One of those who visited her some few months before her death - a relative from her hometown of Roccaporena - was privileged to witness firsthand the extraordinary things wrought by Rita’s requests. She was, nevertheless, an inspiration to her sisters in religion and to all who came to visit her, by her patience and joyful disposition despite her great suffering. During the last four years of her life Rita was confined to bed and was able to eat so little that she was practically sustained on the Eucharist alone. In spite of the pain she constantly experienced, she offered herself courageously for the physical and spiritual well being of others. For the next fifteen years she bore this external sign of stigmatization and union with the Lord. Suddenly a small wound appeared on her forehead, as though a thorn from the crown that encircled Christ’s head had loosed itself and penetrated her own flesh. One day when she was about sixty years of age, she was meditating before an image of Christ crucified, as she was long accustomed to doing. With a pure love she wanted more and more to be intimately joined to the redemptive suffering of Jesus, and this desire of hers was satisfied in an extraordinary way. For the next forty years she gave herself wholeheartedly to prayer and works of charity, striving especially to preserve peace and harmony among the citizens of Cascia. The Gift Of The ThornĪt the age of thirty-six Rita pledged to follow the ancient Rule of Saint Augustine. She implored her three patron saints - John the Baptist, Augustine, and Nicholas of Tolentino to assist her, and she set about the task of establishing peace between the hostile parties of Cascia with such success that her entry into the monastery was assured. Fortunately, she was not to be easily dissuaded from following what she knew to be God’s plan for her. Some of the religious of the community, however, were relatives of the members of the political faction considered responsible for Paolo’s death, and so as not to tempt the harmony of the convent, Rita’s request for admission was denied. Now alone in the world and without family responsibilities, Rita once more turned her thoughts to the desired vocation of her youth, that of joining the Augustinian Nuns of Saint Mary Magdalene Monastery.
#St rita patron saint free#
Despite her great burden she could still thank God that they had died in peace, free of the poison of murder to which hatred and revenge might have otherwise drawn them. As it happened, the death of both boys from natural causes a short time later removed them from physical and spiritual danger. 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. Rita was born in the year 1381 in the village of Roccaporena, near Cascia, Italy.
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