Who is St. Rita?

I ran out of time and wasn't able to write yesterday, but I promise that I have, so far, been keeping up with my Novena. It feels pretty good, but then again we are only on Day 3. 

Today I wanted to share a bit about St. Rita of Cascia, since she is who this Novena is for. 

I'm saying this Novena for her because she was the saint I chose to be confirmed under when I joined the church. When you are picking a saint to be confirmed under, you really can't make a "bad" choice. Every saint is as good as the next one, that is kind of why they are saints, but you are supposed to try to pick one that you relate to and want to try to emulate. Well, when it came time to make that decision I was really at a loss. I just could not pick one for the life of me. 

Then I found out that my great-aunt Rita was going to be coming down just to see me get confirmed. The church has the confirmation mass on the Eve of Easter and it lasts well over an hour and doesn't even start until after sunset. I felt bad that my great-aunt was coming all the way down from the city just for me and so I thought "Hey, I wonder if there is a St. Rita?" turned out there was, so I picked her. 

Here is her story:

She was born in Italy and at the age of 12 she entered into a marriage that her parents arranged. She knew then that she wanted to be a nun and enter a convent but she was obedient to her parents and did as they asked. Her husband turned out to be an awful and abusive person who had a lot of enemies. It is said that through her patience and faithfulness she was eventually able to convert her husband into being a God-fearing man and they had two sons together. Unfortunately, he did still have enemies and one day he was found violently stabbed to death.

Now, here comes a bit of controversy, it is said that as her sons came closer to the age of 16 they wished to seek out revenge on then men they saw as responsible for their father's death. Rita tried to calm her sons, but when that didn't work she prayed that God would stop them. And shortly after that both of her sons died of natural causes. A lot of people like to say that Rita prayed for God to take her sons because she thought that was better for them then actually sinning, but I don't believe that. I think she knew that she didn't want that kind of hatred to consume her children and so she did pray that God would help them, little did she know that the only way God could do that was by killing them off. 

Anyway, after the death of her children and her husband, Rita set out to join the monastery of Saint Mary Magdalene at Casia, however they wouldn't take her due to the scandalous reputation of her family. They finally said that they would allow her to join them if she reconciled with the family of the men that took her husband, so she did. She met with the family and showed them peace and forgiveness and was then welcomed into the monastery. 

Fun Fact: She is often depicted as having a wound on her forehead because it is said that she once prayed to know the suffering that Christ went through before he was nailed to the cross, and after she prayed it a wound appeared on her head and it never healed. It has also been said that towards the end of her life the wound started to have a foul stench that seeped out of it and forced her to be alienated from others. However, when she did die the smell changed and began to send out the sent of fresh roses. Cool, huh?

I may not have picked Rita for the exact reasons that you are supposed to, but in the end I am really glad I did. For me she represents faithfulness, discipline, patience, perseverance, obedience, peace, and forgiveness. She was a good wife, a good mother, a good friend, and a really good nun. And she is recognized as the patron saint of the impossible, of hopeless causes, for abused women, and for mothers.