Feast Day Of St. Rita of Cascia

Saint Rita of Cascia 500th Anniversary of Death Scott 209-211 (1956) May 22 is the Feast Day of Saint Rita of Cascia. Historian Michael Farmer writes that “Rita of Cascia (1377-1447) was a widow, [an] Augustinian nun, and the patron of desperate causes.” She was born in Umbria and wanted to be a nun but accepted her parents’ order to marry. Her husband was a violent and unfaithful individual. After 18 years of ill treatment (which produced two sons), her husband was murdered in a vendetta and the sons died shortly thereafter. Around 1407, she became a nun at the convent of St. Maria Maddalena at Cascia. She led a life of prayer and mortification while meditating on Christ’s passion. So intense was her meditation that a wound appeared on her forehead (for 15 years) as if it had been pierced by a crown of thorns. She devoted herself to the care of the sick and also counseled sinners. Saint Rita died of tuberculosis. Her body remained incorrupt. A cult of St. Rita was approved in 1457. She was beatified in 1626 and canonized in 1900 by Pope Leo XIII. A new basilica along with a hospital, school, and orphanage was constructed in her name in 1946 in Cascia (Perugia). She has a following throughout the world. Her patronage of desperate causes particularly includes matrimonial difficulties. Her emblem is a rose, associated with her garden in Cascia. REFERENCES: Farmer, Michael, Oxford Dictionary of Saints Attwater, Donald, and John, Catherine Rachel, The Penguin Dictionary of Saints Anonymous, Vatican Notes, Volume 8, Number 6, pp. 9-10, 1960, St. Rita of Cascia