Podcasts · Traditional Catholic Daily Devotional

Jul 6 – Feria / S Maria Goretti

· 11 min

Episode Jul 6 – Feria / S Maria Goretti

0:00 10:32

It's a Feria, 4th Class, with the color of Green. In this episode: the meditation: "Temperance", today's news from the Church: "Zaitzkofen: Five New Priests for the Church", a preview of the Sermon: "Understanding Charity can Change your Life", and today's thought from the Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. Have feedback or questions about the DD or our other shows? podcast@sspx.org Sources Used Today:

• "Temperance" — From Trinity Sunday to the Assumption

• https://angeluspress.org/products/from-trinity-sunday-to-the-assumption

• "Zaitzkofen: Five New Priests for the Church" (FSSPX.news)

• https://fsspx.news/en/news/zaitzkofen-five-new-priests-church-59891

• "Understanding Charity can Change your Life" (SSPX Sermons)

• SSPX YouTube: Sermons Playlist • Listen & Subscribe: SSPX Sermons Podcast

• The Spiritual Life — Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (Angelus Press)

• https://angeluspress.org/products/spiritual-life-archbishop

Please support our new project, the Archbishop Lefebvre Biography Audiobook!

• Learn more:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-Wp4MQdK2o • Donate:https://sspx.gifts/audiobook

Saint Maria Goretti is one of the youngest canonized saints in the Church, but her story is not childish. It is serious, heartbreaking, and deeply powerful.

She was born in 1890 into a poor farming family in Italy. Life was hard from the beginning. Her father died when Maria was still young, leaving her mother to support the family through exhausting work in the fields. Maria helped at home, cared for her younger siblings, cooked, cleaned, and tried to keep the household together.

She was only eleven years old.

The tragedy of her life came in 1902, when a young man named Alessandro Serenelli attacked her. Maria resisted him, not out of hatred, but because she understood that what he wanted was a grave sin. In his rage, Alessandro stabbed her repeatedly.

Maria was taken to the hospital, where she suffered terribly. Before she died, she forgave Alessandro and said she wanted him with her one day in heaven.

That is the part of her story that stops you cold.

Maria’s martyrdom is often described as a witness to purity, and it is. But it is also a witness to forgiveness. She did not pretend evil was harmless. She did not excuse the crime. But with extraordinary grace, she refused to let hatred have the final word.

Alessandro was sentenced to prison. For years, he remained hardened and unrepentant. Then, according to his own account, Maria appeared to him in a dream, gathering flowers and offering them to him. That moment began his conversion. After his release, he went to Maria’s mother and begged forgiveness. She forgave him, too.

Imagine that.

The mother forgiving the man who killed her daughter.

Alessandro eventually became a lay brother with the Capuchins and lived the rest of his life in penance. In 1950, when Maria Goretti was canonized in Saint Peter’s Square, her mother was present. So was Alessandro.

That may be one of the most astonishing scenes in modern Catholic history.

Today, pilgrims can visit the Sanctuary of Saint Maria Goretti in Nettuno, where her relics are venerated. Her life reminds us that holiness is not measured by age, education, or public importance. Sometimes a child sees clearly what adults forget: that sin destroys, grace restores, and forgiveness is stronger than vengeance.

Saint Maria Goretti, young martyr of purity and mercy, pray for us.

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