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St. Rita, Saint of the Impossible, led a life of many trials.
Yet, during that life she also achieved many significant triumphs.
She is also known as the 'Peacemaker of Jesus' for her many good
deeds. She was the only child born to Antonio and Amata Lotti
in a tiny hamlet near Cascia, Italy. St. Rita Miracles began the
day she was baptized when bees swarmed around her cradle. They
peacefully flew in and out of her mouth and all around her without
harming her or anyone in her family.
By the age of twelve she wished to enter a convent but her parents
felt she would be better protected if she married. They arranged
a marriage for her to Paelo Mancini, a town watchman. The marriage
was blessed with twin sons. Unfortunately, Paelo was an immoral,
quick tempered man and Rita suffered his abuse for eighteen years
before he was ambushed and stabbed to death. Their teenage sons
wished to seek revenge against their father's death. Through her
prayers and interventions her sons did not act upon their revenge.
Both sons died of illness within a year.
Left alone, St. Rita de Cascia sought the religious life but
the Augustinian nuns in the monastery of Saint Mary Magadalen
refused to let her enter the convent. Because some of their members
belonged to the rival family responsible for Paelo's murder, they
feared for the peace of the convent.
Most stories of St. Rita agree she was transported to the convent
by night through the intervention of her patron saints, St. John
the Baptist, St. Augustine of Hippo and St Nicholas of Tolentino.
When the nuns found her inside the convent walls the next morning
they accepted her.
Another story of Saint Rita is that she confronted those responsible
for her husband's death and implored them to turn to lives of
peace. It is said, in the end, the two rivaling families even
signed a document declaring their war against each other was over.
Rita of Cascia the widowed mother who suffered great physical
abuse at the hands of her husband and mental anguish at the revengeful
seekings of her sons, became Sister Rita at the age of thirty-six.
St. Rita lived forty years as a practicing nun of poverty and
doing works of mercy, charity and peace. When she entered the
convent she was given one habit. She wore that habit one habit
the remainder of her life and was buried in it.
One day, as Saint Rita was kneeling in prayer before a replica
of the Crucified Christ. She implored, "Oh my Jesus, let
me share in Thy suffering at least by one of Thy thorns."
A single thorn from the crown surrounding Jesus' head speared
directly into Sister Rita's forehead. This wound bled until the
end of her life.
The final four years of her life Saint Rita de Cascia was confined
to bed as an invalid totally dependant upon the charity of her
sisters. She ate little more than the Eucharist and she taught
the younger sisters. In her final days, she had one request, that
a cousin would bring to her a single rose from her family's estate.
It was the middle of January and the cousin thought this to be
impossible. But when the cousin went to Rita's former home she
found a single rose in blossom on an otherwise bare bush in the
family garden.
Saint Rita met her Divine Savior on May 22, 1457. She was Beatified
by Pope Urban VIII in 1627 and Canonized by Pope Leo IV on May
22, 1900.
Because of her many trials and sacrifices throughout her life
Rita the Saint is known as Rita Patron Saint of Impossible Causes
and desperate situations. She's often entreated by those suffering
the afflictions of abuse, sickness, desperate causes, difficult
marriages, widows and wounded people, also those suffering from
sterility and infertility.
There are many stories about her acts of charity and obedience.
One Saint Rita Story is that the Convent Mother, wishing to test
the obedience of Rita, instructed her to water a dead and withered
plant from the convent garden every day for a year. Sister Rita
obediently did as she was instructed, every day. At the end of
a year, to the great astonishment of her superiors, that dead
plant brought forth leaves and flowers and became the most beautiful
of all the grape vines in the garden. Today, 500 hundred years
later, that same vine remains bountiful and beautiful. Its leaves
are dried and powdered and sent all over the world to people who
are suffering. Many cures have been reported by the grape leaves.
Its fruit is sent to the Pope and to other Dignitaries.
The year 1450 was declared a jubilee year by Pope Nicholas V.
When St. Rita asked to accompany the other nuns to Rome so she
might gain the indulgences of the jubilee, her superiors told
her they would permit her to go when the wound on her head healed.
It is said, Saint Rita asked Jesus to heal the wound on her head
so she might go to Rome with her sisters. God heard her prayer.
Her forehead was healed and she was granted permission to accompany
her sisters to Rome. When she returned, the moment she set foot
in the chapel at Cascia the wound reappeared and remained until
her death.
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