![]() ![]() Rita shared the popular devotion of the time to the sufferings of Prepared by her own experience of life, to respond to these needs. People with all kinds of problems would come to the Sistersįor advice, help and consolation. Reconciliation and peace may well have been the real miracle.įor the final thirty years of her life, Rita would be anĪugustinian nun in the Cascia convent, living a life of prayer and penance, Their intercession in response to Rita’s prayers in bringing about Honoured in the Augustinian churches in Cascia, had much to do with it but No doubt, Rita’s devotion to these saints, who were particularly Tolentino, and that it was this miracle that convinced the community to accept Locked convent by her patron saints John the Baptist, Augustine and Nicholas of Legend would have it that Rita was transported overnight into the Once again she became a peacemaker.Įventually peace was agreed between the feuding sides in Cascia,Īnd Rita was finally accepted into the convent. ![]() Little by little she worked at bringing the estranged parties Rita was not accepted, and she well knew why. They were uneasy at the thought of having the widow among them with the bitterness and division this could bring. Some of the nuns in the small convent were related to the murderers of Rita’s husband while others were from her late husband’s side. Peace, security and rest in that convent. The life of an Augustinian nun in the convent in Cascia. She had wished to become a nun as a young girl she now felt strongly called to Gradually, a new hope came into Rita’s life. Would carry her through, and inspire future generations of Christians with the Of a widow when all she had was gone, except her faith. Saccharine emotion of a plaster saint, but the lonely, if accepting, emptiness Seen, when it cost her the greatest pain and heartbreak. Possibly, this was the time when Rita’s holiness was most clearly The world with only her faith and her trust in God to keep her going. Rita, the widow now had no family she was alone in Her two sons diedĮpidemics so common at the time, rather than through the violence that had been Struck again, and a strange answer to her prayers. But vengeance was not in her heart, however normal it might have seemed at the time. Rita felt all the loss and loneliness of her bereavement. She worried particularly for her sons and both their With two young sons, in circumstances where vengeance and further bloodshed One evening, as he returned to hisįamily in Roccaporena, he was stabbed and killed. Paul Mancini was involved in some way in the unrest, possibly as a A Pope at a slightly laterĭate is quoted as saying “Cascia is a place full of factions and vendetta” Ghibellines that then divided much of Italy. Political and civil unrest, particularly the constant rivalry between Guelphs and The Cascia area was frequently the scene of feuds and factionįights, vendettas between families that lasted years or even generations, While they enjoyed a reasonably happy, if hard, family life. Two sons were born to Paul and Rita and for a Patience with a wild and cruel husband may have grown in the telling without ![]() No doubt, Rita was aĭutiful and loving wife, though the accounts of her saintly forbearance and “Umbria, a region that has given many popular saints to theĬhurch, including Francis and Clare of Assisi, as well as Rita of Cascia, wasĪlso at the time a region of poverty, earthquakes and natural disasters it wasĪlso prone to constant violence and civil unrest where the law of the vendetta,Īs was normal at the time, Rita’s parents arranged her marriage toĪ young man of the locality named Paul Mancini. Her elderly parents, Antonio and Amata Lotti, christened their only child Margherita, Rita in its familiar form. Rita was born about 1381 in the village of Roccaporena, near Cascia, a significant city in the mountainous area of Umbria in central Italy. Widowhood, to the Religious Life of an enclosed Augustinian nun. Part of Rita’s attraction is probably the fact that, during a hardĪnd difficult life, she lived through just about all states of life anyĬhristian woman can experience – from girlhood, through married life and She hasīecome known as the Advocate of the Helpless, even the Saint of Hopeless Cases. Tolentine's Septenary Mass for the Deadīy far, the best known and best loved of the Augustinian saints.Novena prayer to Our Lady of Consolation.VIDEO: Pilgrimage to Cascia (Mgr Daniel McHugh).Hymn to Saint Rita II: Glorious name our own Saint Rita.Hymn to Saint Rita I: Come Virgins chaste.Sean Flannery OAR (Golden Jubilee of Priesthood) Augustinian Recollect Secular Fraternity. ![]()
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