Saint Rita of Cascia

Life story

Rita was born around 1381 at Roccaporena, a small village near Cascia in Umbria. Details of her life come mainly from tradition and from a biography written long after her death, so many dates are only approximate. According to tradition she was married young to Paolo Mancini, a man of violent temper, and they had two sons.

According to tradition, her husband was killed in a family feud, and her two sons died not long after. Having lost her family, Rita wished to enter the convent of St Mary Magdalene of the Augustinian nuns at Cascia. Tradition says she was refused several times, and that the convent door opened only after she had helped reconcile the feuding parties in her village.

According to tradition Rita lived in this convent for around forty years. Tradition holds that she bore a wound on her forehead, understood as coming from a thorn of Christ's crown, and that it remained for many years. The sisters remembered her for a life of prayer and self-denial and for caring for the sick.

She died at Cascia, traditionally around 22 May 1457. Her body has been preserved in the convent, and devotion to her spread gradually over the following centuries. Pope Urban VIII beatified her in the seventeenth century, and Pope Leo XIII canonised her on 24 May 1900. Pilgrims still travel each year to Cascia and Roccaporena in her memory.

Works and witness

• Wife and mother at Roccaporena; by tradition she lost her husband and two sons
• Entered the Augustinian convent of St Mary Magdalene at Cascia
• By tradition bore a forehead wound for many years
• Died at Cascia around 1457
• Canonised in 1900

Saints from the same country

Saint Agnes, Saint Lawrence, Saint Cecilia, Saint Sebastian

References

• Martyrologium Romanum
• Dicastery for the Causes of Saints – biographical profile
• Agostino Cavallucci, Vita della beata Rita da Cascia (1610)

Written by Anawim from documented history. Some details about ancient saints rest on tradition and are marked as such.