May 22: Saint Rita of Cascia
Woman of Dialogue and Peace
Wife, mother, widow, nun. It was the arduous human journey that led Rita to become a Saint. She is among the most well-known women in the world, certainly among the most loved and invoked in the ecclesial community after the Virgin Mary. An example of unshakable faith in God, passionate love, so much so that for 15 years she shared with Christ the wound of a thorn driven into her forehead.
Her name was Margherita Lotti, daughter of Antonio and Amata Ferri Lotti. She was born in 1381, in Roccaporena di Cascia in central Italy. Her family was wealthy and her parents had been appointed by the Municipality to act as peacemakers - arbiters for the resolution of conflicts between feuding family clans and to avoid murderous retaliations.
She was baptized in the Augustinian church of Saint Johh the Baptist and was instructed by the Augustinians in the faith and a particular devotion to Saint Augustine, John the Baptist and Saint Nicholas of Tolentino.
At the age of 16, she married Paolo di Ferdinando Mancini (or di Mancino), a young member of the Ghibelline faction. Over time, she managed to orient her husband's life away from conflict and towards God. Then, around 1406, during an episode of transversal revenge, he fell victim to a fatal ambush. Margherita had time to see him die and to hide his blood stained shirt so that her two sons - Giangiacomo and Paolo Maria - would not see it and take further revenge.
For her part, Margherita forgave her husband's assassins, disagreeing with the Mancinis - her husband’s family. Unfortunately, her brothers-in-law had decided to punish his killing and she feared that her sons would be involved in the revenge killings. She wasted no time and immediately began to pray so that the Lord would prevent her two sons from doing so. Shortly after, the two boys died of illness.
Left alone, her life changed radically. She devoted herself to prayer and sacramental life. Slowly, the desire to live only for the Lord matured in her.
She therefore decided to enter the Augustinian Order at the monastery of Saint Mary Magdalene. She was about 36 years old, but soon realized her dream was not easy. Her request for entrance was rejected three times, perhaps because the nuns feared being involved in the local family feuds. Margherita was not discouraged. She intensified her prayer and turned to her three protector saints Augustine, John the Baptist, and Nicholas of Tolentino. The turning point came when the Mancini family publicly reconciled with their enemies. It was around 1407.
For Margherita, a new life began in the monastery of Saint Mary Magdalene where her name was changed to Rita; she received the religious habit and the Rule of Saint Augustine. For forty years she remained there, dedicating herself to contemplation, prayer, penance, and charity towards her sister nuns.
It is said that during her novitiate, the Abbess - to test her obedience - ordered her to plant and water a piece of wood that was now dry. Rita did not hesitate to do what she was asked and to everyone’s amazement, a vine sprouted from that lifeless branch.
For the love of Christ, she prayed to participate more closely in his Passion. One day in 1432, while she was immersed in prayer before the Crucifix, a wound as from a thorn appeared on her forehead not to ever leave her again. Only during the one trip she made to Rome for the canonization of Nicholas of Tolentino, the wound on her forehead disappeared before her departure but was renewed upon her return to Cascia.
In January 1457, now seriously ill, she spent most of her time in her cell, where she continued to pray for her children and husband. Tradition has it that one day she asked a visiting relative bring her a rose and two figs from her garden in Roccaporena. Despite the bizarre request as it was the middle of winter and the frost could not have allowed anything to bloom, the relative went to the garden and found the two figs and the rose and brought them to her. Rita immediately understood that the Lord had answered her prayers and saved her loved ones.
Physically exhausted, Rita died on the night between May 21 and 22, 1457. It is said that the monastery bells immediately began to ring without anyone activating them, calling people to pay homage to the nun who had prayed so much for her land and its people.
Already in the year of her death, the municipal authorities documented the miracles attributed to Rita in the Codex miraculorum, such as the case of a blind man who unexplainably regained his sight. The faithful invoked her against the plague because in life she had assisted plague victims and had not been infected. Thus became Rita’s fame as the Saint of impossible causes.
Her beatification process began on October 19, 1626, under the pontificate of Pope Urban VIII who had been Bishop of Spoleto from 1608 to 1617. On October 2, 1627, Pope Urban VIII granted the diocese of Spoleto and the Augustinian Order the faculty to celebrate Mass in honor of Blessed Rita. However, it was not until her canonization on May 24, 1900 that Pope Leo XIII proclaimed her a Saint.