Saint Rita of Cascia 15th Century was an Italian Widow and Augustinian Nun
Saint Rita of Cascia was born in 1381. She died May 22, 1457. She was an Italian widow and an Augustinian nun. After Rita’s husband died, she joined a small community of nuns, who later became Augustinians, where she was noted both for practicing corporal mortification and for the efficacy of her prayers. Various miracles are attributed to her intercession, and she is often portrayed with a bleeding wound on her forehead. That is potentially the Stigmata. Do you know what the Stigmata was?
Saint Rita of Cascia Biography
Saint Rita of Cascia’s real name, Margherita, means “pearl.” She was affectionately called Rita, the short form of her baptismal name. Saint Rita of Cascia was married at age twelve to a nobleman named Paolo di Ferdinando di Mancino. It was the custom back then to marry early, and not uncommon for those people to later become saints. Her marriage was arranged by her parents, also a common practice at the time.
The marriage of Saint Rita of Cascia lasted for eighteen years, during which she lived her Christian values as a model wife and mother who made efforts to convert her husband from his abusive behavior. Rita endured his insults, physical abuse, and infidelities for many years. According to popular tales, through humility, kindness, and patience, Rita was able to convert her husband. Rita eventually had two sons, Giangiacomo Antonio and Paulo Maria.
An important part of Saint Rita of Cascia’s life is a family fued that was going on at the time. The feud was between the Chiqui and Mancini families. It became intense. Paolo Mancini became somewhat nicer, but his allies betrayed him, and he was stabbed to death by Guido Chiqui, a member of the feuding family. Rita gave a public pardon at Paolo’s funeral to her husband’s murderers.
As her sons grew, their characters began to change and they wished to avenge their father’s murder. Saint Rita of Cascia, fearing that her sons would lose their souls, tried to dissuade them from retaliating, unsuccessfully. She asked God to remove her sons from the cycle of vendettas and prevent mortal sin and murder. Her sons died of dysentery a year later.
After her husband and sons died, Saint Rita of Cascia entered the seminary, with some difficulty due to the fueds. Catholic legends later recount that she was transported into the monastery of Saint Magdalene via levitation at night. During the forty years of monastic life, Rita not only dedicated herself to prayer, penance and fasting in the monastery, but she often went out to serve the poor and sick of Cascia. She stayed at the monastery, living by the Augustinian Rule, until her death from tuberculosis on 22 May 1457.
Saint Rita of Cascia Veneration
The Augustinian Father Agostino Cavallucci from Foligno wrote the first biography of Saint Rita of Cascia based on oral tradition. She was canonized on May 24 1900 by Pope Leo XIII. The three required miracles that led to her canonization are: the pleasant scent emanating from her incorruptible body; the cure of smallpox and the sudden recovery of sight of the young Elizabeth Bergamini, who had been asking for Blessed Rita’s intercession; and the complete and sudden healing of Cosma Pellegrini in 1887, suffering from chronic catarrhal gastro-enteritis and an incurable hemorrhoidal affection, after having received a vision of the Blessed Rita on his deathbed.
Saint Rita of Cascia has acquired a reputation, together with St. Philomena and St. Jude, as a saint of impossible causes. She is also the patron saint of sterility, abuse victims, loneliness, couple and marriage difficulties, parenthood, widows, the sick, bodily ills, and wounds.
In the 20th century, a large sanctuary was built for Rita in Cascia. The sanctuary and the house where Rita was born are among the most active pilgrimage sites of Umbria. Augustinians kept Rita’s incorrupt body over the centuries, and it is venerated today in the shrine at Cascia. On the 100th anniversary of her canonization in 2000, Pope John Paul II noted her remarkable qualities as a Christian woman: “Rita interpreted well the ‘feminine genius’ by living it intensely in both physical and spiritual motherhood.”
Conclusion
This is an amazing fact. When Saint Rita of Cascia was about sixty old, she was meditating before an image of Christ crucified. Suddenly, a small wound appeared on her forehead, as though a thorn from the crown that encircled Christ’s head had loosened itself and penetrated her own flesh. The wound was considered to be a partial Stigmata, and she bore this external sign of union with Christ until her death in 1457.
