The room is obscured in shadow; barely a glimmer of light can be seen. In the darkest corner, she sits alone. Scared. Unsure. Confused. Waiting for the inevitable. She knows it is wrong. But there is little that can be done. So she waits. And she prays.
A man approaches her, walking with a sick confidence betrayed by the forceful steps he takes in her direction. He feels he is owed something. Something specific. Something dear to him, but even more precious to her. He inches closer, unruly passion, fiery and all-consuming burning in his bloodshot eyes. Unchecked, unrestrained lust boiling over in his ravenous heart. He looks at her, sitting there on the floor, beneath him, where she belongs. He is a prisoner to his lust, an obedient servant to this fire of debauchery burning uncontrolled in his soul. He cannot hear her whimper, nor see her tears; like a wolf whose hunger has been aroused by the scent of freshly spilled blood, he is relentless in the pursuit of his prey, without mercy, without care, without any thought of regret. To this man, she is not a person, she is merely a means, a beautiful means to achieve the end for which he is about to sacrifice a part of his heart and soul for. Pleasure; taken, stolen, pilfered in a violent manner. She has no name except indulgence, no identity except desire, no purpose except gratification. No past, no future, only the present, only the now, only this moment where her goodness, her worth is in the hands of a man who knows only selfishness, a man who will throw his dignity out the window by destroying the dignity of someone else. He will not stop until he has attained the prize that his master seeks. His eyes are blinded, his will perverted, his mind darkened, his soul on the brink of utter destruction, but it matters not to him, his master calls.
And he answers.
And she cries.
The she dies.
He is Allesandro Serenelli.
But for the Grace of God, I could be Allesandro Serenelli.
I used to think like that. Many were the times that I would quell the foreboding sense of my sinfulness by comparing myself to the worst of humanity. Like the Pharisee looking down on the tax collector, there I stood, high and mighty over the dregs of men, condemning them for their wounds and mistakes whilst I begged forgiveness for mine. Stupid fool of a man I was…Stupid fool of a man I still am. All too often would I send someone to hell for lesser sins than I would commit an hour after leaving the confessional. I called it zeal, but calling it zeal did nothing to disguise what it truly was: Pride. The sickness that is the beginning and end of all sin, the disease that begets disease, the all-encompassing cancer that will eat away at our souls, if we do not turn, in humility, to the only One who has the power to save us from ourselves. I was 23 years old, a new convert, full of excitement for the faith and a desire to share this new found joy. Yet for all my passion to share the faith, I had equal, if not more, amounts of ignorance when it came to understanding the faith. Nevertheless, I was sure of one thing. I had my act together.
Then I met Alessandro Serenelli.
What a monster. How pathetic mankind has become that we would be capable of such pure evil. To even think about his crime made me sick, the murder of an 11 year old girl because she would not consent to a sexual encounter was worthy of all the fury of God. My God, he was a special kind of evil, a kind of evil that I could never have been or could ever be. Yet, as much as I saw an infinite chasm between his sinfulness and my apparent holiness, I couldn’t get him—or St. Maria Goretti—off my mind.
How much of a difference is there between someone like Alessandro Serenelli and me? After all, he was a murderer, a man who intended to rape an innocent young girl! He was a monster who cared only about fulfilling his wicked desire for pleasure! I am none of those things. I’m a good person. I pray, I go to church, I give to the collection, and I even go to confession. I have never killed someone or even thought about raping a woman. I am nothing like that man. Appeased with my handling of the matter, I stifled the Spirt speaking within my heart--as I often did when I was holy—and moved on with my life.
But he never went away. He was always there. As I struggled to come to grips with my past, he was always there; a nameless shadow in the corner of my heart that seemed to be waiting for something, for a light to shine on what I kept hidden there. It was as if he was part of the mystery, of the shame that lay beneath the shadows and only in my choosing to bring light to the darkness could his purpose finally be made clear to me.
Only recently did I have enough courage to invite Christ into the shadowy recesses of that part of my heart. The invitation was not easily sent; it has taken many years of learning and years of yearning. Learning how to not repress shame or guilt. Yearning for love, true love in its most pure essence. Yearning for a love that has not run from me, but has been avoided by me. I found that I was afraid of love because of what it demands. Now I know not to fear its demands for it is in those demands that the beauty of Love is revealed. (St. John Paul II) But back then, the demands of love, in particular the sacrificial demands of love were not only utterly foreign to me, but downright frightening to me. I was never taught to think otherwise. This is not going to turn into a sob story of my youth, nor do I intend to blame my parents for my deficiencies, but truth is truth. I was never exposed to the truth and meaning of LOVE and so when I grew I filled in the blanks for myself. As most of us have found out, that is usually a recipe for disaster and so it was with me.
But I digress. Fast-forward 8 years. July 6th 2014. I was watching “Maria Goretti” with my children on her feast day and that’s when it hit me. It was soft and gentle at first, like the song of a bird calling in the wind for its mate. I heard it and responded, as gently as the call came. I was ready this time. My heart was ready this time. So I hugged my Maria, ever so tenderly and eased myself into prayer. I am ready, Lord.
The it hit me.
I saw the first time I was exposed to porn as an innocent 10 year old. I saw my first reactions. I saw the first time I masturbated. I saw it all and I shuddered. Damn. That was painful. I stopped, I looked at my princess and continued to pray. I am ready, Lord.
Bam! I saw the addiction take root. I saw the stealing of magazines, the ravenous stares at women walking by. I saw the lust in my eyes and the disgusting desires in my heart. I felt the pain of knowing it was wrong. I felt the anger at feeling it was wrong. I felt the tears I cried when I severed my heart from my conscience and gave my young heart over to the insidious pleasures that were offered to me. I saw the drugs, the alcohol, the lies, the rage. I saw it all. I saw the girls. Body after body, empty shell after empty shell, nameless things that I used and abused to achieve a sick sense of accomplishment, a warped version of what I thought manhood was. It would have been no different if I would have killed them and mounted their heads on the wall of my living room. Then it hit me. I hugged Maria tighter and began to cry.
I saw the strippers. I heard them talking of the pain, the loneliness, the heartache the brutality of what they were doing. I saw the tears in their hopeless eyes, I saw the brokenness in their wounded hearts, I heard the wails for someone to see them as what they were and not only gawk at their body parts. Then I saw my lascivious eyes, my bloodshot, distorted eyes that revealed a soul possessed with selfishness. I saw my money, crumpled in a sick fit of lust, waiting to buy the affection of whatever women happened to approach me next. I saw everything. And I was breaking under the pressure.
Don’t repress. Allow it to come. Beg forgiveness. You need this to heal. I kept telling myself that. I was praying and begging for these women to forgive me. While I was feeling this, I was holding my daughter and I cannot express how deeply this made me regret everything I had ever done even more. Every girl I wounded, every women I used was someone’s daughter. God forgive me. Protect my children from men like me.
The parade continued. I saw all the girlfriends, the “other” girlfriends, the “boyfriends”, I looked into the eyes of every person I could remember. I saw the girl who tried to kill herself after I used her. I saw my uncaring attitude, my disappointment in her weakness, my hatred because she actually believed I loved her. I saw the possibility of an abortion. I saw it all. I kept praying. I kept asking for forgiveness.
Then I saw her.
In a beautiful white gown, professing her love for me. Then I saw her crying. How many times have I failed even you, my Bride? How many times have I traded in my manhood for something less worthy and less befitting of our dignity as a married couple? How many times have I wandered in thought? In word? In deed? Dear God, please forgive me.
Then I heard it.
The stabbing of Maria Goretti was playing loud and clear on our TV. I cringed as I saw the young martyr of purity fall under the weight of her aggressor. I cried with my family as we witnessed his supreme act of hatred be countered by her supreme act of love. We watched as Maria lay in her hospital bed writhing in pain as her priest prayed over her. Then as her mother held her hands, weeping in incredible agony, we wept with her as Maria cried out, “I forgive him. And I want Alessandro to be in Heaven with me.”
Then I got it. Then it made sense. What I knew in my brain finally made it to my calloused heart. In all my actions, thoughts, words and deeds, every little action I committed in the spirit of lust, I was reducing those women to nothing. Every little fantasy, every “innocent” look, every little indulgence done simply because “men do that sort of thing” was an act of dehumanizing the girl and myself. I did not see the woman as a person, I saw her as a thing, a thing to satisfy my “manly” urge. Indeed, in all my actions, I was no different from Alessandro Serenelli. The only separating factor was a knife and a moment of absolute insanity.
As the movie ended, I felt a sense of urgency to confess my sins, which I did. However, more needed to be done; you are reading the “more” that needed to be done.
I read up on Alessandro and found that immediately after his brutal assault on young Maria Goretti, he was imprisoned temporarily in Nettuno and then transferred to Regina Coeli prison in Rome to stand trial. After vehemently denying his guilt, he finally broke down in the face of overwhelming testimony. Since he was a minor, he was sentenced to only thirty years hard labor. A priest came to see him soon afterward, and he turned on the cleric in rage, howling like a maniac and lunging at him.
In the days that followed, Alessandro lost his appetite and grew nervous. After six years of prison, he was near the brink of despair. Then one night, Maria appeared to him in his cell. She smiled at Alessandro and was surrounded by lilies, the flower symbolic of purity. From that moment, peace invaded Alessandro's heart, and he began to live a constructive life.
After serving his sentence, Alessandro took up residence at a Capuchin monastery, working in the garden as a tertiary. He asked pardon of Maria's mother and accompanied her to Christmas Mass in the parish church where he spoke before the hushed congregation, acknowledging his sin and asking God's forgiveness and the pardon of the community.
Forty years later, on June 24, 1950, Maria Goretti was canonized at St. Peter's basilica in Rome, with Alessandro's heart now firmly converted to the Lord. A miraculous fruit of Maria's life and death, indeed!
Alessandro Serenelli died on May 6th, 1970 in a Capuchin convent. He left the following testimony, dated May 5, 1961, as his spiritual legacy:
"I'm nearly 80 years old. I'm about to depart. Looking back at my past, I can see that in my early youth, I chose a bad path which led me to ruin myself. My behavior was influenced by print, mass-media and bad examples which are followed by the majority of young people without even thinking. And I did the same. I was not worried. There were a lot of generous and devoted people who surrounded me, but I paid no attention to them because a violent force blinded me and pushed me toward a wrong way of life. When I was 20 years-old, I committed a crime of passion. Now, that memory represents something horrible for me. Maria Goretti, now a Saint, was my good Angel, sent to me through Providence to guide and save me. I still have impressed upon my heart her words of rebuke and of pardon. She prayed for me, she interceded for her murderer. Thirty years of prison followed. If I had been of age, I would have spent all my life in prison. I accepted to be condemned because it was my own fault. Little Maria was really my light, my protectress; with her help, I behaved well during the 27 years of prison and tried to live honestly when I was again accepted among the members of society. The Brothers of St. Francis, Capuchins from Marche, welcomed me with angelic charity into their monastery as a brother, not as a servant. I've been living with their community for 24 years, and now I am serenely waiting to witness the vision of God, to hug my loved ones again, and to be next to my Guardian Angel and her dear mother, Assunta. I hope this letter that I wrote can teach others the happy lesson of avoiding evil and of always following the right path, like little children. I feel that religion with its precepts is not something we can live without, but rather it is the real comfort, the real strength in life and the only safe way in every circumstance, even the most painful ones of life."
Signature, Alessandro Serenelli
I wept at his sincere conversion, his tender love and his devout contrition. He truly repented and gave his heart to the Lord. He changed his life and lived to exemplify what forgiveness is capable of doing in the cold heart of the sinner.
It was then that I began to realize something very crazy. All my “converted life” I had been comparing myself to the most wicked of all men. Something along the lines of, “Well, yeah I did that(insert transgression here), but at least I’m no Nero.”
No More.
A wise Priest recently told his flock to “Measure yourselves to the saints. Strive for the best, not just to be a little better than the worst.” That was definitely a moment of intense growth for me. Comparing my sins to the sins of others was not going to make me righteous; neither was comparing my righteous to the righteousness of others. But by imitating the love of the saints, by seeing their great examples of tenderness, forgiveness, mercy and a life lived well and striving to bring those realities into my own heart. By living a life filled with Virtue and not an unhealthy preoccupation with all things sinful. Now that is a horse of a different color. I could do nothing except pray.
“God,
You can do all things. Even making out of me a man who is after your own heart.
I pray that with your Grace, through the intercession of St. Maria Goretti and Alessandro Serenelli that I may one day be the man you created me to be, the man my bride, my children, my family and the world deserves. Blessed Mother please watch over and guide me. Amen.”
So my friends, I will leave you with this thought, one day soon, by God’s Grace may I become what I truly feared: Not the Alessandro Serenelli that killed Maria, but the one who accepted her forgiveness and changed his heart.
Yes, without a doubt, By the Grace of God, I am Alessandro Serenelli.
7/18/2014 2:02 AM
A man approaches her, walking with a sick confidence betrayed by the forceful steps he takes in her direction. He feels he is owed something. Something specific. Something dear to him, but even more precious to her. He inches closer, unruly passion, fiery and all-consuming burning in his bloodshot eyes. Unchecked, unrestrained lust boiling over in his ravenous heart. He looks at her, sitting there on the floor, beneath him, where she belongs. He is a prisoner to his lust, an obedient servant to this fire of debauchery burning uncontrolled in his soul. He cannot hear her whimper, nor see her tears; like a wolf whose hunger has been aroused by the scent of freshly spilled blood, he is relentless in the pursuit of his prey, without mercy, without care, without any thought of regret. To this man, she is not a person, she is merely a means, a beautiful means to achieve the end for which he is about to sacrifice a part of his heart and soul for. Pleasure; taken, stolen, pilfered in a violent manner. She has no name except indulgence, no identity except desire, no purpose except gratification. No past, no future, only the present, only the now, only this moment where her goodness, her worth is in the hands of a man who knows only selfishness, a man who will throw his dignity out the window by destroying the dignity of someone else. He will not stop until he has attained the prize that his master seeks. His eyes are blinded, his will perverted, his mind darkened, his soul on the brink of utter destruction, but it matters not to him, his master calls.
And he answers.
And she cries.
The she dies.
He is Allesandro Serenelli.
But for the Grace of God, I could be Allesandro Serenelli.
I used to think like that. Many were the times that I would quell the foreboding sense of my sinfulness by comparing myself to the worst of humanity. Like the Pharisee looking down on the tax collector, there I stood, high and mighty over the dregs of men, condemning them for their wounds and mistakes whilst I begged forgiveness for mine. Stupid fool of a man I was…Stupid fool of a man I still am. All too often would I send someone to hell for lesser sins than I would commit an hour after leaving the confessional. I called it zeal, but calling it zeal did nothing to disguise what it truly was: Pride. The sickness that is the beginning and end of all sin, the disease that begets disease, the all-encompassing cancer that will eat away at our souls, if we do not turn, in humility, to the only One who has the power to save us from ourselves. I was 23 years old, a new convert, full of excitement for the faith and a desire to share this new found joy. Yet for all my passion to share the faith, I had equal, if not more, amounts of ignorance when it came to understanding the faith. Nevertheless, I was sure of one thing. I had my act together.
Then I met Alessandro Serenelli.
What a monster. How pathetic mankind has become that we would be capable of such pure evil. To even think about his crime made me sick, the murder of an 11 year old girl because she would not consent to a sexual encounter was worthy of all the fury of God. My God, he was a special kind of evil, a kind of evil that I could never have been or could ever be. Yet, as much as I saw an infinite chasm between his sinfulness and my apparent holiness, I couldn’t get him—or St. Maria Goretti—off my mind.
How much of a difference is there between someone like Alessandro Serenelli and me? After all, he was a murderer, a man who intended to rape an innocent young girl! He was a monster who cared only about fulfilling his wicked desire for pleasure! I am none of those things. I’m a good person. I pray, I go to church, I give to the collection, and I even go to confession. I have never killed someone or even thought about raping a woman. I am nothing like that man. Appeased with my handling of the matter, I stifled the Spirt speaking within my heart--as I often did when I was holy—and moved on with my life.
But he never went away. He was always there. As I struggled to come to grips with my past, he was always there; a nameless shadow in the corner of my heart that seemed to be waiting for something, for a light to shine on what I kept hidden there. It was as if he was part of the mystery, of the shame that lay beneath the shadows and only in my choosing to bring light to the darkness could his purpose finally be made clear to me.
Only recently did I have enough courage to invite Christ into the shadowy recesses of that part of my heart. The invitation was not easily sent; it has taken many years of learning and years of yearning. Learning how to not repress shame or guilt. Yearning for love, true love in its most pure essence. Yearning for a love that has not run from me, but has been avoided by me. I found that I was afraid of love because of what it demands. Now I know not to fear its demands for it is in those demands that the beauty of Love is revealed. (St. John Paul II) But back then, the demands of love, in particular the sacrificial demands of love were not only utterly foreign to me, but downright frightening to me. I was never taught to think otherwise. This is not going to turn into a sob story of my youth, nor do I intend to blame my parents for my deficiencies, but truth is truth. I was never exposed to the truth and meaning of LOVE and so when I grew I filled in the blanks for myself. As most of us have found out, that is usually a recipe for disaster and so it was with me.
But I digress. Fast-forward 8 years. July 6th 2014. I was watching “Maria Goretti” with my children on her feast day and that’s when it hit me. It was soft and gentle at first, like the song of a bird calling in the wind for its mate. I heard it and responded, as gently as the call came. I was ready this time. My heart was ready this time. So I hugged my Maria, ever so tenderly and eased myself into prayer. I am ready, Lord.
The it hit me.
I saw the first time I was exposed to porn as an innocent 10 year old. I saw my first reactions. I saw the first time I masturbated. I saw it all and I shuddered. Damn. That was painful. I stopped, I looked at my princess and continued to pray. I am ready, Lord.
Bam! I saw the addiction take root. I saw the stealing of magazines, the ravenous stares at women walking by. I saw the lust in my eyes and the disgusting desires in my heart. I felt the pain of knowing it was wrong. I felt the anger at feeling it was wrong. I felt the tears I cried when I severed my heart from my conscience and gave my young heart over to the insidious pleasures that were offered to me. I saw the drugs, the alcohol, the lies, the rage. I saw it all. I saw the girls. Body after body, empty shell after empty shell, nameless things that I used and abused to achieve a sick sense of accomplishment, a warped version of what I thought manhood was. It would have been no different if I would have killed them and mounted their heads on the wall of my living room. Then it hit me. I hugged Maria tighter and began to cry.
I saw the strippers. I heard them talking of the pain, the loneliness, the heartache the brutality of what they were doing. I saw the tears in their hopeless eyes, I saw the brokenness in their wounded hearts, I heard the wails for someone to see them as what they were and not only gawk at their body parts. Then I saw my lascivious eyes, my bloodshot, distorted eyes that revealed a soul possessed with selfishness. I saw my money, crumpled in a sick fit of lust, waiting to buy the affection of whatever women happened to approach me next. I saw everything. And I was breaking under the pressure.
Don’t repress. Allow it to come. Beg forgiveness. You need this to heal. I kept telling myself that. I was praying and begging for these women to forgive me. While I was feeling this, I was holding my daughter and I cannot express how deeply this made me regret everything I had ever done even more. Every girl I wounded, every women I used was someone’s daughter. God forgive me. Protect my children from men like me.
The parade continued. I saw all the girlfriends, the “other” girlfriends, the “boyfriends”, I looked into the eyes of every person I could remember. I saw the girl who tried to kill herself after I used her. I saw my uncaring attitude, my disappointment in her weakness, my hatred because she actually believed I loved her. I saw the possibility of an abortion. I saw it all. I kept praying. I kept asking for forgiveness.
Then I saw her.
In a beautiful white gown, professing her love for me. Then I saw her crying. How many times have I failed even you, my Bride? How many times have I traded in my manhood for something less worthy and less befitting of our dignity as a married couple? How many times have I wandered in thought? In word? In deed? Dear God, please forgive me.
Then I heard it.
The stabbing of Maria Goretti was playing loud and clear on our TV. I cringed as I saw the young martyr of purity fall under the weight of her aggressor. I cried with my family as we witnessed his supreme act of hatred be countered by her supreme act of love. We watched as Maria lay in her hospital bed writhing in pain as her priest prayed over her. Then as her mother held her hands, weeping in incredible agony, we wept with her as Maria cried out, “I forgive him. And I want Alessandro to be in Heaven with me.”
Then I got it. Then it made sense. What I knew in my brain finally made it to my calloused heart. In all my actions, thoughts, words and deeds, every little action I committed in the spirit of lust, I was reducing those women to nothing. Every little fantasy, every “innocent” look, every little indulgence done simply because “men do that sort of thing” was an act of dehumanizing the girl and myself. I did not see the woman as a person, I saw her as a thing, a thing to satisfy my “manly” urge. Indeed, in all my actions, I was no different from Alessandro Serenelli. The only separating factor was a knife and a moment of absolute insanity.
As the movie ended, I felt a sense of urgency to confess my sins, which I did. However, more needed to be done; you are reading the “more” that needed to be done.
I read up on Alessandro and found that immediately after his brutal assault on young Maria Goretti, he was imprisoned temporarily in Nettuno and then transferred to Regina Coeli prison in Rome to stand trial. After vehemently denying his guilt, he finally broke down in the face of overwhelming testimony. Since he was a minor, he was sentenced to only thirty years hard labor. A priest came to see him soon afterward, and he turned on the cleric in rage, howling like a maniac and lunging at him.
In the days that followed, Alessandro lost his appetite and grew nervous. After six years of prison, he was near the brink of despair. Then one night, Maria appeared to him in his cell. She smiled at Alessandro and was surrounded by lilies, the flower symbolic of purity. From that moment, peace invaded Alessandro's heart, and he began to live a constructive life.
After serving his sentence, Alessandro took up residence at a Capuchin monastery, working in the garden as a tertiary. He asked pardon of Maria's mother and accompanied her to Christmas Mass in the parish church where he spoke before the hushed congregation, acknowledging his sin and asking God's forgiveness and the pardon of the community.
Forty years later, on June 24, 1950, Maria Goretti was canonized at St. Peter's basilica in Rome, with Alessandro's heart now firmly converted to the Lord. A miraculous fruit of Maria's life and death, indeed!
Alessandro Serenelli died on May 6th, 1970 in a Capuchin convent. He left the following testimony, dated May 5, 1961, as his spiritual legacy:
"I'm nearly 80 years old. I'm about to depart. Looking back at my past, I can see that in my early youth, I chose a bad path which led me to ruin myself. My behavior was influenced by print, mass-media and bad examples which are followed by the majority of young people without even thinking. And I did the same. I was not worried. There were a lot of generous and devoted people who surrounded me, but I paid no attention to them because a violent force blinded me and pushed me toward a wrong way of life. When I was 20 years-old, I committed a crime of passion. Now, that memory represents something horrible for me. Maria Goretti, now a Saint, was my good Angel, sent to me through Providence to guide and save me. I still have impressed upon my heart her words of rebuke and of pardon. She prayed for me, she interceded for her murderer. Thirty years of prison followed. If I had been of age, I would have spent all my life in prison. I accepted to be condemned because it was my own fault. Little Maria was really my light, my protectress; with her help, I behaved well during the 27 years of prison and tried to live honestly when I was again accepted among the members of society. The Brothers of St. Francis, Capuchins from Marche, welcomed me with angelic charity into their monastery as a brother, not as a servant. I've been living with their community for 24 years, and now I am serenely waiting to witness the vision of God, to hug my loved ones again, and to be next to my Guardian Angel and her dear mother, Assunta. I hope this letter that I wrote can teach others the happy lesson of avoiding evil and of always following the right path, like little children. I feel that religion with its precepts is not something we can live without, but rather it is the real comfort, the real strength in life and the only safe way in every circumstance, even the most painful ones of life."
Signature, Alessandro Serenelli
I wept at his sincere conversion, his tender love and his devout contrition. He truly repented and gave his heart to the Lord. He changed his life and lived to exemplify what forgiveness is capable of doing in the cold heart of the sinner.
It was then that I began to realize something very crazy. All my “converted life” I had been comparing myself to the most wicked of all men. Something along the lines of, “Well, yeah I did that(insert transgression here), but at least I’m no Nero.”
No More.
A wise Priest recently told his flock to “Measure yourselves to the saints. Strive for the best, not just to be a little better than the worst.” That was definitely a moment of intense growth for me. Comparing my sins to the sins of others was not going to make me righteous; neither was comparing my righteous to the righteousness of others. But by imitating the love of the saints, by seeing their great examples of tenderness, forgiveness, mercy and a life lived well and striving to bring those realities into my own heart. By living a life filled with Virtue and not an unhealthy preoccupation with all things sinful. Now that is a horse of a different color. I could do nothing except pray.
“God,
You can do all things. Even making out of me a man who is after your own heart.
I pray that with your Grace, through the intercession of St. Maria Goretti and Alessandro Serenelli that I may one day be the man you created me to be, the man my bride, my children, my family and the world deserves. Blessed Mother please watch over and guide me. Amen.”
So my friends, I will leave you with this thought, one day soon, by God’s Grace may I become what I truly feared: Not the Alessandro Serenelli that killed Maria, but the one who accepted her forgiveness and changed his heart.
Yes, without a doubt, By the Grace of God, I am Alessandro Serenelli.
7/18/2014 2:02 AM
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