​Written by  Fr. Dennis O'Neill

Rita (Margarita) Lotti was born at Rocca Porena, in the diocese of Spoleto in 1381. The first half of her life was hard and bitter. At the age of twelve, she was married to Paolo Ferdinando. The eighteen years of her marriage produced two sons and a veritable martyrdom for Rita, resulting from Paolo's violent and quarrelsome nature and the physical abuse with which he frequently rewarded his refined and prayerful wife. Shortly before his politically motivated assassination, his disposition was completely transformed, due to her patience and her prayers. For a short time, the household was an ideal one. When her two sons came of age, they vowed to avenge his death. She prayed that, somehow, God would prevent them from ever doing such a thing. God took them both from the world in their youth, fully reconciled to God. 

With her husband and boys dead, Rita gave all she had to the poor and sought the life of a religious. She soon took the veil in the Augustinian convent at Cascia, where by continued entreaties, she gained admission. By mortification and prayer, she attained to great sanctity and acquired many mystical gifts. Inspired by a sermon preached by St. James of the Marches, she implored God for some participation in Christ's sufferings and was divinely accorded a thorn wound in her forehead, which festered and produced such an offensive odor that the next fifteen years of her life were spent in prayerful seclusion. Three days before her death at the age of seventy-six in 1457, she was blessed with a vision of Our Lord and his Holy Mother. When she died on May 22, her cell was filled with an extraordinary perfume, and an astounding light emanated from the wound in her forehead.

The numerous miracles which occurred after her death and her sweetly-perfumed body, which scented the entire church where she lay exposed, induced the civil and ecclesiastical authorities to install her remains in a place accessible to pilgrims, who constantly visited the bier.  Rita's beatification was pronounced in 1627, in a ceremony conducted by Pope Urban VIII. Immediately prior to this declaration, the body was carefully examined and found to be as perfect as it had been on the day of her death, with the flesh still a natural color. The excellent condition of her body after a lapse of over 15o years seemed quite extraordinary, since it was never embalmed nor properly entombed. About the time of her beatification, her eyes are supposed to have opened unaided, the miraculous occurrence of which is reported to have quelled a riot. The eyes seem to have remained open for quite some time, as paintings executed during this time indicate. The body was also seen to move to one side and, after a lapse of some years, to have changed position to the other side. At the time of Rita's canonization in 1900, she was declared the patroness of impossible and desperate cases. She has always also been venerated as the patroness of abused spouses and those in difficult marriages. 

St. Rita's body today appears only slightly discolored and is perfect in all its members, except for one eyebrow, which moved in its position around the year 1650, and a right cheekbone, which became dislodged. These were repaired with wax and string, as the two medical examinations of 1743 and 1892 indicate. Our new reliquary was certified in 1800 and contains relics from her hair, a fabric imbued with her blood, a linen, her dust, her ashes, a silk fabric, part of her belt, and part of her shroud. Her feast day is May 22. ​

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