Chiesa di Santa Rita a Torre Angela

Saint Rita of Cascia, born Margherita Lotti, was born in Roccaporena, a mountainous hamlet about five kilometers from Cascia in the province of Perugia. The dates of her birth and death are uncertain; they depend among other things on the altitude at which the date of her ascension to the heavenly abode is placed, that is, 1447 for some or 1457 for others, after forty years of monastic life. An Augustinian nun, she was proclaimed blessed by Urban VIII in 1628 and a Saint by Leo XIII in 1900. SAINT OF THE IMPOSSIBLE CASES OF FORGIVENESS AND PEACEMAKER OF CHRIST Her parents, Antonio Lottius and Amata Ferri, were already of mature age when they married and only after twelve years of vain waiting, Rita was born, welcomed as a gift of Providence. It is said that the mother, very devout, had a vision of an angel who announced her late pregnancy, that she would have a daughter and that she should call her Rita. A prodigious event is linked to her childhood; a few months after birth, her parents began to take the newborn with them while they worked in the fields, placing her in a wicker basket. One day, while the little girl was resting in the shade of a tree and her parents were a little further away, a swarm of white bees surrounded her head without stinging her, in fact some of them entered the little girl's mouth depositing honey there. In the meantime, a farmer who had injured his hand left work to get treatment; passing in front of the basket and seeing the scene, he began to chase the bees away and here the second phase of the prodigy occurred, as he gradually shook his arms to make them go away, the wound healed completely. The man shouted miracle and with him all the inhabitants of Roccaporena, who knew of the prodigy. Rita grew up in obedience to her parents, who in turn transmitted to their long-awaited daughter, the most lively religious sentiments.From her early adolescence, Rita openly manifested her vocation to a religious life, also attending the church of Sant'Agostino, choosing as her protectors the saints who were venerated there, in addition to Sant'Agostino, San Giovanni Battista and Nicola da Tolentino, canonized in 1446. She was thirteen years old when her parents, perhaps forced to do so, promised her in marriage to Fernando Mancini, a young man from the village, known for his strong, impetuous character and, according to some scholars, even brutal and violent. Rita was not enthusiastic about it, because she had other aspirations, but she accepted her parents' insistence by marrying the young man. She patiently endured all his mistreatment, without ever complaining, even obediently asking him for permission to go to church. With the birth of two twins and her perseverance in responding with sweetness to violence, she managed to transform her husband's character over time and make him more docile. Her sons Giangiacomo Antonio and Paolo Maria grew up educated by Rita according to the principles that her parents had taught her, but unfortunately they also assimilated the ideals and rules of the Cascia community, which among other things considered revenge legitimate. It happened after a few years, in an unspecified period, that Rita lost her two elderly parents and then her husband, killed in an ambush one evening while returning home from Cascia. She tried to hide the violent death of their father from her now fifteen-year-old children, but from that dramatic day, she lived with the fear of losing her children too. At the same time, her brothers-in-law were determined to avenge the killing of Fernando Mancini and therefore her children would also be involved in the feud of revenge that would follow. Legend has it that Rita, to save them from this fate, prayed to Christ not to allow the souls of her children to stain themselves with revenge and murder, but rather to remove them from the world, I give them to you. Do with them according to your will. However, a year later the two brothers fell ill and died, amid the burning pain of their mother. Hers were the days of a tragic century due to fratricidal struggles, plagues and famines. In a short time Rita lost everything she had built, but she did not lose heart, she did not spend the rest of her days crying, but had the courage to fight, to stop the revenge and choose peace. She was immediately surrounded by a good reputation, the people of Roccaporena sought her out as a popular justice of the peace.Now free of family ties, she turned to the Augustinian Sisters of the monastery of St Mary Magdalene in Cascia to be received among them; but she was rejected three times, despite her pleas.The reasons for this are unclear, but it seems that the Sisters feared being involved in the feud between local families and only after a public rapprochement between her husband's brothers and her killers was she accepted into the monastery.According to tradition, the entrance took place due to a miraculous event: it is said that one night, Rita, as usual, had gone to pray on the Scoglio (a rocky spur that rises a hundred metres above the village of Roccaporena) and that here she had a vision of her three patron saints mentioned above, who transported her to Cascia, introducing her into the monastery.When the nuns saw her in prayer in their choir, despite all the closed doors, convinced by the miracle and her smile, they welcomed her among them.The new nun joined the community, leading a life of exemplary holiness, practising charity, piety and much penance, which soon aroused the admiration of her sisters. Very devoted to the Passion of Christ, she wished to share in his sufferings and this became the main theme of her meditations and prayers.Jesus fulfilled her wish, and one day in 1432, while she was in contemplation before the Crucifix, she felt a thorn from Christ's crown sticking into her forehead, producing a deep wound, which then became purulent and putrescent, forcing her into continual segregation.The wound disappeared only on the occasion of one of her pilgrimages to Rome, made to plead the cause of canonisation of St Nicholas of Tolentino, which had been suspended since the previous century; this allowed her to circulate among the people.She had so immersed herself in the Cross that she lived the last fifteen years in suffering, worn out by fatigue. In the final phase of her earthly life, another prodigy occurred: as she was immobile in bed, she received a visit from a relative who, as she was saying goodbye, asked her if she would like something from her home in Roccaporena; Rita replied that she would like to have a rose from the garden and two fig fruits; the relative objected that it was the middle of winter and therefore this was not possible. But Rita insisted. Back in Roccaporena, the relative went to the vegetable garden and, in the middle of a rose bush, she saw a beautiful rose that had blossomed and nearby the two fruits. Amazed, she picked the flower and the fruit and took them to Rita in Cascia who, thanking her, handed everything over to the astonished sisters.Thus the holy widow, mother, nun, became the Saint of the Thorn and the Saint of the Rose; on her feast day these flowers are blessed and distributed to the faithful.On 22 May 1447 Rita passed away, while the bells alone rang out, announcing her ‘birth’ to heaven. It is said that on the day of the funeral, when by then word of the miracles had spread, black bees appeared around her body, nestled in the walls of the convent and are still there today; they are bees that do not have a hive, do not make honey and have been breeding within those walls for five centuries.By a singular privilege, her body was never buried, somehow treated according to the techniques of the time, it was placed in a cypress box, later lost in a subsequent fire, while the body miraculously emerged unharmed and placed in an artistic wooden sarcophagus, the work of Cesco Barbari, a carpenter from Cascia, who was devoted to and healed through the intercession of the Saint.On the sarcophagus are several paintings by Antonio da Norcia (1457). On the lid is painted the Saint in an Augustinian habit, lying in the sleep of death on a starry drape; the sarcophagus is now preserved in the new basilica built between 1937 and 1947; the body also rests uncorrupted in a transparent urn, exposed to the veneration of the faithful, in the Saint's chapel in the Basilica-Sanctuary of Saint Rita in Cascia.