Saint Rita

The early life of Saint Rita is rather obscure; there are written sources from rather late periods, such as the hagiographic reconstruction by Agostino Cavallucci in 1610.

However, most biographies based on the limited reliable data agree that she was born in Roccaporena, near Cascia, and that her name is a diminutive of Margherita.

Reference studies and numerous studies confirm her death date as 1447.

She was the only child of Antonio Lotti and Amata Ferri.

Both parents are described as very religious people and “peacemakers of Christ” in the political and family struggles between the Guelphs and Ghibellines.

They taught her to read and write.

Hagiographies describe her as a gentle girl who obeyed her parents’ wishes.

As was the custom of the time, marriages were often planned at a very young age, especially when the parents were approaching maturity.

Thus, at the age of sixteen, Rita married Paolo Mancini (also known as Paolo di Ferdinando), the commanding officer of the Collegiacone garrison. He was described as a man of very proud, authoritarian character, and a descendant of a branch of the noble Mancini family.

They had twins: Giangiacomo Antonio and Paolo Maria.

Rita devoted herself tirelessly to her family, laying the foundation for her husband’s conversion.

Just when the marriage seemed to be going well, Paolo Mancini was killed, probably because of past grudges, in the middle of the night while returning home.

A true believer, she forgave her husband’s murderers but was distressed when she realized her sons were pursuing revenge.

She then turned to prayer, even wishing for their physical death rather than seeing them responsible for acts of violence and thus the death of their souls.

Shortly afterward, the two boys fell ill at the same time and died.

Three times she unsuccessfully requested entry to the Augustinian monastery of Santa Maria Maddalena in Cascia.

Her widowhood and perhaps the implications of her husband’s murder may have prevented her from entering the monastery.

This, however, is where the devotional legend comes in: how Rita was flown into the monastery walls in the dead of night by Saint Nicholas of Tolentino and Saint Augustine.

The fact is that from 1407, after having pacified and reconciled her husband’s family and that of her murderer, Rita lived in the monastery for forty years, dedicating herself to prayer.

There are many supernatural signs that believers attribute to Rita of Cascia: on the evening of Good Friday, she is said to have received a thorn from the crown of Christ, which was stuck in her forehead.

Following this event, the Mother Abbess refused the saint’s request to leave for Rome with the other nuns.

However, the day before her departure, tradition has it that the stigmata disappeared, allowing Rita to leave.

The thorn was worn by Saint Rita for her last fifteen years.

On the day of her baptism, white bees appeared on her crib, black bees at her deathbed, a red rose that had bloomed in winter near her home, and two figs on the tree in her garden. Before dying, she sent her cousin to collect them.

Upon her death on May 22, 1447, her body was placed in a poplar coffin called the Codex Miraculorum, crafted by Cecco Barbari; the solemn coffin was not completed until 1462.

The veneration of Rita of Cascia by the faithful began immediately after her death and was characterized by the number and quality of miraculous events attributed to her intercession, so much so that she became “the saint of the impossible.”

Her beatification took place in 1627, 170 years after her death, during the pontificate of Urban VIII Barberini, former bishop of Spoleto.

Leo XIII canonized her as a saint in 1900.