St. Rita of Cascia
Her Life
St. Rita of Cascia, whose feast
is celebrated on May 22, was born at Rocca Porena, Italy of elderly parents.
Being along in years, they did not want to see their only child alone in life
and so they opposed her desire to become a nun and persuaded her to marry a man
against her will at the age of 18.
After eighteen abusive years, her
husband was killed in a brawl but not before Rita had converted him from his
wicked ways. To obtain his conversion, she added severe penance to prayer. She
kept, not one Lent, but three a year; and penance in those days was extremely
rigorous. Only one meal was permitted, (either of fish or vegetables) and this
was taken in the afternoon, without anything between meals. Gradually her
husband grew calmer, less violent. But Rita had won this change through great
suffering. She was insulted in public and private, yet showing her husband not
an ounce of resentment. She forced herself to obey him to the point of not even
visiting church without permission, the most difficult sacrifice of all!
From this marriage, she had two
sons. After the death of her husband, Rita's two sons, resolved to take
revenge, but through her prayers and devotion, they repented.
When her two sons died, a year after
their father, she applied several times for admission into the Augustinian
Convent at Cascia, but was refused each time, as its rule permitted only
virgins. Finally in 1413, she was allowed to enter, where she remained for 42
years! She became known for her austerities, penance’s and concern for others,
and brought many back to their religion with her prayers. She was tempted by
the devil in many ways, but she remained steadfast to her faith. Wishing to
test Rita's obedience, the superior told her to water a dried-up vine twice
daily. Rita did so without objecting while most of the nuns chuckled. To their
surprise, the brown vine sprouted and blossomed! In time it yielded delicious
grapes.
Devotion to the cross was particularly
widespread during the Middle Ages. Upon hearing an ardent sermon about Christ's
passion, Rita prayed to God that He might share with her at least part of His
pains. Slowly one of the thorns from the crucifix was loosened, and implanted
itself so deeply into Rita's forehead that she fainted. Her wound became putrid
and fetid. She was banished to a small room far removed from the others' rooms.
There she remained cheerfully for 15 years while the wound grew steadily
painful and made even sleep very difficult.
During her isolation, a woman
form Cascia knocked on the convent door. Tearfully she begged Rita to pray for
her daughter who was seriously ill. The woman returned home to find her
daughter completely cured! News of this and other 'favors' brought crowds of
people to the convent. No one left without having received every benefit and
aid.
During Rita's last winter on
earth, she asked a relative to bring her back the beautiful rose that is
blooming in her unattended garden and under a heavy blanket of snow. The
relative thought her delirious from her suffering but obeyed her wish and found
that rose!
At the moment of her death, with all the nuns
surrounding her, the convent bell began to chime, the chord being pulled by a
spiritual force. At the same time, the nuns realized a wonderful fragrance had
filled the room. Rita's wound had healed and her face glowed with an eternal
smile. They decided to lay her body at the foot of a portable altar because
many wanted to see her. Her saintly remains, which were preserved so well,
spread a sweet odor throughout the church. She remained there for 138 years
before being moved into the church. People still come to see her to this day.
Rita was not born with a halo
around her head. She learned every step of life's way to deny her own wants and
will. She forced herself to bend to the will of God. She did so in the commands
and wishes of her parents, secondly in the will of her husband and lastly, as a
religious, in the will of her superior and sisters. She trained herself to see
everything with a view to eternity.
In 1900, on May 24, Pope Leo XIII
canonized the humble mountain woman whom the world had come to love and
venerate as the "SAINT OF THE IMPOSSIBLE."
http://www.saintrita.org/story/
The Saint of Impossible Causes
Born of a very devout mother and
father who, in times when families were feuding amongst themselves, were called
by some, "Jesus Christ’s peacemakers," it would appear from the very
moment of her birth, God had special designs on Rita. There is a tradition in
Roccaporena that as an infant, while she slept in a basket, in the fields where
her parents were working, white bees swarmed around Rita’s open mouth. Not only
did the bees not sting her, but it is said that they dropped honey into her
mouth without her uttering a cry of warning to her parents. One of the farmers,
seeing the swarm of bees, tried to disperse them with his arm that had been
deeply wounded by a scythe. His arm stopped bleeding and he was immediately
healed.
Almost two hundred years after she
died, a strange thing began to happen.
At the Monastery in Cascia, white bees came out of the walls of the
Monastery during Holy Week of each year and remained until the feast day of
Saint Rita, May 22nd, when they returned to hibernation until Holy Week of the
following year. Pope Urban VIII,
learning of the mysterious bees which buzzed about the walls of the Monastery
where Saint Rita had lived, requested that one of the them be brought to him in
Rome. After a careful examination of the bee, he tied a silk thread around it;
then set it free, only to have it later discovered in its hive at the Monastery
in Cascia, 138 kilometers away. And so
the tradition of the bees began. The holes in the wall where the bees traditionally
remain until the following year, are plainly in view for pilgrims journeying
till today to the Monastery. Coincidence
or miracle? We are believers in miracles! When we see the Lord’s intervention
in a physical way that would otherwise be considered unconventional or
phenomenal, for us, it’s just His way of letting us know that He is with us,
watching over us. Since the very breath we breathe is a miracle, we think we
can call the extraordinary miraculous.
http://www.bobandpennylord.com/St_Rita_of_Cascia.htm
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