Saint Rita of Cascia

Saint Rita of Cascia was an Augustinian nun who lived in 1400. Born in Cascia (PG), was beatified 180 years after her death and proclaimed Saint after 453 years.

Saint Rita is the subject of an extraordinary popular devotion, and is certainly one of the most loved saints.

People have always felt very close to her, because of her life before taking monastic vows. In fact, Saint Rita of Cascia was for many years an ordinary woman, a wife, a mother, and this makes it more akin to common people than many other men and women sanctified over the centuries.

Widowed, Saint Rita devoted herself to a single purpose: to end the feud between families that had led to the murder of her husband. Put aside her grief and desire for revenge, Saint Rita of Cascia immersed herself in prayer, asking with assiduity and zeal to God’s forgiveness of the murderers of her husband.

Left alone, Saint Rita entered the convent, where she lived 40 years in contemplation, penance and prayer. They were years of suffering in which the nun imposed herself a hair shirt, isolation, and endless mortifications of the flesh. Saint Rita of Cascia, animated by the infinite love for Jesus, asked him to share his Passion. Jesus listened and Saint Rita was pierced in the forehead from one of the thorns in the crown wore by Christ on the cross. Saint Rita brought that painful wound as a mark of love until death.

For that Saint Rita is also known as the Saint of the “Thorn”. She is also known as the Saint of the “Rose”: shortly before her death, she asked a relative to bring her a rose from her father’s garden. Although it was winter, the woman went to the garden and found a beautiful rose flowering, which she immediately brought to the nun. The rose became the symbol of Saint Rita, which flourished in the sunshine of Christ despite a life full of thorns, to melt the winter ice from the hearts of men. The countless miracles meant that in Saint Rita was also attributed the nickname “Saint of the Impossible“.

On Holyart.com you will find Saint Rita statues, of different sizes and price ranges.