J.M.J.
Related by the Reverend Raymond P. Roden in his article entitled, "An Astounding Mercy: The Conversion of the Man who Killed St. Maria Goretti" (America Magazine, April 21, 2016):
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 Marietta (Maria). She was walking among flowers toward him, smiling, and without the least fear. He wanted to flee from her, but could not. Marietta 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 splendid flaming lights. There was a lily turned to purifying flame for every one of the fourteen mortal blows he struck her on the fatal day in Ferriere. Marietta said, smiling, “Alessandro, as I have promised, your soul shall some day reach me in heaven.” Contentment entered his breast. And the scene of incredible beauty dissolved into silence.
From a face-to-face interview with Alessandro Serenelli that appeared in The Penitent by Pietro DiDonato (1962).
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