The legend of St Rita lives on

The feast of St Rita in Maina-Curtorim, celebrated this January 19, shows to be an eye-opener to the Saint’s devotion to the service of the Church.

St Rita is one of the most adored and respected saints of the Church. She managed to become a nun after getting married, rearing two sons and finally becoming a widow. But if a dead stalk of a plant can sprout into life, anything is possible.

Rita was the only child of her aging parents who was born after a very long time. Born in the 13^th century at Spoleto, a small taluka in the Alpine hills of Umbria, on May 22, 1381, she was baptized as Margarita Mancini Lotti. However, today, she is known as St Rita.

Rita grew up amidst all her peasant friends and was a great help to her family. Because of her friendly and helpful nature, she was liked by one and all. From a very young age, Rita wanted to join the convent and dedicate herself to the service of the lord, but her parents were against the idea for she was their only child. Much against her wishes. Rita was then married at a very young age. Unfortunately, her husband turned out to be a very violent man. He spent his time doing nothing, often drinking and gambling even beating up poor Rita. Depressed by her husband’s behavior she is known to have prayed fervently to the Almighty for his conversion. He was eventually converted but did not live for too long for his friends murdered him over changing.

Now a widow, with two sons, Rita prayed for her son’s well-being who were then filled with feelings of revenge. However, they were to die of a fever before avenging their father’s murder.

Totally depressed and forlorn, she then decided to dedicate herself to the service of the Lord. She made up her mind to join a convent.

Shown the door at every convent, a story goes that a totally desolate Rita was helped by an unknown person, in the dark of the night, to get into a convent. Unable to shake Rita’s determination in abandoning her spiritual thoughts, the head nun then decided to test Rita. Handing over a dry stick and asking Rita to plant and water it every day until it sprouted life, the head nun thus planned in shunting Rita out of the convent.

Rita, a story goes, planted the dry twig and watered it devotedly every day praying to the Lord for a miracle.

Strange are the ways of the Almighty…for to everybody’s surprise, the dry twig took root and turned green, blooming into a full plant complete with fruits. Rita was admitted to the convent where she spent the rest of her life living according to the will of her Lord.

So intense was her compassion to the lord that she felt she had to share in his suffering. The Lord granted her wish by gifting her with the miracle of experiencing the agony of the crown of thorns. It is believed that while praying, a thorn from the cross hit and cut her forehead creating a wound. This wound was to remain until her death at the age of 66.

Rita’s body untouched by corruption and everybody was left baffled when her uncorrupted body was recovered from the grave.

In 1474, the process of her beatification started and her devotees built up the chapel in 1577 in her honor.  Her incorrupt body was then shifted to the chapel in 1595 where her devotees asked the bishop for special permission to serve masses in her honor.

The bishop in 1655 appointed her as the Patroness of the Church. Then in Rome and a confreira was also established in her name.

But disaster struck and in 1703 a frightful earthquake struck the land destroying the chapel. Her body was then removed and kept in the convent.

In 1724, another church was built in her honor in Brazil. The process of her canonization began in 1737 and in 1741 her body was checked for the signs of decay. Thereafter it was proven and intently placed in the church. The lengthy process of her canonization was completed in 1851, almost 39 years after she died.

The whole process of her canonization was sent to Rome in 1968 to Pope Leao the XIII proclaimed Rita a saint.

It was an ecstatic moment for her ardent devotees who had prayed for her beatification. Till today her body is kept in a special casket untouched by the forces of nature.

The feast of St Rita is celebrated exactly three weeks before lent. In Goa, among the many churches narrated after her, is the church at Maina Curtorim which is dedicated to the great saint. According to Reverent Fr Diogo Fernandes, the parish priest of the Maina church, the villagers celebrate this feast with great pomp and fervor. “Every year a president is chosen and he celebrates the feast in a grand manner,” he says. The Spanish call St Rita ‘the deliverer of difficult favors’ for her miracles. At Maina-Curtorim, the feast is celebrated after nine days of novenas. This year the feast is celebrated on January 19 this Sunday.

And as we celebrate the feast, this great saint, let us endear and relive the way St Rita spent her life doing good to others, especially the downtrodden.