✝️ Weekly Devotional, Monday July 6,, 2026

✝️ Posting for WP

Moghrey Mie Ya’ll 🙂

Ordinary Time: July 6th
Today the Church celebrates the Optional Memorial of St. Maria Goretti, Virgin and Martyr (1890-1902). St. Maria was born in Corinaldo, Italy, the daughter of a poor peasant family. Maria was well known to her neighbors for her cheerfulness and piety. When she was eleven, she was a victim of assault. She preferred to die rather than to lose her virginity. She died in 1902 and her mother was present at her canonization in 1950, the first time a parent was present for their own child’s canonization.

Detail of only known photograph of St. Maria Goretti (c.1902; before and after restoration) 

St. Maria Goretti, Virgin and Martyr
 
A hard life. The third of seven children, St. Maria Goretti was born in 1890 in Corinaldo, Italy, to a poor family. By the time she was five, her parents had lost their farm and hired themselves out to work for others as tenant farmers. The family moved often, finally ending up in Nettuno, not far from Rome.

Like many of the poor, the Gorettis could not afford a home of their own, so they shared a farmhouse with another family, the Serenellis. Giovanni Serenelli was a boorish man. He often got drunk and became abusive. He and his two sons were as different to the deeply devout Goretti family as chalk is to cheese. The Serenellis, for example, were much given to reading the lurid accounts of “true sex crimes.” Indecent pictures were pasted on the walls of the house they now shared with the Gorettis. 

Assunta and Luigi Goretti tried to protect their children as best they could in such an atmosphere. Assunta later said: “We tried to bring them up in the faith, to be good Christians, teaching them to pray and to see God in his creation.” The family prayed the rosary every evening. Maria received the Sacrament of Confirmation at just six years old. When the village church was closed during summer, Maria would walk several kilometers to attend Mass at the church in Campomorto. 

When Maria was nine, her father died, and her mother and siblings threw themselves into work to feed the family. Maria kept house, cooked and watched her baby sister. It was a hard life. There was no time for school, for the family was too busy trying to survive. During this period, Maria became the victim of unwanted sexual advances on the part of Alessandro, Serenelli’s 20-year-old son. He even threatened to kill her if she told anyone. Despite her suffering, Maria chose to remain silent so as not to worsen the already strained relations between the two families. In her pain, she turned to the Virgin Mary, from whom she drew strength and comfort. 

Uncommon courage. In 1902, 11-year-old Maria was sitting on the steps mending a shirt when Alessandro grabbed her and dragged her into the house. He held an awl and threatened to stab her if she refused him again. “No!” she cried as he tried to choke her, “It is a sin! God doesn’t want it!” She struggled and tried to run for the door. He caught her, and when she said that she would rather die than give him what he wanted, he stabbed her fourteen times with the awl before running away.

Her family heard the baby crying and ran into the house to find Maria bleeding on the floor. In the hospital, the doctor operated on her without anesthesia because she had lost so much blood. “Think of me in Paradise,” he suddenly said in the middle of the surgery. “Which of us will get there first?” she mused. “You, Maria,” he answered. “Then yes, I will remember you,” she promised.

“I want him to be in Paradise with me.” She succumbed the next day of her wounds. She had repeatedly warned Alessandro he was risking eternal damnation. As she lay dying, when the parish priest of Nettuno brought her Holy Viaticum and asked whether she forgave Alessandro, she replied, “Yes, I forgive him and want him to be in Paradise with me some day.”

Sentenced to thirty years in prison, Alessandro was hardened and showed no remorse. Yet he would undergo a profound change. This was to occur after a remarkable dream he had during his 8th year of imprisonment. 

The dream was so vivid he could not distinguish it from reality. The prison bars and walls fell away and his cell was a sunlit garden blooming with flowers. Towards him came a beautiful girl dressed in pure white. He said to himself: ‘How is this? Peasant girls wear darkish clothes.’ But he saw it was Maria. She was walking among flowers, smiling, and without the least fear. He wanted to flee from her but could not. Maria picked white lilies and handed them to him saying, ‘Alessandro, take them!‘ He accepted the lilies, one by one, fourteen of them. But a strange thing took place. As he received them from her fingers, the lilies did not remain lilies but changed into so many flaming lights. There was a lily turned to purifying flame for every one of the 14 mortal blows he struck her on the fatal day. Maria said smilingly, “Alessandro, as I have promised, your soul shall someday reach me in heaven.”

Contentment entered his breast. And the scene of incredible beauty dissolved in silence. When he awoke, it seemed that the rabid, choking, consuming feelings of hate, destruction, and bitterness that ruled within him were loosening their invisible bonds from his mind and flesh. Soon after, Bishop Blandini of Noto visited him, explaining that Maria had forgiven him and that God would also forgive him. This vision of Maria led to Alessandro’s repentance and conversion, and he later testified at the cause for her beatification, stating in part, “I knew I was breaking God’s law. I killed her because she refused. She had never encouraged me in any way – not by a word or a deed.”.

A miracle of forgiveness. Twenty-seven years after Maria’s murder, Alessandro was released from prison. He went straight to Maria’s mother, Assunta, and begged her forgiveness. Her response rang in echo of her daughter, showing the kind of faith that Maria had received from her, “Alessandro, Maria has forgiven you. God has forgiven you. How can I not forgive you.”  Assunta took him with her to Mass that night as a mother with her son. They received Holy Communion, kneeling together. After he received the Eucharist, there was a bit of commotion among the congregation, so he turned around to them and said: “I am guilty of a terrible sin. Please forgive me.” Alessandro later became a Franciscan lay brother, working in the garden of an isolated monastery. He stayed hidden there until his death in 1970. His last words: “I’m going to be with Maria.” 
 
Those who were acquainted with little Maria said on the day of her funeral: “A saint has died!”  In 1950, half a million people were in attendance in St Peter’s Square when Pope Pius XII canonized this “20th century St. Agnes”. Present also were her mother, her siblings, and Alessandro, who had killed her only to discover in her an intercessor, a sister and a friend. 

“Maria’s forgiveness saved me.” –Alessandro Serenelli
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Not only is a martyr one who dies rather than deny a truth of the faith, but he also who dies for the sake of some virtue, or to avoid sin against any commandment. –St. Thomas Aquinas

Not all of us are expected to die a martyr’s death, but we are all called to the pursuit of Christian virtue. This demands strength of character though it may not match that of this innocent girl. Still, a constant, persistent and relentless effort is asked of us right up to the moment of our death. This may be conceived as a slow steady martyrdom which Christ urged upon us when he said: The kingdom of heaven is set upon and laid waste by violent forces. —Excerpted from a homily at the canonization of Saint Maria Goretti by Pope Pius XII

What I am about to tell you about is the best news in Israel at the moment.  

Her name is Saphir Cohen. It was 10/7. She went with her boyfriend Sasha to a family visit in a Kibbutz by Gaza.  They were both kidnapped and separated immediatly. There are some horrifying images of their kidnapping.  Her on a motorcycle between two armed terrorists and him separately.   

Long ago I posted her interview here because she is one of the most extraordinary people that I have seen.  She was released after a few months in one of the deals.  You could tell that she is kind of shy, but she went public on a campaign to persuade everyone, world wide, to do something to help free him, anything, a prayer or whatever they could.  

He was released on the last deal. After years. I posted here their meeting when he was released.

Today they married.  

I put together a video exclusive for you. It’s only on my Rumble channel and here.  

It is short, don’t miss it.  She is amazing.  

The song in their wedding is called “From the depth.”  Since they were in tunnels it has a special meaning.  

This is a victory of the human spirit and an act of God’s mercy.  

I need to translate one word : Tehillim = The Book of Psalms. 

 https://rumble.com/v7cbm2g-saphir-cohen-a-hostage-of-107-married-her-boyfriend-sasha-who-was-also-a-ho.html

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The Hail Mary

Hail, Mary, full of grace,
the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.

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This is how an enemy of the gospel of Jesus Christ operates.
An enemy of the cross.