MEMORIAL OF SAINT RITA OF CASCIA, RELIGIOUS ~ MAY 22ND: Today, we celebrate the Memorial of Saint Rita of Cascia, Religious. Through the intercession of our Blessed Mother Mary, Saint Rita of Cascia and all the Saints on this feast day, we humbly pray for peace, love and unity in our families and our world. We pray for all parents and all marriages, especially pray for those marriages going through challenges and spouses who are abused in their marriages, we pray for peace, love and harmony and God’s divine intervention.🙏🏽
SAINT RITA OF CASCIA, RELIGIOUS: St. Rita of Cascia (1381-1457) an Italian widow and Augustinian nun venerated as a saint is referred to as, “a disciple of the Crucified One” and an “expert in suffering” by late Pope John Paul II. She is known in Spain as “La Santa de los impossibiles” (the saint of the impossible), St. Rita has become immensely popular throughout the centuries. She is invoked by people in all situations and stations of life, since she had embraced suffering with charity and wrongs with forgiveness in the many trials she experienced in her life: as a wife, widow, a mother surviving the death of her children, and a nun.
St. Rita of Cascia was born Margherita Lotti in 1381 at Spoleto, Italy during an era of violent strife between cities and warring family tribes. As a child she repeatedly requested to enter the convent, but instead her parents arranged her marriage to a rich, ill-tempered, and violent man. He became physically abusive, in anger he often mistreated his wife, yet she met his cruelty with kindness and patience. He taught their children his own evil ways. St. Rita tried to perform her duties faithfully and to pray and receive the Sacrament frequently. During her eighteen years of marriage she bore two sons whom she loved deeply. After many years of persistent prayer she eventually won her husband over to greater civility and kindness. After nearly twenty years of marriage, St. Rita’s husband was stabbed by an enemy but before he died he repented because St. Rita prayed for him. When he was murdered, her sons plotted a bloody vendetta against the culprits. St. Rita labored to guide her children into forgiveness, without success. She earnestly prayed that God would change her sons’ murderous intentions, or allow them to die rather than commit a mortal sin. God heard St. Rita’s prayers, and soon both of her sons became ill and died and St. Rita was alone in the world. Prayer, fasting, penances of many kinds, and good works filled her days. St. Rita was then free to join the convent, however, she was rejected due to her family’s connection with the local violence. She finally obtained entry only after much prayer, humility, patience, and perseverance. She asked the intercession of Sts. Augustine, Mary Magadalene and John the Baptist. St. Rita joined an Augustinian community of religious sisters at Cascia in Umbria, where she lived the last 40 years of her life and was known both for practicing mortification of the flesh and for the efficacy of her prayers and service to the people of Cascia. St. Rita’s life in the convent was marked by heroic charity and penance as she closely united herself and her life of deep suffering to Christ. In a life-long and terrible malady her patience, cheerfulness, and union by prayer with almighty God, never failed her. Sister Rita had a great devotion to the Passion of Christ. “Please let me suffer like You, Divine Savior, “ she said one day while praying before the Crucifix and suddenly one of the thorns from the crucifix struck her on the forehead. She mystically received the mark of a thorn on her forehead (stigmata) from Jesus’ Crown of Thorns. It left a deep wound that did not heal and that caused her much suffering for the rest of her life. In the last 15 years of her life, the stigmata-like thorn wound that she received in answer to her prayers made her more profoundly conformed to the passion of the Lord Jesus. St. Rita was bedridden for the last four years of her life, consuming almost nothing except for the Eucharist.
St. Rita died of tuberculosis at the age of 70 on May 22, 1457. St. Rita was canonized by Pope Leo XIII on 24 May 1900. Her feast day is celebrated on May 22nd. At her canonization ceremony, she was bestowed the title of Patroness of “Impossible Causes” and hopeless circumstances because of her difficult and disappointing life. Through her trials God used her in remarkable ways. In many Catholic countries, St. Rita came to be known as the patroness of abused wives and heartbroken women. Her incorrupt body remains in the Basilica of Santa Rita da Cascia. Various miracles are attributed to her intercession, and she is often portrayed with a bleeding wound on her forehead, which is understood to indicate the partial stigmata. She’s the Patron Saint of Lost, impossible causes and hopeless circumstances, sickness, wounds, sterility, abuse victims, loneliness, marital problems, abuse, widows, mothers, difficult marriages, parenthood, the sick, bodily ills and wounds.
On the 100th anniversary of her canonization in 2000, Pope John Paul II noted her remarkable qualities as a Christian woman: “Rita interpreted well the ‘feminine genius’ by living it intensely in both physical and spiritual motherhood.”
PRAYER: Father in heaven, You granted to St. Rita a share in the Passion of Your Son. Give us courage and strength in time of trial, so that by our patient endurance we may enter more deeply into the Paschal Mystery of Your Son. Amen🙏🏽