Rita’s only recourse was to prayer and persuasion. The pain which this unexpected and violent death inflicted upon Rita was only compounded by the fear she felt that her two teenage sons, moved by the unwritten law of the “vendetta,” would seek to avenge their father’s death. One day as Paolo was returning home from work he was ambushed and killed. By her prayer, patience, and affection, however, Rita was able to ease the stress and worry her husband experienced, but she was not able to shield him altogether from the dangers to which society exposed him. As a minor official of the town, Paolo often found himself drawn into the conflict, and the strain that this caused probably accounts for the tension, which he sometimes brought into the Mancini household. In Cascia, as elsewhere, a great rivalry existed between two popular political factions, the Guelphs, and the Ghibellines. ![]() Rita found herself occupied with the typical concerns of a wife, mother, and homemaker of Roccaporena, while Paolo was employed as a watchman for the town. The young couple was joined in marriage and soon twin boys were born to them. Rita accepted her parents’ decision, resolved to see this as God’s will for her. Her parents, however, had promised her in marriage, according to the custom of the day, to Paolo Mancini, a good man of strong and impetuous character. As a young girl Rita frequently visited the convent of the Augustinian Nuns in Cascia and dreamed of one day joining their community. Her parents, Antonio and Amata Lotti, considered her birth a very special gift from God, for Rita was born to them as they were already advancing in age. Few of those choices were made in ideal circumstances-not even when Rita became an Augustinian nun.Rita was born in the year 1381 in the village of Roccaporena, near Cascia, Italy. Her overarching, lifelong choice was to cooperate generously with God’s grace, but many small choices were needed to make that happen. Rita became holy because she made choices that reflected her baptism and her growth as a disciple of Jesus. An “If only ….” approach to holiness never quite gets underway, never produces the fruit that God has a right to expect. Many people visit her tomb each year.Īlthough we can easily imagine an ideal world in which to live out our baptismal vocation, such a world does not exist. She has acquired the reputation, together with Saint Jude, as a saint of impossible cases. She also counseled lay people who came to her monastery.īeatified in 1626, Rita was not canonized until 1900. Her care for the sick nuns was especially loving. She meditated frequently on Christ’s passion. When she developed wounds on her forehead, people quickly associated them with the wounds from Christ’s crown of thorns. Over the years, her austerity, prayerfulness, and charity became legendary. Unsuccessful at first because she was a widow, Rita eventually succeeded. ![]() After her husband was killed in a brawl and her sons had died, Rita tried to join the Augustinian nuns in Cascia. During her 18-year marriage, she bore and raised two sons. Her holiness was reflected in each phase of her life.īorn at Roccaporena in central Italy, Rita wanted to become a nun but was pressured at a young age into marrying a harsh and cruel man. Like Elizabeth Ann Seton, Rita of Cascia was a wife, mother, widow, and member of a religious community. Image: The Translation of Saint Rita of Cascia | Nicolas Poussin
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