|
THE CATHOLIC PACIFIC NORTHWEST
Saint Rita Of Cascia
PATRONESS OF DESPERATE CASES |
A Catholic Christian Millennial Renaissance
Saint Rita Of Cascia
DAILY PRAYER TO SAINT RITA
PRAYER FOR FAMILIES - - SAINT RITA
PRAYER TO SAINT RITA IN DESPERATE CASES
PRAYER TO SAINT RITA |
Page Top
THE LIFE OF SAINT RITA, WIDOW; 1386-1457
For centuries St. Rita of Cascia has been one of the most popular saints in the Catholic Church. She is known as the "Saint of the Impossible" because of her amazing answers to prayer, as well as the remarkable events of her own life.
St. Rita wanted to become a nun, but in obedience to her aged parents, she married. Her husband caused her much suffering, but she repaid his cruelty with prayer and kindness. In time he was converted, becoming considerate and God?fearing. But St. Rita was to undergo another great sorrow when her husband was murdered.
St. Rita then found that her two sons were entertaining thoughts of avenging their father's murder; she feared they would put their desires into effect in accord with the evil custom of the Vendetta. With heroic love for their souls, she begged God to take them from this life rather than allow them to commit this great sin. Not long afterward they both died, after preparing themselves to meet God.
Bereft of spouse and children, St. Rita devoted herself to prayer, penance and works of charity. After a time she applied for admittance to the Augustinian Convent in Cascia. She was refused, but after praying to her three special patron saints - St. John the Baptist, St. Augustine and St. Nicholas of Tolentino - she miraculously entered the convent and was allowed to remain. This took place around the year 1411.
In the convent, St. Rita's life was marked by great charity and severe penances. Her prayers obtained for others remarkable cures, deliverance from the devil and other special favors from God.
So that she might share in the pain of His Crown of Thorns, Our Lord gave St. Rita a thorn wound in her forehead. It was very painful and gave off a disagreeable odor, yet she considered it a very great grace. She prayed, "O loving Jesus, increase my patience according as my sufferings increase." The wound lasted the rest of her life.
St. Rita died on May 22, 1457 at the age of 76. People flocked to the convent to pay their last respects. Innumerable miracles took place through her intercession, and devotion to her spread far and wide.
St. Rita's body was preserved perfectly incorrupt for several centuries, and at times it gave off a sweet fragrance. At the beatification ceremony, the body of the Saint raised itself up and opened its eyes.
God has heard St. Rita's prayers for others on countless occasions, and certainly she will gladly intercede once again, on behalf of those who pray to her now - thus continuing to prove the truth of her great name: The Saint of the Impossible!
SAINT RITA
Feast Day: May 22nd
If St. Rita belongs to that wonderful band of elect who were holy
from their cradles, it must be said that she required every available help that
sanctity gives, to have enabled her to endure the trials and difficulties with
which most of her life was filled! She was the daughter of parents, both nearing
middle age at the time of her birth, and the author of the Latin memoir of the
Saint says that shortly after this event (1386), a swarm of bees was seen to
come and go several times to and from the cradle a portent which was taken as
indicating that the career of the child was to be marked by industry, virtue and
devotion. The father and mother of Rita were themselves very pious, and from
their laudable habit of composing the quarrels and differences among their
neighbours, they were known as the "Peacemakers of Jesus Christ."
Little Rita as she grew up, seems to have acquired a great deal of this spirit
of the supernatural, for she showed little if any inclination for games, seeking
her recreation chiefly in prayer and visits to sacred shrines-an exercise, by
the way, which-granted the proper disposition-brings with it a wealth of real
enjoyment and satisfaction quite wanting to other arid more secular amusements.
This being so, it is not surprising to learn that Rita, as she neared womanhood,
felt that her vocation lay in the convent rather than in that of domestic life.
We are not aware of the circumstances that led her parents to oppose this
apparently obvious course, but oppose it they did, and Rita submitted, even so
far as to please them by marrying a man whom all accounts describe as
exceedingly bad-tempered and something worse! It is the teaching of the Church
that the grace of the Holy Sacrament of Matrimony, if corresponded with by a
good life, works miracles, almost, in the way of establishing and perpetuating
conjugal happiness. Acerbities of temper, temperamental differences, and all the
other difficulties arising out of the necessary variations of human nature, are,
under God's influence, toned down and adjusted, provided always Holy Mass,
prayer and the sacraments are not forgotten-for "wheresoever two or three
are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." So Rita
tamed her rough spouse, and for two-and-twenty years lived harmoniously (concorditer)
with a husband who, like most quarrelsome individuals in the days when sword and
stiletto ever sharp, hung from every Italian gentleman's belt, perished in a
feud. Such a death in the Italy of the Decamerone and the Republics, and,
indeed, till well into our own time, usually meant a prolonged vendetta, and, of
course, the two sons of the dead man at once took up the quarrel. Meantime, poor
Rita was in despair, and finding her expostulations useless to prevent further
effusion of blood, she had recourse to prayer, earnestly beseeching God to take
her boys from this world rather than permit them to live on stained by homicide.
The mother's prayer was heard, and the two youths shortly afterwards died
edifying deaths, forgiving their father's slayers and resigned to God.
The way was now clear for our Saint to satisfy her long yearning for a
conventual life. After due consideration, she applied to be "accepted"
by the Augustinian nuns at Cascia, but was informed that the custom was only for
women who had never been married, to be received as postulants. The time was to
come when not only widows were to enter religious orders of their own sex as a
matter of course, but even occasionally to found them, as in the case of St.
Jane Francis de Chantal and the Nuns of the Visitation. Again did Rita have
recourse to prayer, and it is related that the night following her second great
"storming of Heaven," St. John the Baptist, to whom she had a great
devotion, appeared to her, accompanied by St. Augustine and St. Nicholas of
Tolentino, and these three Saints conducted her to the convent, where the
Superiors who had been similarly warned, received her with great kindness. The
new postulant entered upon her life in religion with characteristic zeal and
thoroughness. She disposed of her family property as alms to the poor, and in
addition to the ordinary mortifications prescribed or permitted by the rule, she
added others of great severity, wearing a hair shirt, fasting rigorously on
bread and water and taking the discipline at intervals. The Passion of Our Lord
was her constant meditation, and while recalling the manifold sufferings of the
Man of Sorrows, she often seemed to be carried away by mingled grief and
devotion.
In the midst of such wonderful progress on the road to perfection, this
pattern to the community was afflicted by God after the following mysterious
manner. She was meditating one day on the Passion before the crucifix, when she
apparently, accidentally, wounded her forehead by striking it against some of
the no doubt very realistic thorns in Our Lord's crown. The injury caused by the
hurt developed into a serious ulcer, one most painful and unsightly, so
unsightly, in fact, that for many years Sister Rita had to make her devotions
alone! She accepted this great trial in the light of an additional penance sent
her by God, and it was about this time that many spiritual and temporal favours
are said to have been granted to various persons as the direct result of the
prayers of this wonderful religious, the fame of whose sanctity had already
extended far beyond the convent walls. The extraordinary fact, too, that her
garden-which, in common with the rest of the nuns, she had allotted to her-produced
beautiful roses and ripe figs in the depths of an abnormally severe winter, was
taken as an additional sign that the unceasing prayers and heroic virtues of
Sister Rita were blessed beyond measure, even in this world. The last years of
the Saint were marked by a most painful and lingering illness-cancer doubtless-which
as in the case of all her other seeming misfortunes she employed as another
means of forwarding her greater sanctification. At the approach of death, she
received with wonderful fervour the last rites of the Church, and then, as it is
piously believed, at the call of Our Lady, she breathed forth her spotless soul
to God on 20th May, 1456.1
The sacred remains long after death yielded a most sweet and refreshing
odour, and many miracles have been recorded as the fruit of her powerful
intercession. The cultus of the wonderful nun of Cascia spread far and wide,
notably in Spain, where she has since been known as "La Santa de los
impossibiles!" She was Beatified by Clement XII, though as far back as
1637, a Mass and office were granted in her honour by Urban VIII. Finally, on
24th May, 1900, Pope Leo XIII enrolled her name among the Saints-the Saints it
may be added, whose virtues shone as stars both in the world and in the
cloister.
[Cardi: Vita della B. Rita de Cascia. (Foligno, 1805.) Messenger of the
Sacred Heart, 1902. Roman Breviary: Pro Aliquibus Locis, 22nd May.]
Endnotes
1 The Life in the Breviary Office of the Feast, gives 1457 as the year of St. Rita's death.
(Taken from Vol. V of "The Lives or the Fathers, Martyrs and Other
Principal Saints" by the Rev. Alban Butler, Virtue and
Company, Limited, London.)
|
|
Jesus'Light-DivineMercy -- HailMary-HolyQueen -- CommunionOfSaints -- TruthOfCatholicChristianity -- CatholicRenaissance |
|
|
|
Christian Culture Reformation -- The Catholic Pacific Northwest -- Personal Devotion - Mystagogy -- Catholic Pacific Northwest Home |
|
|
The Catholic Pacific Northwest, A Traditionally Conservative Catholic Web Page. |
|
Created: 4/22/2000 - - - Modified: 11/25/2003
