ST RITA OF CASCIA – PATRON SAINT OF THOSE IN DIFFICULT MARRIAGES

Fr Billy Swan

On 22^nd May each year, the Church celebrates the feast day of St Rita of Cascia. She is the patron saint of desperate situations and difficult marriages. From the story of her life, it is easy to see why.

Rita was born near Cascia in Italy into a noble family in 1381. From a young age, Rita expressed to her parents her desire to be a nun – an idea that displeased them to such an extent that they arranged to have her married to a man when she was only a minor. He turned out to be violent, abusive and unfaithful. Despite this, they were married for eighteen years before his violent death at the hands of his enemies. Rita publicly forgave her husband’s killers at his funeral. They had two sons who both vowed to avenge their father’s death but before they could so do, they died of natural causes. It is said that Rita prayed for this outcome if her prayers for their conversion were not granted, lest they die with the sin of murder on their souls.

After the death of her husband and sons, Rita’s original desire to become a religious, re-ignited. In 1407, she applied to enter the Augustinian convent at Cascia, only to be refused three times because she had been married. After six years of asking and on her fourth attempt, Rita was eventually accepted into the convent.

Because of her own suffering, Rita’s heart was sensitively attentive to Christ’s suffering. Yet, it was not a parallel suffering of two subjects. Rather she saw her own suffering as a participation in the Lord’s cross and all that went with that. As she prayed on Good Friday 1441, a wound appeared on her forehead that remained for the rest of her life. She died of tuberculosis on 22^nd May 1457. After her death, many miracles and graces were granted through her intercession. She was canonised by Pope Leo XIII in 1900 – the first saint of the new millennium at the time.

The Church’s teaching on the vocation to marriage is clear and inspired by the Gospel. Marriage is positively correlated with stability in families and that of wider society in general. Yet the Church is painfully aware that not all marriages and unions are as happy as they ought to be. That is why Pope Francis in ‘The Joy of Love’ deliberately included a chapter on accompanying those whose marriages are in difficulty and those who live in situations that are not regular.

One way to accompany those who suffer within these relationships and domestic situations that are less than ideal, is to point to the witness of someone like St Rita of Cascia. The value in her witness is not so much that she endured all she did but the way she retained her dignity as a peacemaker and woman of integrity in the face of maltreatment and infidelity. In all she endured, she was sustained by the suffering of Jesus which gave her the grace to look beyond her husband’s violence and her sons’ revengeful intentions, to the hope of their conversion and eternal salvation.

In the words of Pope St John Paul II on the centenary of her canonisation: “Deeply rooted in the love of Christ, Rita found in her faith unshakeable strength to be a woman of peace in every situation. In her example of total abandonment to God, in her transparent simplicity and in her unflinching fidelity to the Gospel, we too can find sound direction for being authentic Christian witnesses at the dawn of the third millennium. On the Cross with Jesus, she is crowned in a certain way with the love that she knew and heroically expressed within her home and by her participation in the events of her town. By imitating her example, may you also know how to find in your fidelity to Christ the strength to fulfil your mission of service to the civilization of love” (20^th May 2000).

The life of St Rita brings the healing power of the Gospel close to wounds that exist in families and societies around the world. These include child marriages, domestic abuse, violence and people trapped in deeply unhappy situations. St Rita lived her faith in the crucible of all the above and not in an ivory tower. Sometimes this is where faith leads us, into places of darkness where light is needed most.