Saint of the Impossible

RENOWNED as the “saint of impossible cases” because of the miracles and incredible graces obtainable through her intercession, Rita of Cascia is one of the most popular saints of our times. With her canonisation in 1900, interest and devotion to the Precious Pearl of Umbria spread rapidly not only in her native Italy, but throughout many nations.

Her shrine

“As a saint, she is universally loved simply because she has experienced the same sufferings many people experience,” says Father Pierluigi Sodani, the Vice-prior of the Shrine of Saint Rita of Cascia, the city near Perugia, where the saint lived and died. “She has been a fiancée, a wife, a mother, a widow, a nun and lived through both good and bad moments while she was in all these stages of life. Anyone who approaches her with any type of problem is sure of finding sympathy and help, precisely because of the pain and suffering she went through.”
The city of Cascia, with the great Basilica and the Monastery where the saint resided for forty years, really revolves around her. Only a few kilometres away, we find the tiny hamlet of Roccaporena, where Rita was born and where one can still see her parents’ house and places like the church in which she married Paolo, their home, the leper hospital where the saint worked tirelessly to alleviate the sufferings of the sick and, finally, the garden in which, during the cold winter of 1457, the miracle of the rose took place.
Pilgrims and devotees arrive every day. “The influx of tourists and pilgrims is especially numerous in this month, on the occasion of the liturgical feast of Saint Rita, which is celebrated on 22 May,” continues Father Pierluigi. “On this occasion the whole city is swamped with manifestations such as the novena, the solemn triduum, and the procession bearing the ancient coat-of-arms”.
She has been the subject of important biographies and of significant historical studies.
Her life, with its share of pain, suffering and daily worries, is a lot like that of many women of today, who have to face troublesome marriage lives, separations, and have to raise children while working in order to make ends meet. The world is full of such quiet, unassuming women who are able to bear all this in silence only through their faith in God – just like Rita.
“Those who approach the life of saint Rita and gain a window into her soul usually acquire a life long fascination for her” adds father Perluigi Soldani. “That heart of hers was full of an extraordinary humanity. Biographers usually remain dazzled by the sensational and dramatic events of her life – they are like the episodes of a crime story. Few examine the depth of her heart, for she faced those events with great spiritual forbearance.”

Early years

There is a lack of documents on Rita, and this makes writing a biography on this woman rather difficult. It was only many years after her death, when the miracles obtained through her intercession began to multiply, that people started collecting information. By that time, however, most of the people who had known her personally had already passed away, and historians could only draw from the memories of the elderly.
Some biographers reckon her birth in 1371, others about 10 years later. It is certain, however, that she was born in Roccaporena, that her Christian name was Margherita, and that she was baptised in the church of Santa Maria della Plebe. She was the only child of Antonio and Amata Lotti, both late in life, who owned houses and farm lands. Antonio and Amata were pious, devoted and greatly respected in Roccaporena because of their role as peacemakers, an important task in those days. It was entrusted to those who had given proof of wisdom, equanimity and political impartiality.
Childhood was the only really happy period in Rita’s life. Her dreams and tranquillity, however, ended when she was about 15. She increasingly felt the call to embrace the religious life. One day she revealed this aspiration to her mother, only to find that her parents had quite other plans for her. They were very old and were afraid of dying while their daughter was still unable to look after herself. As was customary in those times, her parents had arranged an advantageous marriage, and when she declared that she wanted to become a nun, she was told she had already been betrothed.
Rita, who was very attractive, slim and well-off, would have brought in a large dowry. It wasn’t hard for her parents to find an appropriate person for her. They were already in contact with Paolo Mancini, a well-known young man, who belonged to an illustrious family of Cascia.

Marriage in obedience

Paolo was wealthy, handsome and with good prospects for the future. He held an important post, being the military commander of a garrison at Collegiacone, near Roccaporena. The deal had already been struck by the two families. Paolo Mancini already knew her future bride and felt proud of her, for she was the most beautiful girl in the area. Rita, on the other hand, had been left completely in the dark about all this because of her young age. She accepted this without any misgivings or complaints. She had been taught always to obey the will of her parents, because that will was the will of God. The engagement ceremony was held and the following year she was married.
Rita therefore got married when she was still a girl. The marriage, however, brought her happiness and two male twins: Gian Giacomo and Paolo Maria. She never experienced her marriage as an imposition but lived through it with enthusiasm, because she regarded that man as given to her by God and their wedding as blessed by a holy sacrament. Besides, Paolo Mancini was a charming and handsome man. True, he was difficult to live with. He was complicated, violent and revengeful. He was prone to outbursts of anger and jealousy. His was the peculiar charm of mysterious, bold and passionate natures, the type of man that made women swoon.
Rita fell deeply in love with him. She was able to see through those violent outbursts and excesses, and discern his underlying generosity and nobility of heart. Her first years of marriage were laden with sufferings, and on some occasions he may even have laid hands on her. However, Paolo loved her and always repented these deeds. Rita understood all this and bore it all with meekness, thus giving her husband a luminous example of devotion and love.

Loss of husband and sons

Rita, through her gentleness, forbearance and wisdom, had emerged victorious. She had changed her husband and given him sound values and a new spiritual outlook. She had taught him always to think before acting, and to cultivate peace and justice. Her influence had got to the point that he, a soldier and captain of a military garrison, would go about his business unarmed when not on duty. Unfortunately, during his military career, Paolo had antagonised many people. One evening, while on his way home unarmed, as was usual for him now, he was ambushed by three of his enemies and stabbed to death. Rita was quickly given news of the mishap and immediately ran with her children to the scene of the crime, only to find her husband dead in a pool of blood.
A new and difficult period now began for Rita. She was overwhelmed with grief and her deep faith in God began to fail her. She knew the assassins. They were living unpunished in her own village. Every time she saw them, her blood would flame with rage, but she managed to overcome the violence of her passions and to forgive in the name of that Jesus who had Himself forgiven His executioners.
The problem was not in her soul, but that she was living in a place and in a time in which vengeance was a moral duty. It had to be enacted. Forgiveness was seen as a dishonourable act. Her husband’s parents and her relatives were all therefore crying out for vengeance, and this act was to be carried out by the children of the person killed.
Gian Giacomo and Paolo Maria were still very young, and yet they were already feeling rage and the obligation of having to avenge their father. While at dinner, they would often give vent to words of hatred, words which echoed those of their relatives. Those words were deeply troubling for Rita. Her efforts were aimed at convincing her children to forgive, but they resisted her exhortations.
Rita therefore began to turn to God in order to secure the spiritual protection of her dear children. “Rather than seeing them stained with the blood of vengeance, take them, o Lord, into your kingdom while they are still innocent,” was her constant prayer in that period. Strangely, it seems that God actually fulfilled her desire, for her two children quickly became ill and died.
This was another shattering blow for Rita, made worse by the thought that her prayers had been the cause of their untimely deaths. Dark days lay ahead, where desperation almost overwhelmed her, but she was able to remain steadfast in prayer and in faith.

Contemplative life

In the following years Rita lived alone. She spent most of her time in prayer and in helping the sick and the poor. She again began to cherish the idea of becoming a nun and dedicate her whole life to God. She applied to the Augustinian nuns of Saint Mary Magdalene Monastery at Cascia, but her request for admission was turned down. They did not want to get involved with the widow of a murdered soldier. Rita then sought admittance into another religious order, but she was again rejected. She knocked at the door of Saint Mary Magdalene Monastery for a second time, but to no avail. The Mother Superior of that convent made clear to her that there would never be a place for her there, because some of the religious in the monastery were relatives of the political faction considered responsible for the death of Rita’s husband, and she did not want to tempt the harmony of the community.
Fortunately, Rita was not to be easily dissuaded from following what she knew to be God’s plan for her. She approached Paolo’s family and that of their rivals, and persuaded them to put an end to the reciprocal hostility and live in peace. She then turned to her three patron saints, John the Baptist, Saint Augustine of Hippo and Saint Nicholas of Tolentino, with whom she had daily conversations, and sought their assistance.
“I have to convince the nuns to take me in,” she said to them. This was followed by daily exercises of prayer and penance aimed at becoming worthy of their grace …and, eventually, her heavenly friends themselves took her into the Monastery.
According to a popular legend, one night, while praying fervently, Saint John the Baptist appeared to her, and kindly invited her to climb up to the peak of the Scoglio, a mountainous cliff overlooking Roccaporena. Having reached the top of the mountain, she encountered Saint Augustine and Saint Nicholas of Tolentino, who addressed her with words of comfort. The three saints then lifted her up in mid-air, and levitated her all the way over to and inside Saint Mary Magdalene Monastery at Cascia. Faced by what was undeniably a miracle, the nuns finally gave way and accepted her into the Monastery.

The wounding thorn

Rita entered the Augustinian monastery at the age of thirty-six. She was unwanted and therefore treated as of no consequence and importance. This, however, did not disturb her. She had no ambitions and kept to herself. Her heart and soul were dedicated to the humblest tasks.
Her role model was, above all, the crucified Jesus. She had endured so much suffering that she felt a mystical affinity with Him.
Whenever she used to meditate on the incomprehensible fact that Jesus, the son of God, had accepted Death on the Cross out of pure love for humanity, she would be so overwhelmed as to be unable to hold back her tears. The Passion and Death of Jesus was the daily bread of her meditations, and she often asked the Lord for the grace of experiencing a fraction of His suffering in order to participate in His love…and this wish was eventually to be fulfilled.
One day, when she was about sixty, she was meditating before an image of Christ crucified as she was long accustomed to doing. Suddenly, a ray of light from the crown of thorns that encircled Christ’s head pierced Rita on her forehead, on the left side just above her eye, leaving a bleeding wound. Rita was in ecstasy. On the following morning, the sisters knocked at her door as they had not seen her in the choir. There was no answer. They entered and found her still kneeling in a trance in front of the image of Christ. When she came out of the trance, she recounted what had happened, and the sisters did indeed notice a deep wound above her left eye.

The rose legend

The wound kept bleeding and became a source of great pain. All attempts at healing the wound failed. In fact, after some time, the wound became infected and began to emanate a revolting smell. Rita was forced to abide in a segregated corner of the convent for fifteen years, until the day of her death. For the last four years of her life, Rita was confined to bed. The last of the many crosses she was presented with in life was now the humbling condition of being an invalid, totally dependent upon the charity of her sisters.
Every once in a while, a relative to whom Rita had decided to bequeath her house at Roccaporena would come to visit her. One day, when Rita was nearing the end of her mortal life, that woman asked her if she wished for anything from Roccaporena. She replied with a faint voice “Yes, my dear, please bring me a rose from my garden so that I may savour once again its sublime perfume, and please also bring me two nice, ripe figs, because I desire to taste them once again for the last time.” The woman nodded, but felt sure that Rita was raving because they were in the middle of winter, when it was impossible to find roses, let alone figs.
To her enormous surprise, once she had arrived in Roccaporena and had entered Rita’s garden, she found a beautiful red rose amidst the snow covered branches of a rosebush, and she also saw, on a leafless fig tree, two magnificent ripe figs. Wonder-struck, she plucked the rose and the two figs and brought them to Rita, who was delighted by those two extraordinary gifts from the Lord.
She died on the night of 22 May. The year seems to have been 1447. In the last moments of her life, she saw Jesus and the Virgin Mary, who invited her into Their kingdom.
The body was exhibited in church, and many people flocked to venerate it. That body, which for years and years had been humiliated by a nauseating smell, now gave off a heavenly perfume. Everyone felt the ecstasy of this perfume. Some of those who approached her body experienced prodigious healings. The story of saint Rita, the great miracle worker and saint of the impossible, begins with this sublime perfume and the prodigious healings. A story which continues to this day.