From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   -- Colossians 4:6 --   
      
   Let your speech be always in grace seasoned with salt: that you may   
   know how you ought to answer every man.  [Colossians 4:6] DRB   
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       Those who throw dirt lose ground!   
      
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   May 22nd - St. Rita of Cascia, Widow   
      
   IN the year 1381 there was born in a peasant home at Roccaporena in   
   the central Apennines a little girl who, as an exemplary daughter,   
   wife and religious, was destined to attain to great heights of   
   holiness in this life, and afterwards to merit from countless grateful   
   souls by her intercession in Heaven the title of “the saint of the   
   impossible and the advocate of desperate cases”.   
      
   The child of her parents’ old age, Rita--as she was named--showed from   
   her earliest years extraordinary piety and love of prayer. She had set   
   her heart upon dedicating herself to God in the Augustinian convent at   
   Cascia, but when her father and mother decreed that she should marry,   
   she sorrowfully submitted, deeming that in obeying them she was   
   fulfilling God’s will. Her parents’ choice was an unfortunate one. Her   
   husband proved to be brutal, dissolute and so violent that his temper   
   was the terror of the neighbourhood. For 18 years with unflinching   
   patience and gentleness Rita bore with his insults and infidelities.   
   As with a breaking heart she watched her two Sons fall more and more   
   under their father’s evil influence, she shed many tears in secret and   
   prayed for them without ceasing. Eventually there came a day when her   
   husband’s conscience was touched, so that he begged her forgiveness   
   for all the suffering he had caused her: but shortly afterwards he was   
   carried home dead, covered with wounds. Whether he had been the   
   aggressor or the victim of a vendetta she never knew. Poignancy was   
   added to her grief by the discovery that her sons had vowed to avenge   
   their father’s death, and in an agony of sorrow she prayed that they   
   might die rather than commit murder. Her prayer was answered. Before   
   they had carried out their purpose they contracted an illness which   
   proved fatal. Their mother nursed them tenderly and succeeded in   
   bringing them to a better mind, so that they died forgiving and   
   forgiven.   
      
   Left alone in the world, Rita’s longing for the religious life   
   returned, and she tried to enter the convent at Cascia. She was   
   informed, however, to her dismay that the constitutions forbade the   
   reception of any but virgins. Three times she made application,   
   begging to be admitted in any capacity, and three times the prioress   
   reluctantly refused her. Nevertheless her persistence triumphed: the   
   rules were relaxed in her favour and she received the habit in the   
   year 1413.   
      
   In the convent St. Rita displayed the same submission to authority   
   which she had shown as a daughter and wife. No fault could be found   
   with her observance of the rule, and when her superior, to try her,   
   bade her water a dead vine in the garden, she not only complied   
   without a word, but continued day after day to tend the old stump. On   
   the other hand, where latitude was allowed by the rule--as in the   
   matter of extra austerities--she was pitiless to herself. Her charity   
   to her neighbour expressed itself especially in her care for her   
   fellow religious during illness and for the conversion of negligent   
   Christians, many of whom were brought to repentance by her prayers and   
   persuasion. All that she said or did was prompted primarily by her   
   fervent love of God, the ruling passion of her life. From childhood   
   she had had a special devotion to the sufferings of our Lord, the   
   contemplation of which would sometimes send her into an ecstasy, and   
   when in 1441 she heard an eloquent sermon on the crown of thorns from   
   St. James della Marca, a strange physical reaction seems to have   
   followed. While she knelt, absorbed in prayer, she became acutely   
   conscious of pain--as of a thorn which had detached itself from the   
   crucifix and embedded itself in her forehead. It developed into an   
   open wound which suppurated and became so offensive that she had to be   
   secluded from the rest. We read that the wound was healed for a   
   season, in answer to her prayers, to enable her to accompany her   
   sisters on a pilgrimage to Rome during the year of the jubilee, 1450,   
   but it was renewed after her return and remained with her until her   
   death, obliging her to live practically as a recluse.   
      
   During her later years St. Rita was afflicted also by a wasting   
   disease, which she bore with perfect resignation. She would never   
   relax any of her austerities or sleep on anything softer than rough   
   straw. She died on May 22, 1457, and her body has remained incorrupt   
   until modern times. The roses which are St. Rita’s emblem and which   
   are blessed in Augustinian churches on her festival refer to an old   
   tradition. It is said that when the saint was nearing her death she   
   asked a visitor from Roccaporena to go to her old garden and bring her   
   a rose. It was early in the season and the friend had little   
   expectation of being able to gratify what she took to be a sick   
   woman’s fancy. To her great surprise, on entering the garden, she saw   
   on a bush a rose in full bloom. Having given it to St. Rita she asked   
   if she could do anything more for her. “Yes”, was the reply. “Bring me   
   two figs from the garden.” The visitor hastened back and discovered   
   two ripe figs on a leafless tree.   
      
   The evidence upon which rests the story of St. Rita as it is popularly   
   presented cannot be described as altogether satisfactory. The saint   
   died in 1457, but the first biography of which anything is known,   
   written by John George de Amicis, only saw the light in 1600 and we   
   can learn little or nothing of the sources from which it was compiled.   
   A considerable number of lives have appeared in modern times, but in   
   spite of the diligence of their various authors they add hardly   
   anything in the way of historical fact to the slender sketch which may   
   be read in the Acta Sanctorum (May, vol. v), which is derived mainly   
   from the 17th century life by Cavallucci.   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   So great is the delight which the angels take in executing the will of   
   God, that if it were His will that one of them should come upon earth   
   to pull up weeds and root out nettles from a field, he would leave   
   Paradise immediately and set himself to work with all his heart, and   
   with infinite pleasure.   
   --Bl. Henry Suso   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   The LORD is wonderfully good to those who wait for him and seek him.   
   (Lamentations 3:25)   
      
      
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   For the Most Forgotten Soul   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)