Saint Maria Goretti Minibook

Title: Saint Maria Goretti
Authors: Bob and Penny Lord
Publisher: Journeys of Faith
Format: Printed minibook
28 Pages

Saint. Maria Goretti

The little White and Crimson Rose of Jesus

The name of Maria Goretti has a special place for me. I would judge that most everyone in my generation has grown up having heard the story of the little crimson and white Rose of Jesus, St. Maria Goretti. Her story inspires such emotions in us, such a desire to bring ourselves to Jesus and His Mother Mary as pure buds, ready to flower into whatever vocation They desire for us, whether it be religious, lay people or as in the case of little Maria, Saints who gave their lives as martyrs rather than stain their immortal souls by committing a sin. And in that way, Saints like Maria Goretti become role models for young people in these modern times.

We know the story of Saint Maria Goretti with surface knowledge. She is famous for what she obviously did, die rather than allow her relationship with Jesus to be compromised by giving into a sexual temptation. This is the obvious cause for her Sainthood, much as St. Maxmilian Kolbe’s obvious reasoning for Sainthood was taking the place of a fellow prisoner in the death cells of Auschwitz during the Second World War. But these are only the apparent. There is so much more to each life which calls for us to venerate them as special servants of God, true role models. We have written about St. Maxmilian Kolbe in two different books, trying to tell the story of this powerful man in the Church.

There were two other virtues of Saint Maria Goretti which are so subtle, they get lost in the shadow of giving her life. One of them was selflessness. She cared more about her eternal soul than her bodily safety. And possibly even more than that, she cared about the soul of her attacker more than her own life.

We trace her life by first going to Corinaldo, Italy, where Saint Maria Goretti was born and lived her early years, and on to Nettuno, Italy, and the house where she died defending her virginity against her attacker.

Photographs of her mother with her attacker who was at her Canonization,

and was forgiven by her mother.