St. Rita of Cascia
Remembered as Healer & PeacemakerHer life is a story of great love, terrible loss, profound forgiveness, and strong faith. Saint Rita of Cascia (1381-1457), born Margarita Lotti, is a beloved saint of the Church, who honors her bravery. Her feast day is May 22.
As a young girl she proclaimed she wanted to join the religious sisters of Cascia, but her parents had arranged her marriage and wouldn’t entertain religious life.
So, she married a noble warrior, helped him overcome personal challenges, and converted him to her faith.
The couple had two sons.
Because of a foolish feud, her husband was murdered. It was customary at the time to then seek revenge against the family that did the killing. However, St. Rita refused to revolt.
She forgave the killers for they did not have Christ in their hearts.
Soon after the death of her husband, both of St. Rita’s sons died to illness. She was alone.
The call to serve God as a religious sister grew stronger.
She went to the Augustinian convent. She had admired these sisters since she was a child. However, they turned her away, noting the family feud as the root cause.
She accomplished what seemed to be the impossible, convincing her husband’s family to end the feud and forgive the killers. She went so far as to have both families sign a peaceful agreement, ending any future animosity.
The Augustinian sisters at the St. Mary Magdalene Monastery heard of this and welcomed her into religious life. She was 36.
Rita was elated and prayerfully united with Jesus and His Passion. It is recorded that she had a profound spiritual experience and a thorn from Christ’s crown penetrated her forehead. The wound it caused remained open and visible until the day of her death.
Several months before her death, she was visited by a relative who asked if there was anything she could do for her. Saint Rita at first declined, but then made a simple request to have a rose from the garden of her family home brought to her.
It was January, the dead of winter in the hills of Umbria, but upon her return home the relative passed Rita’s family garden and found to her astonishment a single fresh rose in the snow-covered garden on an otherwise barren bush.
She immediately returned to the convent where she presented the miraculous rose to Rita who accepted it with quiet and grateful assurance.
Her body is incorrupt and is in a glass enclosed coffin at the Basilica of St. Rita in Cascia, Italy. She is one of the most beloved saints of the Church.
For more on the life of St. Rita visit the Monastery of Santa Rita Da Cascia at: https://www.saintritashrine.orgEditor’s note: the portrait of St. Rita is by Antonio Maria Nardi (1897-1973).
