The Church today celebrates the feastday of St. Rita of Cascia, who St. John Paul II called an “expert in suffering.” Known in Spain as “La Santa de lo imposible” (the saint of the impossible), St. Rita has become immensely popular throughout the centuries. She is invoked by people in all situations and stations of life, since she had embraced suffering with charity and wrongs with forgiveness in the many trials she experienced in her life. She was a wife, a widow, a mother surviving the death of her children, and a nun – and in every part of her life she faithfully embraced the Cross.
As a young woman, she was married to a violent and ill-tempered husband. He was murdered 18 years later and she forgave his murderers, praying that her twin sons, who had sworn to avenge their father’s death may also forgive. She was granted this grace, and her sons, who died young, died nonetheless reconciled to God.
She became a nun in the Augustinian convent at Cascia, but was refused entry at first. She asked the intercession of St. Augustine, St. Mary Magdalene, and St. John the Baptist and was finally allowed to enter the convent where she lived the last 40 years of her life in prayer and service to the people of Cascia.
On the 100th anniversary of her canonization in 2000, St. John Paul II noted her remarkable qualities as a Christian woman: “St. Rita interpreted well the ‘feminine genius’ by living it intensely in both physical and spiritual motherhood.” She is the patron saint of “impossible causes” (including abuse victims, loneliness, marriage difficulties, parenthood, widowhood, and those who suffer bodily ills and wounds).
