![]() Upon her death, her cell was filled with the smell of roses. The cousin was shocked to see that there was indeed two roses growing in that garden in the middle of January. The January before she died, a cousin asked her if there was anything she needed and she asked for a rose from her childhood garden. Because this wound became infected and foul smelling Rita was shunned by the other nuns and remained in her cell praying and meditating. When she begged to feel what Christ felt on the cross, a thorn from the crown of thorns on a crucifix struck her on the head and became embedded there. While there she spent her days nursing the older nuns and concentrating on Christ’s suffering. Much to everyone’s surprise, they acquiesced and Rita was admitted to the convent on her third try. Rita prayed and entreated Paolo’s family to forgive his killers. ![]() Because several of the nuns there had family members who were involved in Paolo’s murder, the convent refused her, not wanting tensions to carry over from the outside world. Both of them came down with serious illnesses and died before they could act on their vendetta.Īlone in the world, Rita petitioned to join the Augustinian convent. She prayed to God to prevent her sons from murdering anyone. Rita begged her two teenaged sons not to pursue a vendetta against his killers, but they refused. A lifetime of enemies caught up with Paolo and he was murdered, his mutilated body dumped on his family’s doorstep. After 18 years of marriage, Paolo had a vision of himself as others saw him and begged for his wife’s forgiveness. Never wavering in her devotion to God, Rita prayed that her husband would change his ways. Settling his personal disputes with violence, Mancini created a tense family environment for Rita and the two sons she had with him. Though he was a good provider, he soon proved to be an abusive, promiscuous husband. Instead, she had to accept a marriage they contracted for her with a man named Paolo Mancini. ![]() Though she had always wanted to be a nun, Rita’s parents feared for her future security as there was a schism in the church and many religious orders were closing their doors. She was called Rita because of a vision of an angel her mother had who named the baby while declaring, “You will give birth to a daughter marked with the seal of sanctity, gifted with every virtue, a helper to the helpless and an advocate of the afflicted.” As proof of this prophecy, bees, a sign of divine presence, always hovered over her crib as she slept, never harming or waking her. Margarita Lotti was born to an older farming couple in Roccaporena, Italy. Canonized almost 500 years after her birth, she is the first declared female saint of the 20th Century. In her own lifetime she was famous for the power of her prayers to change any situation and it was said that she could accomplish the impossible. Knowing the powerlessness and despair of those in bad marriages she is invoked for help in desperate times. Symbols: roses, thorns, bees, wounded headĪn abused wife, a mother who’s children died, a widow of a murdered husband, and finally, a nun, Saint Rita experienced many lives in her time on earth. ![]() Keywords: Impossible, Desperation, bad marriages, spousal abuse, widows, bodily ills, loneliness, smallpox, sterility
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