioned and he was obsessed with St. Maria Goretti, and he would basically mistreat her, abuse her with rude, crude comments, and he was always making passes

[02:53] at her, advances towards her, and she would always reject him, and she would tell him "this is sinful," and try to correct his behavior, but he became more and more angry, and one day when he saw his opportunity, he snuck upstairs to Maria's apartment, and where she was cleaning and everything, and the mother was out in the fields, everyone was gone, and he attacked her, tried to make her commit sin with him, and she resisted.

[03:33] She told him that "we will go to hell, you will go to hell," and he would not listen. So the result was that he took a file that he had turned into a knife, and he stabbed her many times, turned out to be like 14 times, but the first nine times he stabbed her, left her laying on the floor, even the file went right through her, she's laying there on the floor, and he runs away, goes and locks himself in his own room, and then

[04:09] when he hears that she still was living, he thought she was going to die, and she crawled to the door to be able to open it, and call for her, or hopefully to be able to call for help, and when he heard that, he came back again, and he gave her the rest of the stabbings that would equate to 14 times, and she ended up being taken to the hospital when they found her, and she survived for a little bit, and long enough for God to allow her to exercise

[04:48] heroic virtue again. The priest was called, he came, and he had the presence of mind, even despite seeing her suffering, of asking her if she would forgive Alessandro, and not only did she say that she would forgive Alessandro, but she said that, "I want him to be with me in paradise." So this little girl, who knew that she was dying, was able to forgive her assailant,

[05:24] someone that had been mistreating her for a while, that you could truly say was an enemy, but she rose to the occasion with the strength given to the martyrs by God. She had lived a martyr's life, and she was worthy of dying a martyr's death, and she forgave Alessandro, extending mercy out to him, even with the sentiment of hopefully saving his soul, so that he could be with her in paradise.

[05:54] This is truly an icon of mercy, and the story goes further than that, because eventually, after many years of being an angry, violent person in jail, without any remorse for what he did, Alessandro, eventually through the intercession of St. Maria Goretti, he converted, and his conversion was so great that he himself became holy to the point where his cause for

[06:27] beatification is pending right now. Her mother also, after her example, and on her own virtue as well, is an example of mercy, maybe just as much as St. Maria Goretti, because when Alessandro was able to get out of prison, the first place he went was to the door of Assunta, the mother of St. Maria Goretti, and he knocked on her door, asking her if she remembered him, and of course she said, "I do,"

[06:58] and then he asked her if she would forgive him as well, and her response was that "God has forgiven you, Maria has forgiven you, and I too will forgive you," and that night, this was on Christmas Eve, and they attended midnight Mass together, and went up and received communion together. And imagine that the mother of one who was killed, going to communion with the murderer,

[07:31] forgiving him, that is the grace of God, and it's something, if anything else you take away from in life, if you remember this story, you will always have a reason for believing in God, because that goes beyond anything that nature can do, and the fact that a mother was able to forgive the murderer of her daughter, and it wasn't just that, she also, she received a lot from the hands of

[08:05] Alessandro as far as suffering, because as I said, Maria took care of a lot of the responsibilities and duties, so her mother could take care of the farm, nor that they would have a place to live. Well, Assunta couldn't even go to the funeral of Maria Goretti, because it was the last day that she was going to have with her children. Her children were going to be taken away from her, because there was no way for her to continue supporting them. So not only did Alessandro murder her 12-year-old daughter, the one who was everything to her, that did all the cleaning,

[08:40] all the household duties, was basically everything so that the family could stay together, but he also took away all of her children from her. So she had to live and barely sustain herself, and she couldn't even go to the funeral of her daughter, because she wanted to have one last day with the rest of her children, and she was able to forgive Alessandro. And this forgiveness

[09:13] from Maria and this forgiveness from Assunta was the catalyst which brought down grace from heaven for someone like Alessandro, who basically was not repentant, not remorseful. At one point, he was so violent they had to separate him, and he spent years in solitary confinement because he was just an angry person. You know, we would almost say that he was possessed,

[09:44] but the grace of God's mercy is great for everyone, and that is the point of mercy. It's something that is not deserved, something that we have not earned, but it's something from the very graciousness of God, and the saints are the ones who show us this example. So anytime we think in our lives that there are things that are too much for us to handle or that God is treating us in a way that we don't deserve, just know that God has everything in His plan for our salvation,

[10:22] that even the things that seem like they're difficult or that go against the grain, the people that God puts in our lives, the situations, even our enemies, are all opportunities for us to receive grace from God by offering it up, but also in an opportunity of being an example to others of God's mercy. It says that in the Responsorial Psalm, the Lord is gracious and

[10:54] merciful. He chastises those whom He loves. You think God loves everyone more than we can even imagine, and St. Maria Goretti is not just an icon of God's mercy, but also an image of the providence of God and the solution to the problem of evil and suffering in the world, because God looks at everything in the big picture. He wants us to live with Him for eternity, and St. Maria

[11:27] Goretti, even though she had to suffer and God permitted it, allowed it, although it wasn't in His, you know, it wasn't His will that Alessandro commit those sins, but He allowed it and permitted it so that she could receive a higher good, and she will be one of the greatest saints in heaven for her offering of her life, but also her example of mercy.