Photo Gallery: Relics of St. Maria Goretti at Plainfield Church

Based on the sheer amount of people who showed up when St. Mary Immaculate Parish opened its doors for the relics of St. Maria Goretti, by the time the days ends, thousands will have stopped by to get a glance.

St. Maria Goretti was an 11-year-old Italian girl stabbed to death while resisting a neighbor trying to rape her in 1902. Maria is said to have forgiven her attacker, Alessandro Serenelli, as she lay dying of infection from 14 stab wounds inflicted with a metal file. Serenelli was sentenced to 30 years in prison. According to the official Vatican account, he had been in prison for six years when Maria appeared to him in a vision and handed him white lily flowers she had picked from a garden.

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The gesture of forgiveness is said to have filled Serenelli with the light of the Holy Spirit. He immediately became contrite, and finished the rest of his sentence in tranquility. His behavioral change was so dramatic that he was released three years early. He eventually joined the Capuchin Franciscans as a lay brother.

She was officially canonized by Pope Pius XII on June 24, 1950. Known as a model of mercy, she is the Catholic Church’s youngest saint. Her remains are embedded in a silver box inside a wax likeness and displayed in a glass case.

At 3 p.m. Thursday, St. Mary will hold a divine mercy chaplet, followed by a solemn mass at 7 p.m. At 9 p.m. there will be a rosary and at 11 p.m. the day will end with a night prayer.

St. Mary Immaculate Parish is located at 15629 Rt. 59 in Plainfield.