Introducing Saint Maria Goretti to Young Kids

The Saint and Children: How to Handle it When Things Get Complicated. . .

I love the saints. I love their companionship, their wisdom, the shared struggle, the knowing that we all sin, make mistakes, doubt. They are invariably people that I want my children to get to know as friends.

Some saints seem tailor-made for kids: Therese, Joseph, Mary. These are easy saints to introduce to our children because there is no controversy, no complicated topics that touch their lives. Other saints are more difficult, and this month there are 2 saints with feast days that my eldest daughter loves, that are tricky saints to approach with her: St. Maria Goretti and St. Kateri Tekakwitha.

Saint Maria’s Biography

St. Maria Goretti, who’s feast day is July 5, is widely known as the girl who resisted rape to the point of death, intent on honoring her purity, and forgave her attacker in the end. This is the version of the story presented to me in religion class when I first encountered Maria Goretti as a high school student.

I will be perfectly blunt: I hate this way of telling her story. When the focus is on her willingness to die rather than be raped by an assailant, the message it sends to my daughters is that they are better dead than raped, which is absolutely not the message I want to be sending them. Unfortunately, the stories of many of the virgin martyrs of the Church have gotten boiled down to this simple message of death being preferably to having been raped.

I do not think that rape is something to be taken lightly. I want my children to guard their purity and their chastity as they grow up. But I think that this version of telling Maria’s story has implicit victim shaming built in that I don’t want my daughters to experience. When a girl or woman is attacked by an assailant, that person is usually bigger, stronger, and willing to get their way through violence. A woman who is raped is not to blame because she didn’t fight hard enough.

The other problem that I have with this version of the story is that it leaves out something truly incredible and a big part of what makes Maria a saint- her assailant, Alessandro Serenelli, tells us that Maria’s protests to him were not about guarding her purity, but rather about guarding his soul. She was most concerned about the fact that he was going to commit a mortal sin.

On her deathbed, Maria forgave the man who killed her. This heroic act also enabled her mother to forgive him as well, and the love of these two women was what brought Alessandro to his own conversion.

(Side note: Simcha Fisher has a great article on this topic. OSV also has an article on virgin martyrs in general that speaks to this issue.)

So How to Introduce Maria Goretti to a young child?

First of all, I’m not advocating getting into all of the nitty gritty of rape and violence with young children. And as a parent, you know your child best. Perhaps this is a saint that they should be introduced to at an older age. It’s your call as the parent. For me, I try to approach the introduction of saints with the idea that we can teach truth at a child’s level, in layers. So while we tell our children about the saints, we don’t always teach them the whole story until they are ready.

For us, what we tell about Maria Goretti goes something like this:

St. Maria Goretti was born in Italy to a family of farmers. They were very poor and had to share their house with another family. In Maria’s family everyone helped as much as they were able. Maria learned to sew and cook and help take care of the house.

Maria was raised by her parents to know and love Jesus. Even though she could not read, she learned her Catechism and received her first communion. She loved Jesus very much.

One day when Maria was 11 years old, one of the young men from the other family that they shared their house with, Alessandro, came up to her, and he threatened to hurt her if she didn’t do what he wanted, and she knew what Alessandro was demanding was a sin. Maria was very worried that Alessandro was going to commit a mortal sin, and tried to argue with him, and convince him to let her go. She told him that he was risking his soul, and she didn’t want that.

Alessandro got very angry with Maria, and in his rage he stabbed her many times and then ran away. Maria was found and brought to the hospital, but she was too hurt for the doctors to help her. As she was dying, she forgave Alessandro, and said that she would like him to get to Heaven with her.

After Maria died, Alessandro went to prison for 30 years. One night, six years later, Maria appeared to him in his cell. She was surrounded by flowers and handed them to him. This act showed him that she forgave him, and he realized what a terrible sin he had committed. From that moment on his life was changed. He asked for God’s forgiveness and determined to follow Jesus. When he was released, he went to Maria’s mother, Assunta, and asked her to forgive him. Assunta told him that she could forgive him because Maria already had.

You’ll notice that this is a very simplified version of Maria’s story, and that it doesn’t even mention rape. That’s because my eldest isn’t ready for that discussion. I think that there’s a way to tell the story of Maria’s sanctity that focuses on the heroic virtue she displayed in loving and forgiving her enemy.

Leaving Time and Space for Questions and Discussion

When I introduce a complex saint or a tricky theological concept to my kids, I always try to leave time and space for questions that might come to them. Availability is important in these situations, as is remembering that the questions might come up later. My eldest in particular ponders things deeply, and often asks questions days later.

One thing that I like to do with my kids is show them pictures of the saint after I’ve told them the story. In the case of Maria Goretti, she lived in the modern era, so we have photographs of her, her home, and her family. My kids always get a kick out of being able to see a photo of a saint, and it’s a good way to remind them that saints are always being created by God; they don’t just belong to the long gone past. You can find a photo of Maria and one of her cannonization on my Liturgical Living: July Pinterest Board.

Sometimes I ask questions to prompt them to think about aspects of the story to help them focus in on teaching points I want to highlight. These can also be fabulous ways to prompt conversation with your child about faith. For Maria here are some I might ask:

• Do you think Maria felt scared when Alessandro attacked her?
• Maria was more worried about Alessandro’s soul than her body being hurt. Why do you think that was?
• Do you think it was hard for Alessandro to ask Maria’s mom for forgiveness?
• Do you think it was hard for Assunta to forgive him?

You’ll notice that the questions all center around forgiveness, which is the heroic virtue I want my kids to take away from learning about Maria Goretti.

I’ve found that these conversations tend to flow more naturally when my children and I are engaged in an activity together. G LOVES to color and create, so a coloring page is my usual go-to activity. And if your kid is in luck, the inestimable Rebecca Gorzynska has a wonderful coloring of this saint that captures her joy and love perfectly.