She was the daughter of a poor Italian tenant farmer, had no chance to go to school, never learned to read or write. When she was only eleven years old, Maria suffered a brutal assault. After she refused the advances of an older farmhand named Alessandro Serenelli, he stabbed her multiple times. She was taken to the hospital, but her wounds were too severe, ultimately taking her life. In the last hours of her life, Maria forgave her attacker, expressing her wish that he would repent and turn to Christ. Devotion to the young martyr grew, miracles were worked, and in less than half a century she was canonized. At her beatification in 1947, her 82-year-old mother, two sisters, and her brother appeared with Pope Pius XII on the balcony of St. Peter’s. Three years later, at Maria’s canonization, a 66-year-old Alessandro Serenelli, who became a lay brother of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin, knelt among the quarter-million people.
