2 Cor 2:15) through a consistently lived proclamation of the Gospel. That is, let it be a life sustained by passionate love for the Lord Jesus a life capable of responding to suffering and to thorns with forgiveness and the total gift of self, in order to spread everywhere the good odour of Christ (cf. It is to be hoped that the life of everyone devoted to her will be like the rose picked in the garden of Roccaporena the winter before the saint’s death. Rita’s last winter as a symbol for living life attuned to Christ: He also encouraged us to consider the rose of St. On the Cross with Jesus, she is crowned in a certain way with the love that she knew and heroically expressed within her home and by her participation in the events of her town.” The mark which shines on her forehead is the verification of her Christian maturity. “But what is the message that this saint passes on to us? It is a message that flows from her life: humility and obedience were the path that Rita took to be ever more perfectly conformed to the Crucified One. Rita of Cascia: to live humbly and conform our lives to Christ. Pope John Paul II called us to consider the message of St. On the centenary of her canonization, St. She was canonized in 1900 by Pope Leo XIII. Rita’s body remains incorrupt, venerated at the Basilica of Santa Rita da Cascia in Cascia, Italy. Some people have reported that the bees exit the walls during Holy Week and return to the monastery on St. Additionally, a colony of bees appeared in the cell walls monastery where she lived many decades after her death. While her stigmata wound smelled poorly during her life, it smelled sweet and pleasant after her death this is one of the miracles that led to her beatification in 1626 by Pope Urban VIII. Rita is often pictured with roses in art and churches around the world. Her cousin miraculously found one rose and two figs and returned to the convent. Rita asked her cousin to bring back two figs and a rose from her father’s garden despite it being the middle of winter in Italy. In the last winter of her life, one of Rita’s cousins came to visit her at the convent and inquired if Rita desired anything. Rita of Cascia was ill for the final four years of her life and died from tuberculosis in 1456. Other saints who have received the stigmata include St. The wound it caused remained open and visible until the day of her death. Rita was united with Jesus in a profound experience of spiritual intimacy, a thorn from his crown penetrating her forehead. In contemplation before an image of Jesus that was very dear to her, the Jesus of Holy Saturday or, as it is also known, the Resurgent Christ, she was moved by a deeper awareness of the physical and spiritual burden of pain which Christ so freely and willingly embraced for love of her and of all humanity. Rita of Cascia received the stigmata (a bodily wound resembling a wound of Christ). Some legends hold that “she was transported into the monastery of Saint Magdalene through levitation at night by the three patron saints she appealed to” ( ).ĭuring Holy Week in 1442, St. Augustine of Hippo, and Nicholas of Tolentino. Rita eventually entered the Augustinian convent after appealing to St. For this reason, she is the patron saint of difficult marriages. Her sons then passed at a young age, and she again desired to enter the Augustinian convent of St. Together they had twin sons, and 18 years after they were married, her husband was murdered. In her youth, Rita desired to enter the convent, though she was forced into an arranged marriage with a “violent and ill-tempered” man at the age of 12 ( Catholic News Agency). Her family saw this occasion as a sign of blessing and devotion to God. The day after Rita was baptized, honeybees swarmed her, flying in and out of her mouth without harm. Rita experienced a miracle just a few days after her birth. Rita of Cascia to be called both a saint of the impossible and the “disciple of the Crucified One.”īorn Margherita (Rita) Lotti in Roccaporena, Italy, St. Rita Prayer for Impossible Cases and Special Needs Rita is often pictured among roses and bees for the miraculous events of her life. Rita on May 22, though people turn to this saint throughout the year with the Novena to St. Rita well interpreted the “feminine genius” by living it intensely in both physical and spiritual motherhood. Rita for her intercession in times of desperation, heartbreak, and disease. Rita of Cascia (1381-1457) is a patron saint of the impossible, difficult, and hopeless causes, distinctly in the realm of marriage, abuse, fertility, parenthood, and disease.
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