MAY 22D, FERIA OF ASCENSIONTIDE
Month in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Day 8 of the Novena in honor of the Holy Spirit/Ghost.
Saint (Marga)Rita of Cascia
Margarita (Margret) was born in AD 1386 at Roccaparena, Umbria, Italy, the daughter of Antonio and Amata Lotti, a couple known as "the Peacemakers of Jesus." They had Rita late in life. From her early youth, Rita visited the Augustinian nuns at Cascia, Italy, and showed interest in a religious life. However, when she was twelve, her parents betrothed her to Paolo Mancini, an ill-tempered, abusive individual who worked as town watchman, and who was dragged into the political disputes between the Guelphs and Ghibellines. Disappointed but obedient, Rita married him when she was 18, and was the mother of twin sons. She put up with Paolo's abuses for eighteen years and finally obtained his conversion shortly before he was ambushed and stabbed to death. Her sons swore vengeance on the killers of their father, but through the prayers and interventions of Rita, they instead forgave the offenders.
Upon the deaths of her sons by sickness, Rita again felt the call to religious life. However, some of the sisters at the Augustinian monastery were relatives of her husband's murderers, and she was denied entry for fear of causing dissension. Asking for the intervention of Saint John the Baptist, Saint Augustine of Hippo, and Saint Nicholas of Tolentino, she managed to bring the warring factions together, not completely, but sufficiently that there was peace, and she was admitted to the monastery of Saint Mary Magdalen at age 36.
Rita lived 40 years in the convent, spending her time in prayer and charity, and working for peace in the region. She was devoted to the Passion of our Savior, and in response to her prayer to suffer as Christ did, she received a chronic head wound that appeared to have been caused by a crown of thorns, and which bled for 15 years.
She was sick and infirm that she was confined to her bed the last four years of her life, eating little more than the Holy Eucharist, and teaching and directing the younger sisters. Near the end she had a visitor from her home town who asked if she'd like anything; Rita's only request was a rose from her family's estate. The visitor went to the home, but it being January, knew there would be no hope of finding a flower. Nevertheless, when he arrived there he found, sprouted on an otherwise bare bush, a single rose blossom.
Among the other areas, Rita is well-known as a patron of desperate, seemingly impossible causes and situations. This is because she has been involved in so many stages of life - maiden, wife, mother, widow, and nun; she buried her family, helped bring peace to her city, saw her dreams denied and then fulfilled - and never lost her faith in God, or her desire to be with Him.