Saint Rita with Crown of Thorns Concrete Religious Statues Near Me; Name: Saint Rita of Cascia
Title: Widow and religious
Birth: 1381, Roccaporena
Death: May 22, 1457, Cascia
Recurrence: May 22
Typology: Commemoration
Protector of: desperate and apparently impossible cases, unhappily married women, silk-screen printers
Rita was born in Rocca Porena, a small village near Cascia in Umbria, in 1381.
Under the vigilant care of her parents, the child grew up judicious and pious, like a hothouse flower, with a particular tendency towards solitude and prayer.
It was its alive desire to consecrate to God its virginity, but the parents wanted that it married. The husband was gruff and angry, but Rita, armed with patience, was able to endure everything, reciprocating good for evil, without that in eighteen years of marriage the harmony was broken in that house.
Bad men slaughtered her husband. She, instead of thinking about revenge, prayed to God for those unfortunate people, but she tried to instill in her two sons the heroism of Christian forgiveness. Noticing that they were growing more and more eager for revenge, she prayed to the Lord to take them to heaven before they had time to stain themselves with blood. God answered her.
Free from all family cares, she prayed to be accepted in the Augustinian convent. Twice she received an abrupt refusal, until the Lord wanted to satisfy her desire with a miracle.
While she was praying in the middle of the night, St. John the Baptist, St. Augustine and St. Nicholas of Tolentino appeared to her and spoke words of comfort to her, invited her to follow them and miraculously brought her into the monastery. Those virgins, admired and moved, did not hesitate anymore to receive her as their sister.
It did not take long for the good widow to become the mirror of all virtue. She obeyed with the simplicity of a young girl. One day the Superior ordered her to water a dry wood and she did not hesitate for a moment to do so.
Rita was in love with the Crucifix. The passion of Jesus was her favorite meditation and she was so inflamed by it that she shed abundant tears.
One day, while she was praying with more intense fervor and begging her beloved Jesus to associate her with his passion, a ray of light started from the Crucifix, reflected on Rita's head, then a thorn detached itself from Jesus' adorable head and came to pierce her forehead; It produced a deep wound followed by an irremediable sore, which remained until her death; a sore that besides acute pain exhaled a great stench, for which she loved to remain solitary and converse with God so as not to annoy her sisters.
Jesus really made her suffer in imitation of him. Her last illness lasted four years: years of acute and slow martyrdom, which provided the measure of her heroic patience and insatiable longing to suffer. Jesus, with a miracle, showed how much his suffering was dear to him.
It was a very harsh winter; frost and snow were abundant. Rita begged a woman from Rocca Porena to go to her old garden and bring her all that was ripe and in bloom. She thought she was joking, but as she passed by, she saw two fresh figs and a beautiful, fragrant rose, a gift from her Jesus.
Near to die, she heard Jesus and his holy Mother inviting her to the heavenly abode, to which she flew on May 22, 1439.
The faithful call her the """"Saint of the impossible"""".
Title: Widow and religious
Birth: 1381, Roccaporena
Death: May 22, 1457, Cascia
Recurrence: May 22
Typology: Commemoration
Protector of: desperate and apparently impossible cases, unhappily married women, silk-screen printers
Rita was born in Rocca Porena, a small village near Cascia in Umbria, in 1381.
Under the vigilant care of her parents, the child grew up judicious and pious, like a hothouse flower, with a particular tendency towards solitude and prayer.
It was its alive desire to consecrate to God its virginity, but the parents wanted that it married. The husband was gruff and angry, but Rita, armed with patience, was able to endure everything, reciprocating good for evil, without that in eighteen years of marriage the harmony was broken in that house.
Bad men slaughtered her husband. She, instead of thinking about revenge, prayed to God for those unfortunate people, but she tried to instill in her two sons the heroism of Christian forgiveness. Noticing that they were growing more and more eager for revenge, she prayed to the Lord to take them to heaven before they had time to stain themselves with blood. God answered her.
Free from all family cares, she prayed to be accepted in the Augustinian convent. Twice she received an abrupt refusal, until the Lord wanted to satisfy her desire with a miracle.
While she was praying in the middle of the night, St. John the Baptist, St. Augustine and St. Nicholas of Tolentino appeared to her and spoke words of comfort to her, invited her to follow them and miraculously brought her into the monastery. Those virgins, admired and moved, did not hesitate anymore to receive her as their sister.
It did not take long for the good widow to become the mirror of all virtue. She obeyed with the simplicity of a young girl. One day the Superior ordered her to water a dry wood and she did not hesitate for a moment to do so.
Rita was in love with the Crucifix. The passion of Jesus was her favorite meditation and she was so inflamed by it that she shed abundant tears.
One day, while she was praying with more intense fervor and begging her beloved Jesus to associate her with his passion, a ray of light started from the Crucifix, reflected on Rita's head, then a thorn detached itself from Jesus' adorable head and came to pierce her forehead; It produced a deep wound followed by an irremediable sore, which remained until her death; a sore that besides acute pain exhaled a great stench, for which she loved to remain solitary and converse with God so as not to annoy her sisters.
Jesus really made her suffer in imitation of him. Her last illness lasted four years: years of acute and slow martyrdom, which provided the measure of her heroic patience and insatiable longing to suffer. Jesus, with a miracle, showed how much his suffering was dear to him.
It was a very harsh winter; frost and snow were abundant. Rita begged a woman from Rocca Porena to go to her old garden and bring her all that was ripe and in bloom. She thought she was joking, but as she passed by, she saw two fresh figs and a beautiful, fragrant rose, a gift from her Jesus.
Near to die, she heard Jesus and his holy Mother inviting her to the heavenly abode, to which she flew on May 22, 1439.
The faithful call her the """"Saint of the impossible"""".
