Life of St. Rita of Cascia, O.S.A.: from the ItalianConnolly, R. Hugh (Richard Hugh)
Religion
Life of St. Rita of Cascia, O.S.A.: from the Italian
Connolly, R. Hugh (Richard Hugh)
Christian saints -- Italy -- Cascia -- Biography; Rita, of Cascia, Saint, 1381?-1457
We are forced to think that something similar must have been the case
with those who have received extraordinary favours and graces through
the invocation and protection of Rita. For, on the one hand, the
constant appeals of the faithful for her intercession, the numerous
triduums and novenas which the sick cause to be celebrated in many
places in order to be cured of their diseases, and the fame which is
spread throughout the earth of the benefits she has conferred and the
miracles she has worked, show with sufficient clearness the truth of
them and their frequency. But, on the other hand, there are few who
give full praise to God by publishing the wonderful works He has done
in honour of His beloved, or, at most, they content themselves with
hanging a tablet or votive offering on her altars. The present author,
too, may perhaps be not altogether free from fault, for he confesses in
his nothingness that he has neither sufficient zeal, nor correspondence
sufficiently wide, to enable him to know all the facts. Nevertheless,
we shall for the last time, for the glory of God and of Rita, relate a
few of the more striking miracles we have been able to gather, and
which seem best authenticated.
When we were speaking of the marvels done through such relics of the
saint as the portions of the veil or by the use of the little loaves,
we took occasion to mention some miracles that took place after the
time of her beatification, and now, in order to avoid repetition and to
pass over what is hidden in the obscurity of a period long past, we
shall confine our attention to the century in which the cause of her
canonization was resumed.
A youth of fifteen years, by name Francesco Cavalieri of Cascia, was in
the year 1746 confined to his bed by gangrene of the leg, which had
broken out in five different places, and was so bad that the surgeons
had resolved to amputate the limb. His father thereupon made a vow to
the saint, who heard his prayer, and deigned to appear to the sick
youth, first in the silence of the night, and again at dawn, telling
him to get up and go to her church. He went as told by the saint, and
was restored to perfect health.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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