Sainte Rita 15 cm

Description

Santa Rita was born in Italy on May 22, 1381, in the region of Umbria, in a village called, at that time, Roca Porena. His parents, António and Amada Mancini, now elderly, prayed to God for the coming of a child. Little Margherita was born to them, hence its abbreviation: Rita.

Educated, with a lot of Christian care, Rita spent her childhood and youth helping her parents in the fields. Newborn and always placed in a basket, which she sometimes used as a cradle in the field, she was once found surrounded by white bees that rested on her face without hurting her. As a young man, she married Paulo Fernando. They had two children: João Tiago and Paulo Maria. Her husband, with a strong and angry character, abused her many times. Rita, thanks to her kindness of heart and her prayers, managed to convert him to God. He died murdered, victim of politicalstruggles at the time. The children, young people, wanted to avenge their father’s death. Rita, preferring to see them dead than transgressing the divine law, asked God to take them to heaven before they tarnished themselves with that crime. Both died, decimated by a plague that ravaged Europe at that time.

Widowed and childless, Rita dedicated herself to helping the poor and sick, helping each other with food, visits, comfort and work. Feeling the call of God, she went to the Convent of the Augustinian Sisters of St. Mary Magdalene, in Cassia, to become a religious. The rules of that time prevented the entry of widows. Once, at dawn, Rita was found by the nuns, praying in the monastery chapel, with doors and windows closed. Mother Superior saw in that fact a plan of heaven and admitted her as a Sister. To prove his will, he ordered him to water a dry branch of vine daily. In time, the branch greened and blossomed into a lush vine.

One day, praying before the crucifix, she asked Christ for the grace of suffering with Him. A thorn came off the image and stuck in her forehead, opening a painful and purulent wound that for more than fifteen years made her suffer much. In 1450 holy year, wanting to go to Rome, with her companions in habit and not being able to because of the wound on her forehead, Rita asked for this grace and the wound closed, opening again when she returned to the Convent. A lot of fasting, a lot of penance, a lot of prayer was his way of life. Gravely ill, living on a poor cot, in the back of a humble cell, Rita received a visit from her cousin. He asked her to go to Roca Porena and there, in her old house, pick a fig and a rosebud for her. It was midwinter, everything buried under the deepest snow, and yet her cousin found the fig and rose in Rita’s garden.

On May 22, 1457, Rita gave her beautiful soul to God. In the Convent’s steeple, the bells began to toll festively, rang by mysterious hands. The wound on her forehead closed at the same time and, in place of the usual stench of corpses, her body gave off a discreet perfume. There were so many miracles and graces that thousands of her devotees received from God, through her intercession, that she became known as the “Saint of the Impossibles”. Pope Leo XIII canonized her on the day of Pentecost, May 24, 1900, Holy Year.