St. Rita of Cascia (May 22nd)

Of the various saints and feast days celebrated this week:

May 18th -- FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER - C

May 20th -- Saint Bernardine of Siena, Priest

May 21st -- Saint Christopher Magallanes, Priest, and Companions, Martyrs

May 22nd -- Saint Rita of Cascia, Religious

May 25th – SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER - C


In a nod to our new pope Leo XIV, I’ve chosen to write about Augustinian saint, St. Rita of Cascia.  


Though a popular saint for many years, indeed many centuries … whe was only canonized by Pope Leo XIII in 1900, and has been both on and then off and then on again the general Calendar of the century plus ever since.


Why?  Well she makes for an interesting if at times troublesome saint!


The future St. Rita was born as Margherita “Rita” Lotti in 1381 in the village of Roccaporena, a small hamlet near Cascia in the Italian province of Umbria, then one of the papal states.


She was married off to a rich but ill-tempered nobleman Paolo di Ferdinando di Mancino who made many enemies throughout the region, and took-out his frustrations on his wife and family.


So the future St. Rita became well known in the region for being a compassionate wife of a very difficult and at times inventively problematic husband.


Among the difficulties that the future St. Rita’s husband bestowed on the family was that he got himself involved in a feud with another hot-tempered family, the Chiquis, of the region.  That feud eventually cost Rita’s husband his life.


After her husband’s death, where she publicly forgave her husband’s assassins, and sought to focus on the raising her two sons.  


However, the sons, taking after their father, wished to avenge his death.  So the future St. Rita prayed to God that he save them from imminent mortal sin, and …  by pious tradition God answered her prayers in a creative if rather ignominious way … both came down with dysentery and both died shortly afterwards, but more to the point _before_ they could exact their vengeance on their father’s assassins.


Cleared thus of any further familial responsibility, St. Rita sought to take the opportunity to enter into the convent.  


HOWEVER, the (augustinian) nuns, afraid of her past association with her ill-tempered husband (and the enemies that he accumulated), tried to turn her down.  Finally, they told her that they would accept her into the convent, but ONLY if she would make peace with between her husband’s family and the family that had killed him.


So the future St. Rita prayed once more … and by pious tradition God answered her prayers again … by sending down a plague on the region that killed so many members of both rival families that when it was over … no one wanted to continue their blood feud anymore.


St. Rita thus became a fascinating saint, who on one level seemed to be simply a “quiet humble woman” and in “today-speak” repeated victim.  Yet she appeared to be one who God listened to defended, bringing low all sorts of arrogant people all around her, often in creative ways.


She’s like the sweet little grandma figure who loved her family, prayed for everybody, but NOBODY wanted to mess with because … God listened to her.


She becomes an interesting exemplar of the Beatitude: Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the land (Mt 5:5)


St. Rita, pray for us and protect us! 


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