Rita
was born in Roccaborena, Italy in 1381 to aged parents who were known
for their charity, and who fervently thanked God for the gift of a
daughter so late in life.
Extraordinarily pious from an early
age, Rita set her heart on entering the Augustinian convent in Cascia,
but her parents had plans for her to marry the town’s watchman, Paolo
Mancini, and she submitted to their desires in the matter.
Her
husband proved to have an explosive temper, and became abusive, but Rita
bore with his ill-treatment patiently for eighteen years bearing him
two sons, who fell under their father’s pernicious influence.
She
wept and prayed for her husband and children unceasingly. Finally won
over by her virtue, Paolo had a change of heart and asked her
forgiveness. Soon after, involved in a local feud, he was ambushed and
brought home dead. His two young sons vowed to avenge their father’s
slaying, which was a new source of affliction for Rita, who begged God
to take them before they committed murder. The Lord heard the saint’s
heroic plea and her sons contracted a disease from which both died, not
before being reconciled to their mother and to their God.
Free
from all earthly cares, Rita turned to the Augustinians seeking
admittance only to be told that she could not be accepted by reason of
having been married. Rita prayed and persisted and it is said that one
morning she was found inside the walls of the convent though none knew
how, the doors having been locked all night. She was received then at
age thirty-six.
In religious life she was a model of virtue,
prayer and mortification. One day, after hearing a sermon on Our Lord's
crown of thorns, she felt as if one of the thorns was being pressed to
her forehead. On the spot, an open wound developed, and the stench it
emitted became so offensive that she had to be secluded. She bore this
wound until her death.
Rita died on May 22, 1457 and her body has remained incorrupt to this day.
So
many miracles were reported after her death, that, in Spain, she became
known as “la santa del impossible”, the saint of impossible cases, a
title that spread throughout the Catholic world.
Saturday, May 22, 2021
St. Rita of Cascia
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