St. Rita of Cascia
The saint people go to when it is genuinely too late.
Rita wanted to be a nun from the time she was small, and her parents married her off instead, to a hard man in the middle of a family feud. She stayed for eighteen years and she was, by every account, kind to him the entire time. Near the end, he changed.
When he was killed anyway, their two sons started planning revenge, the way everyone in that valley did. Rita could not talk them out of it, so she prayed that God would stop them however He had to. Both boys got sick and died before they could do it. People still find that prayer hard to hear.
She asked to enter the convent at Cascia and was refused three times, because the sisters were related to the men her family was feuding with. She got the two families to make peace first. Then they let her in.
St. Rita of Cascia facts for kids
- Patron of impossible causes, alongside St. Jude
- She was turned away from the convent three times before they let her in
- She got two feuding families to reconcile as her entrance requirement
- Roses bloom for her feast, from a story about her asking for one in January
Feast day: May 22 · Patron of impossible causes
St. Rita, when it looks finished, remind me that it might not be.