![]() ![]() Sweetness of temper was the weapon she used to combat her husband's cruelty. It was only her love for the Crucified One that enabled her to bear this heavy cross. Just a few days after their marriage, he began to ill-treat her. ![]() The young man selected as Rita's husband was passionate and quick-tempered, one well suited to try the patience and virtue of a saint. She had now to follow another path, to become a bright example of virtue to all who lived in the married state. Hitherto Rita had been a model of virginal purity, filial love, reverence and obedience. Tearful pleadings and the weight of their parental authority prevailed they even induced her to marry. But, pious though they were, her parents were deeply grieved at the thought of this separation. The desire to join a community of Augustinian nuns at Cascia was daily grow ing in Rita's mind. But after a year her duty of assisting her parents forced her from her loved solitude. In thi s solitude her love for Jesus Crucified and her compassion for his bitter sufferings daily became more ardent. With her parents' permission Rita fitted up a small oratory where she prayed and meditated. When only ten years old, she felt drawn to retirement and to a cloistered life, but love for her aged parents prevented her from making known her desires. She gave alms to the poor, for whom she always showed most loving compassion. At a tender age Rita began to perform bodily penances, particularly fasting. Rita's obedience to her parents was remarkable. She did not care for the pastimes and sports of youth, and was free from vanity and love of fine clothes. At an early age she felt drawn to God, and spent many hours in the parish church. Rita's parents gave her a good home training. Doubtless this was to typify the sweetness of word and manner which later was to win for God so many souls, and the comfort she was to diffuse throughout the world. On the day after Rita's baptism, as she lay in her cradle, a swarm of pure white bees alighted on her face and went in and out of her slightly opened mouth, as if to take honey from her lips. The piety and charity of her father and mother were so well known that they were called the peace-makers' of their little village. Born in Rocca Porena in the diocese of Spoleto, Italy, about the year 1381, Rita came to her parents, already advanced in age, as the answer to many years of prayer. ST RITA OF CASCIA is universally called the Saint of the Impossible,' because her intercession has been found effectual with God in most desperate and hopeless cases. ![]()
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