The Life
Rita of Cascia was born around 1381 in Roccaporena, a tiny village in the Umbrian mountains near Cascia. Her story is a compressed account of the major sorrows of a woman's life in medieval Italy — and of an extraordinary faith that received and transformed each one.
She wanted from childhood to enter a convent. Her parents, elderly, insisted she marry instead. She obeyed, and her husband — who was described as harsh and quarrelsome — became, through her patient love, a transformed man. He was murdered, apparently in a feud. Rita then faced the deepest crisis: her two sons, raised to know their obligation of vendetta, were determined to avenge their father's death. Rita prayed that they would die before they committed murder. They did — of natural illness, reconciled and at peace — within a year. She was free of her marriage and her children; she sought entrance to the Augustinian convent of St Mary Magdalene in Cascia.
She was refused three times — she was a widow, not a virgin — before she was miraculously transported inside the convent walls, apparently lifted and deposited inside by an angelic or supernatural intervention. She was accepted by the sisters. She lived in the convent for forty years, practising extreme penance and contemplation. In 1441, after meditating on Christ's crown of thorns, she asked to share in the passion of Jesus. A wound appeared on her forehead, as if from a thorn. It remained open and painful for the rest of her life. When she died in 1457, the wound closed and her body gave off the fragrance of roses.
She was beatified in 1628 and canonised in 1900. She is venerated across Italy and Latin America as the Saint of the Impossible — a title she shares with Jude — and as the patroness of women in difficult or abusive marriages, reflecting the specific circumstances of her life. Her shrine at Cascia is one of the major pilgrimage sites of Umbria.
The Prayer for Her Sons
When her sons, consumed by the obligation of vendetta, were determined to kill their father's murderer, Rita made a prayer that has astonished and troubled every generation since: she asked God to take her sons before they committed murder. It is the prayer of a woman who understood that the damage to their souls would be worse than their deaths. Within a year, both sons died of illness, reconciled to God and to the family of the man they had wanted to kill. The prayer was answered exactly as she asked. This is perhaps the most extreme example of Marian-style intercession in the lives of the saints: the mother who chooses the eternal over the temporal for her children. The Miraculous Entry to the Convent Rita was refused admission to the Augustinian convent three times because she was a widow. On the night of the third refusal, she was found inside the locked convent — the gates unopened, the walls intact. No explanation has ever been given that satisfies the requirements of natural causation. The sisters, confronted with the fact of her presence inside their locked convent, accepted it as a sign and accepted her. She had been brought in by something that could bring her where she was meant to be despite the barriers placed in her way. The Wound of the Thorn During a sermon on the Crown of Thorns, Rita was so moved that she prayed to share in Christ's passion. A thorn from the crown (whether physically or mystically is a matter of tradition) pierced her forehead and left a wound that remained open and painful — exuding an odour at times reported as fragrant, at times as unpleasant — for the remaining fifteen years of her life. She bore it in secret as long as she could and, when it was discovered, bore the isolation it caused: she was excluded from the community on pilgrimages because the wound might cause scandal. She accepted the exclusion as she had accepted everything else. The Rose of Cascia A few days before her death, a sister from Cascia visited Rita in her cell and asked if she wanted anything from the world outside. Rita asked for a rose from her parents' garden at Roccaporena — in January, in the mountains, an impossible request. The sister went to Roccaporena out of love and found, in the winter garden, one open rose. She brought it back. Rita received it and died shortly after. The rose of Cascia is the symbol of the saint of the impossible: the flower that opens in winter, the gift that cannot be given and is given anyway.
Walk in Their Footsteps
Pilgrimage sites connected to St Rita of Cascia
Ask St Rita of Cascia to Intercede
Bring these intentions to this saint in prayer:
Rita lived through every major sorrow that medieval Italian womanhood could offer: a husband killed in a feud, sons lost to the vendetta logic, the death of her children, widowhood, three rejections by the convent she wanted to enter, and then fifteen years of an open wound in her forehead. She did not escape any of it. She carried it all, and she offered it. The wound became the sign of the passion shared. The sorrows became the material of sanctity. This is not consolation — it is testimony.
“For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.”
St Rita, saint of the impossible, bearer of the thorn's wound — you carried what could not be carried. Pray for me in my impossible situation. I have tried every ordinary approach and it has not worked. I bring you the marriage, the illness, the grief, the feud, the door that keeps closing. Open the door. Plant the rose in the winter garden. And if the wound is what is required — help me bear it as you bore yours. Amen.