The trials were severe enough which our heroine had to undergo from the society of an irascible husband, whose virtue was none of the most steadfast, but they were redoubled by the evil inclinations she saw appear in her children, and their hatred of all good instruction. The citizens of the heavenly kingdom, whilst they live in this world amongst the sinful and the wicked, must, as St. Augustine teaches, be tossed about by temptations, in order that they may keep themselves in the practice of virtue, and be proved as gold is proved in the crucible. Tried by such afflictions, Rita seemed to have come to such a pass that she could do nothing else than, with the prophet, raise her pure hands to heaven night and day, to seek in God alone some relief in her troubles and some defence against the evils of her house.[1] If ever she deemed it necessary to have recourse to prayer, now assuredly was a time that called for redoubled prayer and the greatest fervour. She therefore prayed without ceasing. Her continued meditations on the sufferings of our Lord was a relief in her distress; frequent communion brought comfort to her troubled state, and her particular devotion to our Blessed Lady, consoler of the afflicted, to St. John the Baptist, St. Augustine, and St. Nicholas of Tolentine, often brought forgetfulness of her woes. Women of the world enduring the like suffering and trouble would deem themselves dispensed from the practice of any other mortification, and in their love of ease, which readily flatters them, would find a thousand pretexts to exempt themselves even from the fasts that are commanded. But Rita, who was in the world but not of it, far from suspending the acts of penitence she was used to practise before her marriage, took refuge in works of greater austerity, in abstinence and fastings and in chastising her body. In spite of these acts of mortification, she still had sufficient strength and vigour to attend to all the needs of her house and assist the wants of her neighbours; she relieved the necessities of the poverty stricken, and with her own hands prepared food for them; by the bedsides of the sick she was unwearying, and, in a word, made herself all things to all men. When she had to appear abroad, either in the performance of her works of charity or to be present at the Divine mysteries in the church, her angelic modesty and the goodness and interior peace which shone in her countenance served to edify all who saw her. These were her adornments, not the trappings of worldly show, which from childhood she abhorred, and which were more detestable in her eyes now that she had advanced so far on the way of perfection. She carefully avoided all unbecoming neglect in dress, and appeared in a garb free from everything savouring of vanity, not to say indecency—such a dress as would escape the eyes of the curious, and which, instead of luxuriousness, showed a contempt of the present life, and was exactly what necessity and Christian humility required. In her intercourse with others, whilst always well-mannered and agreeable, she possessed singular tact in avoiding all conversations which were not of God or of works of corporal or spiritual mercy to her neighbours. No one ever heard from her lips any of those complaints against her husband which are so frequent when women meet together. If ever any of her female acquaintances who knew how she was treated by her ill-tempered husband tried to provoke her to complain by affected pity, as grumbling women not unfrequently did, she either turned the conversation to another subject or covered her husband's faults with the mantle of charity, and thereby gave a practical example of virtue which her neighbours might to their advantage imitate. In brief, St. Rita was another St. Monica: she was the strong woman of the parables of Solomon, and was in all respects the best model for married women.
[1] Ps. lxxvi. 2.
Rita had succeeded, as we have said, in assuaging the cruelty that seemed to have been natural to her husband. The means she employed to effect this change were the gentle manner which she naturally possessed, and which Divine grace made still more gentle; the good advice she ever gave, her kindness and unwearying patience, her good example, and, above all, her fervent prayers. But whether it was that his enemies, brooding over old causes of hate, resolved to take revenge for past offences, or that Ferdinand, in a fresh outburst of passion, had exposed himself to new quarrels and new dangers, the fact remains that when he had lived eighteen years with Rita he was barbarously murdered a short distance outside Rocca Porena (the place where the unfortunate victim fell is still shown). Hardly had the report of his tragic death reached the ears of his widowed spouse than, despite her magnanimous heart, she paid the tribute of nature in an outburst of bitter, scalding tears. In the depths of her heart the holy woman felt the wounds that had taken from her side the husband she loved. But the thoughts that made her weep were not thoughts of temporal losses, or of her sorrow, or of being left alone to provide for her family, or of having to dwell with undutiful children with no one to support her. Far other sadder and more serious considerations were breaking her heart. A little human feeling and a weak grasp of faith are enough to fill us with horror at hearing of a violent death. We may, then, easily imagine what grief Rita felt as she considered in the light of her lively faith all the evil on the one part and the other that may have preceded and accompanied that homicidal attempt, or as she dwelt on the uncertainty of pardon or of her husband's penitence, or his having to appear before his Judge without having received the last Sacraments. Nevertheless, that lively faith which made her feel doubly the crushing force of the calamity that had overtaken her soon raised her above herself, above death and every human consideration. She raised the eyes of her soul to heaven and remembered, and was sure that Divine Providence, whose designs are inscrutable, not only disposes all the good that is done, but permits all the evil which comes from man's free-will. This thought sufficed to bow her down before the throne of the Divine Majesty, to adore His just judgments, and hence came comfort to her bruised heart. The saints have no need of the barren consolations of the world; they find in religion that comfort which reason alone can never give. Our noble heroine did not for a moment hesitate to pardon sincerely from her heart the murderers of her unfortunate husband, but, mindful of the example of Jesus Christ, who prayed to the Eternal Father for those who crucified Him, and of St. Stephen, who interceded for those who were stoning him to death, she too offered fervent supplications to the Divine Mercy for those cruel murderers.
Hardly had Rita raised her mind above the stormy sea of her sorrows than a new trouble appeared to afflict her. She perceived with consternation that her sons, although yet of tender years, were plotting vengeance against those who were guilty of their father's blood. The afflicted widow exerted all her force by word and deed to excite in them sentiments of resignation and of forgiveness and of Christian charity. She ceased not to keep before their minds the eternal maxims, the fear of judgment and of hell, the examples of the saints, and especially the example of our crucified Redeemer, who, in the extremity of His sufferings, interceded for His inhuman executioners. She took care, too, immediately to remove out of the sight of her sons the bloody garments of her slain husband. But in spite of all her advice and solicitude, the sorrowing mother could not touch her children's vengeful hearts, or, if she did succeed in softening them, it was but for a moment they abandoned their wicked intentions. Amidst circumstances of such distress, and oppressed by her fears, the unhappy widow knew not whither to turn, and on earth she found only subjects of sorrow and vestiges of sin. She turned her weeping eyes once more to heaven, and there again she found the greatest comfort in her sufferings. Although she was a mother, and had a mother's affectionate heart, yet because she loved and sought God's honour more than her own flesh and blood, like a noble Christian heroine, she supplicated the Lord either to change her children's hearts or to take them out of this world before they could accomplish the vengeance they were meditating. Rita's vows were acceptable to heaven, and to her was granted to complete Abraham's sacrifice in a new way—for the patriarch's knife was arrested in mid-air, and Isaac was saved; but she saw her two sons fall one after another victims to her prayers that pierced the heavens. Thus we may well hope that the most merciful Lord provided for their eternal salvation during their mortal illness, and then took them, lest wickedness should alter their understanding,[1] and at the same time provided for the mother by opening to her a way into a new life far removed from the world and so long the object of her wishes, a life altogether spiritual and by anticipation blessed. The brave woman did not weep, and although at the time of her husband's tragic end she was dissolved in tears through fear about the salvation of his soul and the souls of his murderers, yet at the deaths of her children she only thanked her God who had taken them away from the dangers of sin and the risk of another more dreadful death—that of the soul.
It is difficult to discover how long Rita had to struggle with her vengeful children, or how long she remained in the world after they had passed to eternity. It seems certain, however, that the time she lived as a widow was short. But we know that during that period she placed all her confidence in God, and that she was engaged night and day in the practice of most perfect prayer,[2] according to St. Paul's instruction to widows. She bore the cross with Jesus Christ, and lived a life of perpetual self-denial. More than ever she kept her body in subjection by scourgings and continued fasting, and she distributed to the poor that part of her food which her abstinence spared. She rejoiced in performing works of mercy, and was, in a word, all love towards God and her neighbour, and in no way solicitous about herself. Amongst other instances of her heroic charity we read that, happening one day upon a poor man half naked and trembling with cold, she took one of her own garments and gave it to him, and went on her way rejoicing that God had given her the opportunity and the grace to deprive herself of what she herself needed in order to help one of the poor of the Lord. Her dress was of coarse serge, and was a dark blue in colour, and during the severity of the winter she added a rough cloak. She always wore sackcloth that she might always be doing penance. In retirement alone she found her consolation and joy; and no sooner were her children dead than her old burning desire to enclose herself once for all within the cherished shadows of the cloister sprang into life again. We may relate an incident which gave a new impetus to her vocation, as it is told by an ancient writer: Having gone one day from Rocca Porena to Cascia, she went into the church of the Augustinian nuns whilst Mass was being said, and there she felt as if those words of our Saviour were being imprinted on her mind, 'I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life'—words which then passed into her heart to pierce it with the Divine love which spoke to her and invited her.
We may well believe, too, that the worthy examples of other female saints then living or but recently gone to their reward offered new arguments to urge her not to delay entering on a conventual life. The memory of St. Bridget of Sweden and Blessed Angela of Foligno was still recent, whilst St. Margaret of Monferrato and St. Frances of Rome were then still living, all of them illustrious women raised up by God, as Rita was in Cascia, to oppose and bear testimony against the corruption of those times, and all of them predestined to become models to the virgins of the cloister after having adorned in the world the three states of virginity, married life and widowhood. But even without these examples Rita was sufficiently conscious of the interior voice of her heavenly Spouse, and she readily prepared to obey it. Thus Abraham had hardly heard the angel's voice when he arose in the darkness of the night and went to sacrifice his son; the shepherds who were watching their flocks when they heard the announcement of the Divine Infant's birth ran to offer Him their homage; the Magi, as soon as they saw the new star, did not hesitate to undertake their long journey to adore the King of kings in His swaddling-clothes; the Apostles, at the first call of the Redeemer, left their nets and followed Him; the head of the Apostles, Peter, at a sign from the angel, rose quickly from his broken chains; so Rita determined to hide herself without delay in that sacred retreat where her Divine Lover was awaiting her. That retreat, as we have said, was the convent in Cascia of the nuns who follow the rule of the great Augustine, who were called at that time nuns of St. Mary Magdalen, from the ancient title of their church, and who were remarkable for strict observance. We have said before that the Augustinian Order flourished there not only in the convent of the nuns, but in the wonderful sanctity of the worthy followers of the Blessed Simon, Blessed Ugolino, and Blessed John and Simon, all of whom had dwelt in the woods of Cascia. This, too, must have been a strong attraction to our saint, and a further inducement to fix her mind unchangeably on Cascia. The memory of the heroic virtues practised by St. Nicholas of Tolentine, her special advocate, was still fresh in the minds of men, and the fame of his stupendous miracles had spread throughout the land. But the principal motive why she sought to wear the habit of St. Augustine was that God in His inscrutable decrees had called her to that state by the loving invitations of His grace. The pious widow approached the nuns, and, throwing herself at their feet, in simple words and with all the fervour of her heart expressed her desire to serve God within their walls and in that penitential garb they wore. But her request was vain; it was not thought convenient to receive a widow in a convent intended for virgins, and it was against their custom. Rita took her refusal patiently, but she did not lose courage, and, like Abraham, she hoped against hope.[3] Some time after she went back again, represented that she had a vocation, renewed her prayers and sighs; but she was rejected a second and, again, a third time. But the more the nuns persisted in refusing her admission, the more did Rita acquire the merit of humility, patience, and unalterable confidence in God. She attributed her refusal to her own unworthiness, and in her self-contempt she more and more conformed herself to her model, Jesus. This was the manner of life which Rita led in the world, where she was a mirror of every virtue to virgins, to the married, and to widows. We shall see how she became an example of sanctity to religious in the cloister.
[1] Wisd. of Sol. iv. ii.
[2] 1 Tim. v. 5.
[3] Rom. iv. 18.
END OF PART I
Part II
RITA IN THE CLOISTER
All Rita's thoughts and all her affections were centred in heaven, and the reason why she desired to lead a more perfect life in the cloister was thereby to make more certain of attaining the object of her desires. But the world in that century of wickedness was engaged about far different things; the vortex of worldly hopes and ambitions had engulfed almost all the aspirations of men. In the East, rapine, vice, violence, murder, irreligion, and a long train of irreparable wrongs, had followed quickly upon the victories of Sultan Bajazet and the defeats of the Emperor Emmanuel. The prolonged war was still being waged in the German Empire between Sigismund and the rebellious Hussites, who despised human life in their endeavours to spread their heresy and profane and overthrow the altar. The government of the Church, then under Pope John XXIII., was most violently harassed by the anti-Pope Pietro di Luna, whose contumacy the Council of Constance failed to break down, as the Council of Pisa had failed before. Italy continued to be the laughing-stock of tyrants and of the resuscitated factions of the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. Of the two Visconti who governed the Cisalpine province, one was the slave of his vices and the other was the prisoner of his rebellious subject Facino Cane, tyrant of Alexandria, who was the formidable chief of a marauding band and the despoiler of the province. The tyrannous usurpations of Ottobono in Parma, Da Vignate in Lodi, Fondolo in Cremona, and Malatesta in Brescia still continued. The Romagna and the Marshes enjoyed no higher degree of liberty or prosperity under the yoke of despotism. The factions of Durozzo and of Anjou still disputed possession of the kingdom of Naples, and the ambitious Ladislaus, with designs on the whole Italian peninsula, began to threaten Rome with the fugitive Pontiff. The republics of Venice, Genoa, Florence, and Siena were either plotting against one another or actually at war. Cascia was the only one of the republics that had begun to taste the almost forgotten fruits of peace. But neither in Cascia nor elsewhere were good morals to be found; they seemed to have barely secured a refuge in the cloisters. Hence Rita was sighing night and day for the sacred shelter, and although she had till then bloomed as a stainless lily among thorns, yet she did not consider that she could live secure in the danger-laden atmosphere that surrounded her. But how could she aspire to a cloistered life when all hope seemed futile after the repulses she had received? Yet to that life she aspired, and not in vain. For those undertakings which seem arduous and sometimes impossible become not only practicable, but easy to heroic faith. The invitations which Divine grace held out to her and the refusals with which Rita was met by the nuns were nothing more than the loving pleasantries of her heavenly Spouse, and but trials of her virtue and constancy. Therefore the more her wishes were frustrated, the more frequent became her prayers and the more fervent the sighs of her heart. She had recourse, too, to the mediation of the saints, and did not fear to make herself importunate to her protectors, St. John the Baptist, St. Augustine, and St. Nicholas. And the measure of the effect which her prayers produced was, as St. Augustine teaches, the fervour of the love that preceded them. She merited the favour she sought, and received it. Here is how the incident is related by the writers of her life:
The saint was one night kneeling on the ground, rapt in prayer, her hands extended to heaven after her usual manner and as the royal prophet teaches, when she suddenly heard a knocking at the door of her house, and someone calling out her name. The first feeling of the lonely widow was one of trouble and fear, but she invoked the Divine assistance, took courage, and went to the window—but nothing was to be seen or heard. She returned to her prayer, but was interrupted by the same unknown voice calling her. Her fear increased, but she went to the window again—and again there was only darkness and silence without. She then began to think it might be some trick of the devil, and, puzzled between doubt and fear, she threw herself at the feet of Jesus Christ, and besought Him more fervently to enlighten and to help her, and that He would be pleased to make known His Divine will, whether what she had experienced was a delusion of the devil or a voice from heaven. Her short prayer was so pleasing to God that Rita soon felt herself rapt in ecstasy, and then she saw and heard clearly, and her fear was changed into joyful consolation. She saw her three holy patrons, and heard the joyous words with which the spouse of the Canticles called his beloved, 'Arise, make haste, my love, and come—come, for it is time at last to enter the cloister from which thou hast been repulsed so many times.' As soon as these words had been uttered, the rapture of her ecstasy ceased, but she still retained, deeply impressed on her mind, a vivid picture of the entire vision. Then, by a Divine impulse, she went to the window a third time, and, enlightened by God, she saw, to her great surprise, a person of venerable aspect, who invited her by signs to follow him. Whether he appeared in his usual rough vesture of woven camel-hair, or clad in skins, or in other guise, we know not, but for certain it was no other than St. John the Precursor, as Rita was not slow to recognise, and he it was who was so clearly manifested to her in the preceding vision. She felt her heart overflowing with rapture, and hastened to obey the signs of her heavenly guide. Hardly had she reached the spot where he stood than her astonishment and joy were still further increased, for there, at either side of her great protector, stood her other patrons, Augustine and Nicholas, both ready and prepared to escort her towards the fate she desired so ardently for herself. It will not be out of place to remark here that the house in which Rita dwelt and out of which she went on the night in which these extraordinary events occurred was built at the base of a steep shelf of rock anciently called the 'Gun' of Rocca Porena, and which it was almost impossible to climb. Yet, leaving the usual road, it was by way of this rock that her sainted guides led Rita, perhaps to indicate to her by the precipitous nature of the place the steepness of the mountain of monastic perfection which she was destined to scale, and by the chasm below the terrible nature of a fall from grace. Rita was seized by sudden fear at the sight here presented to her, but Divine grace and her holy companions brought her comfort, and enabled her to rise superior to herself, so that she mounted fearlessly through the darkness of the night over the rough stones and trunks of fallen trees till she reached the highest point of that beetling rock, which is now called the 'Saint's Rock,' from so memorable an occurrence. If the ascent of the rock is difficult, the descent on the side of Cascia is quite impossible, from whence it is believed that when the four saints had accomplished the difficult ascent they were either borne through the air from mountain to mountain, or else passed without pause to their intended goal, as if to signify the liberty enjoyed by all who reach the highest point of perfection and have climbed the mount of God. However the authors may differ in minor points in describing this event, we may well judge that everything connected with it is miraculous, as Rita's entry into the convent was also miraculous, for she entered whilst the gates were closed, or through a gate opened for her and closed when she had passed the portals by an invisible hand.
When Rita found herself within the sacred enclosure where she had so ardently desired to be, her glorious escort disappeared in a moment from sight, and she was abandoned and left all alone in the darkness, and had to pass the remainder of the night in an ecstasy of wonder, but tossed about on a sea of uncertainty by the rush of the thoughts that filled her mind. The nuns rose in the early morning to sing the praises of the Lord, and what was their surprise when they saw within their convent, and trembling with fright, the humble widow whom they had repeatedly rejected! They plied her with questions, and Rita replied simply and modestly by describing the whole history of the miraculous occurrence of the night. For the last time she begged them with the greatest fervour not to reject her any longer—and how could they refuse her in the face of so evident a miracle? The nuns, therefore, with common consent and unusual applause, received the holy widow into their number, and after joining with her in thanking and praising the Most High, they put on her their penitential habit, and admitted her to the novitiate with all solemnity and every mark of general satisfaction. The nuns were delighted at the turn of events, and Rita's joy exceeded all bounds, till, comparing her unworthiness with the great goodness of God, she was abashed before Him. The more she thought on the greatness of the remarkable favours conferred on her, the more profound did her humility become, and she poured forth a thousand times her tribute of gratitude to heaven, but could never find words or thoughts able to express the thanks she owed to Divine Providence.
This miraculous entry into the convent occurred during the unhappy years we have before described, or about the year 1413, when Rita was nearly thirty-two years of age; for she was married in her thirteenth year, and lived eighteen years with her husband, and was a widow for about a year, when her second son died; whilst the interval between that event and her entry to the convent, the period of her repeated rejections, must have been short. In the same year the Augustinian Order could boast of another splendid addition to its members, for the reception of Alexander Oliva, called the Blessed, occurred then. He afterwards reached the highest honours within the Order, and was raised to the dignity of Cardinal before he passed to the glory he had prepared for himself in heaven. But the Order has greater reason to be proud of Rita's reception, because, although her life was passed in obscurity and far from the eyes of the world, it certainly was not less bright with the splendour of the Saints, and after death she has acquired more of the veneration of the faithful.
From her early youth Rita had a great longing for a solitary life, but now that the Omnipotent God had placed her in the convent she had no further reason to sigh for the deserts of the Jordan, the solitudes of Tagaste, the silence of Valmanente, the groves of her native place, or any other home of hermits. The cloister constituted the fulfilment of all her desires, and her only remaining anxiety was to emulate the great virtues of her three holy patrons, the blessed hermits of Cascia, and the other holy ones whose lives had made the glory of the solitudes. To say truth, it must have cost her very little labour to follow in their footsteps, for there was no need for her to change her habits and manners when she put off a secular dress for the garb of a nun, and she had but to live the remainder of her life as she had hitherto lived in order to reach the highest point of perfection. Jesus Christ teaches us that the surest way of attaining perfection is by renouncing all earthly possessions, and our saint, although she had always lived completely detached from worldly things, hastened to practise the Saviour's teaching in the most effectual manner by distributing all her slender fortune amongst the poor. Thus, without property, without husband or children, and far from her relatives, Rita rejoiced to be an abject slave in the house of the King of Peace, and deemed herself to enjoy a nobler freedom, more ample wealth, and a happier lot than they who dwell in the sumptuous tabernacles of sinners surrounded by the riches, the pomp, and the glory of this world.
No one can tell us better than her companions in religion how she lived during the year of her noviceship, and they were astonished and confused at what they observed in her, and from the first regarded her as a model of the purest and most tried virtue. Poverty, chastity, and obedience had nothing to alarm her, for she was long accustomed to live in poverty in Rocca Porena; her body she had crucified with Christ in God; and she had lived subject not only to her prudent parents, but to a cruel husband. So also had the other virtues which she practised in her noviceship become familiar to her in the world, if we except alone some prescribed corporal penances and the more abundant prayers which she was enabled to offer. Nothing else regarding her can be established from the scanty memorials of those obscure times, and we only know that as the time of noviceship went on she persevered in those holy practices of extraordinary piety and austere penance, and prepared to bind herself to her God with stronger ties on the day of her new regeneration. The learned Cardinal Seripando and others call the day of the formal profession of monastic vows the day of new regeneration, for through the sacrifice then made of one's will, of bodily pleasures, and of property, the total remission of all punishment due to sin may be merited. That day at length arrived, and the holy novice, having first made a rigorous examination of her whole life and marked all the stains on her pure conscience, which she removed by the fire of her sorrow and the blood of Jesus Christ, presented herself before the altar to vow perpetual observance of the evangelical counsels. She had no hesitation in placing her hand on the holy Rule of the great Augustine, for her heroic trust in the assistance of grace gave her courage, and for the rest, although the Rule may seem severe to the minds of worldlings, the saints regard it but as a law of love, and a cord to unite souls to God. Therefore Rita preferred this sweet servitude to all the kingdoms of earth, and considered herself the happiest of women since she had at last reached the goal towards which from her earliest years she had felt herself drawn by heaven's gentle violence.
The exact date of the profession is unknown, but it very probably took place when Fr. Pietro di Vena Tolosano was General of the Order, and he succeeded in that office Fr. Saracini, who was from Rocca Porena, and who had been made Bishop of Macerata. The date of profession would therefore be about 1414. History leaves us to imagine also the feelings of the newly-professed nun, but we may well judge from her past that that solemn day was one of an outpouring of love and gratitude to God. But of one incident connected with the day we are informed, and it is that whilst Rita, never satisfied that she had sufficiently extolled the goodness of the Lord, was still kneeling late at night before the crucifix, she suddenly felt herself ravished out of her senses into a state of sublime ecstasy. She thereupon saw in spirit what was given Jacob to see in a dream—a ladder that reached from earth to heaven, and angels ascending and descending by it, and at the summit our Lord, who was inviting her to ascend. We may believe that this was the mystic ladder of charity, whose steps, as St. Augustine says, God Himself prepares, so that those chosen souls which He wishes to exalt may ascend by them, and at whose top He stands to await them at the term of their journey to receive and introduce them into the possession of heaven. But no one could penetrate its meaning better than the ecstatic Rita. The holy woman awoke from her ecstasy enlightened by these heavenly instructions, and came out of the light of God to seek Him again and follow His leading with greater anxiety amidst the darkness of our mortal state.
What constitutes the greatness of the mystic city, the new Jerusalem, is not the number and variety of its inhabitants, or the fame of great undertakings, but charity alone. In fact, the Virgin Mary was exalted above all the choirs of heaven, and St. John the Baptist was called the greatest of the saints even before the testimony at the Jordan, although their lives were nothing more than a continuous exercise of charity. Hence, coming to speak of Rita, if she had charity she possessed all things,[1] since the fulness of the law is charity, and if she had it in an eminent degree she was a great saint, for perfect charity is perfect justice.[2] This is the sublime principle which St. Augustine, himself a great master of charity and evangelical perfection, proposes in that golden Rule of his, which so many religious Orders have adopted, and which Rita observed to the last letter—a principle which, as Blessed Alphonsus of Oroza says, is a summary of the entire Christian religion, and which at the same time proves the excellence and the adaptability of the Rule to all ages.
It was to the attainment of charity that Rita even before her profession, but more determinedly afterwards, gave her undivided attention, and employed all the affections of her heart and the powers of her mind. We leave it to others to describe her heroic faith and hope; for us it will be enough to treat of that virtue which presupposes the other two—embraces them and gives them their life. The first proof that one possesses this virtue is fulfilling the will of God by observing His holy law, as Jesus Christ taught us when He said: 'He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them: he it is that loveth Me. And He that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him.'[3] Now, all those who have written the life of our saint and the evidence of tradition regarding her assure us that she observed with the utmost exactness all the commandments of God, the precepts of the Church, and the commands of her superiors. The very manner with which she observed these precepts was perfect, for she always obeyed cheerfully, and with joy readily and exactly sought to anticipate commands, and to exceed in fulfilling them. And this exact observance was extended not only to what is of command, but to the evangelical counsels also, and yet so light to her was the weight of this burden that she took upon herself very many works of supererogation to give an outlet to her burning piety. She was the first to rise from her bed at midnight, the first at prayer, in the choir, at instruction, at penitential observances and the works of mercy, in obedience, first at all the duties of the community, in which latter she was always best pleased the meaner the office entrusted to her to perform. In the midst of her uninterrupted occupations and vigils she had no other thought than to find the safest ways of seconding the holy will of God, a thought that produced in her that holy fear which is the offspring of love. She was always afraid of offending her most loving God even in the slightest matter, and so fearsome of it was she that the very name of sin was a horror to her. Hence, to remove as far as possible all danger of sin, she imposed on herself a law of rigorous silence, for she knew the truth of the saying of St. James the Apostle, that 'if any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man.'[4] In order more easily to carry out her design she remained shut up in her cell alone with her agonized Spouse Jesus, like a 'dove in the clefts of the rock, in the hollow places of the wall.'[5] She never left her cell except to find her sovereign good either in the Blessed Sacrament or amongst the poor and sick, or in such other works of charity as her state permitted her to perform. Even in circumstances such as these she was on her guard to utter no word that she had not weighed well, and it is said of her that she even used to keep a pebble in her mouth to remind her to preserve the silence she loved.
Sometimes, of course, she had to speak, through necessity or politeness, or for convenience' sake, and in such cases her words were in accord with the feelings of her heart, and hence, since she was all spirit, her discourses were on things of the spirit; she was all charity, and her speech therefore tended to the greater glory of God and the salvation of her neighbours. She was not wanting in that easy fluency which springs from the heart and can reach hearts, which is proper to the saints and inspires sanctity, which feeds on love and draws souls to God. Whether Rita possessed this honied eloquence from the time the wonderful bees appeared over her cradle, or acquired it by the practice of the greatest charity towards her neighbour, only God, who gave it to her, knows. We only know that she made use of the opportunities which this gift afforded her to give advice to doubting souls, to comfort the pusillanimous, to console the afflicted, to bring back the erring to the way of salvation, to practise these and other works of mercy with that happy success which the Giver of every good gift was wont to grant her.
Amongst her wonderful deeds of charity we find it recorded that having heard of two persons of the town who had been long living in a state of sin, and were thereby the cause of great public scandal, she wept for their sins, and then determined on the difficult task of making them separate and leading them to repent. Rita had had too many proofs of the Divine goodness not to be confident of success in her present undertaking. She first had recourse to prayer and to penance, which she offered in union with the sufferings of Jesus Christ for the conversion of the sinners, and then had each of the scandal-givers brought to her in turn, and, alone with them, by her gentle insinuating manner she brought them to see their deplorable condition, and she had the happiness of seeing them shed tears of compunction and afterwards perform constant penance for their past transgressions. In very truth, such evils as those under which these two sinners laboured were what excited Rita's greatest compassion, but she was by no means wanting in compassion for those suffering from bodily ills, nor was her fervent charity slow in coming to their assistance. Never was anyone ill in the convent whom Rita did not nurse, often for whole days and nights. She saw in the sick Jesus Christ Himself, and therefore delighted to be by their bedsides. She pitied them, and sought to soothe their pains by the sweet considerations which religion, and especially the Passion of Christ, inspired her. With her own hands she gladly rendered them every service, even the meanest and most nauseating, and for this blessed work of charity she did not hesitate to forsake her usual devotional practices, and feared not to leave God for God's work. In a word, she was all things to all, for, as St. Paul, too, had experienced, her compassion made the infirmities of the suffering her own. And therefore all those who died in the convent during her forty years of life in it had the happiness of having her for their attendant and consoler, and drew their last breath in her holy arms, reclining against her tender heart. Her very charity was the reason which condemned her for many years to a total separation from her beloved sisters in religion, lest, as we shall tell later, the offensive odour of a sore on her forehead, by which she was afflicted, might render her presence disagreeable to them. She then saw very well that she had become almost an outcast from the community, but she felt no resentment on that account, but lived as an exile, contented in her cell, since she knew that she was no inconvenience to her neighbour, and gave no offence to God. She even rejoiced in her humiliation and in her infirmities and her separation from creatures. We omit many other proofs of the greatness of the charity to God and her neighbour which filled Rita's heart. In order to know her charity we have but to recall how she lived with a cruel and ferocious husband, how she interceded for his murderers, how she offered her very children as a sacrifice to God, how she devoted her time in the world to deeds and prayers for her neighbour's good. Such was her charity, heartfelt, unbounded, kind, patient, strong, and unconquerable.
Hitherto we have spoken only of Rita's effective or working charity, or, at most, of her love to her neighbour, but what description dare we give of her internal love of God? It would never be possible for us to describe the ardour and fire of love which was ever consuming her heart. How her affections soared towards heaven, how her soul was transformed through Divine love, how the interior life of that seraph of charity was lived, it would be impossible to describe. However, we shall try to convey an idea, though imperfect, of it, especially when we come to speak of her spirit of prayer. Meanwhile, the reader may form some notion of it by gauging the measure of Rita's charity to her neighbour, and from the consideration of what we have hitherto described of a life not only blameless and holy, but everywhere aided and distinguished by heaven's most singular favours.
[1] 1 Cor. xiii.
[2] St. Augustine.
[3] John xiv. 21.
[4] Jas. iii. 2.
[5] Cant. ii. 14.
That truth to which St. Augustine draws our attention in many passages in his works—that charity is the source of all other virtues and their life-giving principle—is confirmed by St. Gregory, who illustrates it by comparing the virtues to the branches of a tree, which all spring from the same root, which root of the virtues is charity. In fact, the virtue of Christian prudence, for example, is nothing else than a continued eagerness, in those who love God, to distinguish good from evil, and to select the fittest means to please the Object of their love, and attain to Him as their last end; justice is but a constant desire in those who love God to render Him the worship due to Him and their neighbour whatever is theirs; temperance is a curb which they who prefer Divine to earthly love employ in order to keep their rebellious appetites under the sweet yoke of that heavenly love; fortitude is but the strength of charity which makes man superior to every trouble and suffering; and the teaching of St. Augustine regarding the other virtues is the same, according to their various natures. Now, if Rita's charity was as great as we have described it, and as we shall afterwards see more clearly, to what a pitch of perfection must she not have reached in her practice of the other virtues!
Prudence, which is the first of the moral virtues, was quite characteristic of Rita, and invariably showed its presence in her exercise of all her other extraordinary gifts. This it was that taught her the saving art of examining and judging rightly and adopting the most suitable means for attaining that better part which, like another Mary, she had irrevocably chosen for herself; this suggested to her the surest method of regulating her conduct, her appetites, and her very works of penance and devotion; this made her sparing of conversation, diligent, circumspect, cautious, compliant and gentle-mannered; and, finally, this virtue, through her long practice of it, or, rather, because its origin is in God, enabled her to give the solidest and holiest counsel to the advantage of her neighbour.
The virtue of justice also shone brightly in her life, for her life was a continuous act of reverential homage to religion, the majesty of God, the greatness of the most holy Virgin Mary, the merits of the Saints, the authority of the Church, the laws of right, of friendship, of gratitude, and of truth.
Nor was she less remarkable for the virtue of temperance, for she had conquered her passions, and kept them subject to the spirit in a way entirely heroic, by her continued rigorous fastings and the uninterrupted practice of the most austere penances. It is wonderful to consider how her virtue of temperance, which increased and waxed strong amidst harsh and stern surroundings of penitential practices, brought in its train a pretty group of gentler virtues—modesty, purity, clemency, meekness, urbanity, graciousness.
Rita's fortitude also, which whilst she lived in the world was extraordinary, increased in the cloister in proportion with her other virtues, if we may not say it surpassed the others, since it was the distinguishing mark of her character. The devil, of course, tried, by insidious suggestions, to tarnish the purity of her heart and inspire her with a love of sensual pleasures and a distaste for perfection; but although his infernal assaults were strong and long continued, our saint, who had prepared her mind against temptation from her youth, and was now become an unconquerable heroine in the army of Christ, was so well able to defend herself and fight valiantly that temptation only served to multiply her triumphs and her laurels. It is said, too, that the tempter, seeing that he failed in his interior assaults, sought to frighten her by horrible phantoms; but in vain, for Rita, by the sign of the Cross, put him to flight, and showed her scorn for him as a powerless enemy. The flesh, too, tried to rebel against the law of the spirit; but the holy woman kept it as a slave in bonds of sackcloth, and brought it into subjection by sanguinary scourgings. Even the little world of her convent tried her virtue in some sense, especially during the years she suffered from the sore on her forehead. But Rita's fortitude made these little trials seem but playful caresses. The pain and the stench of the sore, the inconveniences of her poverty and mortification, the great length of her last illness, and other similar troubles with which the Lord tries the souls that are most acceptable to Him, instead of depressing her were rather as food to strengthen and increase her fortitude, magnanimity, patience, confidence in God, and final perseverance.
With all this precious equipment of wonderful gifts and sublime virtues, Rita had, nevertheless, the meanest opinion of herself, and spoke of herself as if she were the vilest of creatures, thankless for the gifts which Divine goodness had bestowed on her, a miserable sinner, and unworthy to enjoy the companionship of so many sacred virgins of the Lord. She not only spoke in this manner, but wished everyone to have the same opinion which, in her heart, she had of herself. Hence she had a horror of praise, and when at meditation she felt those extraordinary lights and that spiritual ardour which preceded her ecstasies, she used to beseech God that He would condescend so to work in her soul that her companions might not be conscious of it, and might never be led to have a favourable opinion of her. But it was her humility that betrayed her expectations, for the more she humbled herself, the more was she exalted, not only in the eyes of God, but of men, and the deeper she sunk herself in the abyss of lowliness, the higher was raised the edifice of her sanctity.
There is a love which is the soul of every virtue, and another love which is an incentive to every vice; the former we call charity, the latter concupiscence. Charity, since it comes from heaven, has for its aim three noble objects—God, ourselves, and our neighbours. Concupiscence, since it is altogether of the earth, has low aims, which are likewise threefold—the pomp of the world, self-interest, and pleasure. According as one or other of these is stronger in us we attain sanctification and happiness, or spiritual ruin and misery. To destroy the reign of perverse love and these three hostile passions there are no arms more reliable than those which attack their very foundations, and these arms are obedience, poverty, and chastity. These were the arms which Rita continued to wield until she received from her Divine Spouse the eternal crown prepared for her ripe and splendid virtues!
The strongest weapon of the perfect is obedience, and when it is employed by charity it opens up the way to every good object, as, on the other hand, disobedience lays open the way to every evil, visible and invisible, of the world. To begin with the consideration of this great virtue, which Rita made a solemn vow to practise, we can affirm that she possessed it in a most eminent degree. All her actions were so many acts of obedience, or, rather, her whole conventual life was an uninterrupted act of the humblest, truest, and readiest obedience. Following the principles of her enlightened piety, she knew only too well the truth declared to Samuel, that the sacrifice of the will is more acceptable to God than the sacrifice of victims.[1] She always kept before her eyes the example of a God who, for our instruction, willed to live subject to His own creatures. She felt moved to imitate the heroic virtue of so many sainted monks and nuns, and she saw clearly the great advantage which obedience gave in directing our steps through this world of darkness and sin. She therefore subjected herself not only to all the laws of the Gospel, of the Church, of the Rule and Constitutions of her Order, and not only obeyed with respect and alacrity all the commands of the different superiors she had, and carried out the duties of the various offices she filled, but she eagerly desired to subject herself to her equals or juniors in the convent, and sought to anticipate the commands even of these, to follow their counsels and carry out their desires, esteeming herself only as the unworthy servant of all. Virtue so rare deserved to be put to the severest proof, since God often tries the virtue of the pious either Himself or through the means of others.
The trial of Rita's obedience was this: The Prioress, who had observed her great spirit of submission, commanded her to water every day a dried-up tree that was in the convent garden. Rita made no objection against so strange a command; she did not say that such an order was outside the matters to which the Rule obliged her; she did not even submit that it would be time lost, for she was convinced that the time in which any work of obedience is done is time well spent. Therefore, with her will in complete accord with the orders she received, she continued to obey them for several seasons, and in this she was imitating the example of the holy abbot John, of whom we read in the lives of the Fathers that, in order to follow the instructions of his director, he humbled himself so far as to carry a pail of water a considerable distance to water a dry trunk of a tree. So did St. Rita likewise, and not in vain; for so pleasing to God were her acts of heroic obedience that, as tradition tells, the tree bloomed again, and began to bear flowers and fruit, and from that fact it was called the 'Saint's Tree.'
What chiefly concerned her was that her obedience should bear fruit unto eternal life, and hence the love which her heart felt for this beautiful virtue was ever increasing. She therefore sought the approval, direction, and restraining influence of another's will not only in her temporal undertakings, but also in her devotional and penitential exercises. When there was question of going to Rome to gain the indulgences of the jubilee year, and again when she was to be separated during the last years of her life from the pleasant society of her sisters in religion, she allowed no consideration of fervent piety, no personal reluctance, to come between her and her duty towards holy obedience, from which she would not swerve an iota. Thus our saint passed the rest of her life without a will of her own, or, if she had a will, it was one that desired to do nothing except what obedience ordered, in this way making certain of doing the will of God in all things, which was the single object of all her desires. This is how she conquered in herself and annihilated that great predominant passion of man, the love of worldly glory.
She conquered also the second strong passion—love of self-interest—by a generous love of evangelical poverty. We have already remarked how from her earliest years, and amongst the comforts of her father's house, she was enamoured of this holy poverty, and how she was accustomed to observe it in her humble manner of dress, in opposing all outward show, in the frugality of her living, in her abstinence, in depriving herself of her best garments for the poor, and in renouncing in their favour all her earthly possessions at her entrance into religion, whence it seems, there was nothing else that could be added except the vow and perseverance. Nevertheless, the spirit of poverty markedly increased in Rita whilst she lived in the convent, where she was chosen to dwell till her death. There, in truth, everything breathed humility and straitness of means, and she might well be satisfied that by ordinary observance she was fulfilling her vow. But saints are never satisfied unless they go beyond the goal of ordinary mortals and if they do not reach the heroic point of virtue. It happened thus in Rita's case, for although she loved uniformity and was opposed to those singularities which often deserve to be the subject of suspicion, yet she felt that she ought not to oppose God's inspirations, or confine herself solely to the usages of the community, but, subject to obedience, she carried the rigours of religious poverty much farther. We might tell here of her protracted fastings and the small quantity of food of the poorest sort with which she kept herself alive, but we shall speak of these things in a subsequent chapter, and shall now only touch on the poverty of her dress and of her abode.
She did not show her poverty by wearing a coarser habit or one differing in any way from those of her sisters in religion, yet there is one particular that shows in a singular, not to say miraculous, manner her spirit of poverty; for, like the Hebrews in the desert, from the moment she put her foot in the convent till she entered the promised land of the blessed, a period of more than forty years, she had only one habit, which she wore night and day, and even during her illnesses. As regards the poverty of her dwelling-place, her little room, which may still be seen, declares it sufficiently, for it is only a narrow cell, the least of all, crushed into a corner of the dormitory, and with no light except a sort of twilight that filters into it from the common window. A few pictures representing the mysteries of our Lord's Passion were its only ornaments; the bed was hard and rough, and more adapted to give pain than rest; all other necessaries were wanting. Yet the holy penitent lived there contented, and considered herself rich and wealthy, especially when she considered the nakedness of the Crucified One, for she regarded the Cross of Christ, her loving Spouse, as a mirror wherein to behold herself. The cold words 'mine' and 'thine' which have been the cause of division in families and kingdoms, and still divide hearts, never issued from her lips, and even the things most necessary to her she let depend on her Superior's will, and was always ready to deprive herself of them at the slightest beck of authority, for she never had the least desire to own anything.
There is related of her a singular fact, which proves her detachment from the things of earth. Going on a journey undertaken for reasons of devotion, of which we shall speak later, with some of the nuns of the convent, she threw into a river the money that had been given her to defray her expenses, or, as others say, which she accidentally found. Her companions thought that, considering their great necessity, this was an act of real imprudence, and could not refrain from blaming her. But Rita, who was full of confidence in the protection of heaven, assured them they would want for nothing; and so it happened, for they wanted for nothing throughout their journey. That God who feeds the birds of the air and the fishes of the deep took care to provide His servant and her companions with every necessary on their long way. In such a way did Rita, poor in possessions and in spirit, advance with great strides on the way of perfection, and add new riches to the incorruptible treasures she had laid up in heaven.
By poverty and obedience she had overcome the two passions of self-interest and worldly glory; there remained the third passion, that for sensual pleasures, against which our saint had to wage a more bitter war, because, like the Apostle, she felt in herself that law that was contrary to the law of the spirit, and because, as St. Augustine writes, this is precisely the hardest fight that has to be fought by Christians and the perfect. It is true that this most virtuous woman was accustomed from her earliest years to watch over all her thoughts and to keep a careful guard on her senses, and that from her youth she had determined to preserve the candour of her virginity intact; that she constantly preserved the most exemplary modesty; that she avoided to the utmost of her power, even when in the world, all evil discourse and companions and other incentives to impurity; that she had lived most chastely and immaculately even as a wife. Yet with all this she was not free from temptations, and to conquer them she had recourse to an extreme rigour of life.
The demon used all his power in attacking Rita's purity; at one time he tempted her by impure phantasms, at another by seductive apparitions. But she put him to flight by her lively faith and her austere penances. In the fiercest assaults of temptation she went so far as to burn her hand or foot, thus putting out one fire by the pain of another, in order to keep herself entirely pure in the sight of her most pure heavenly Spouse. Through love of this virtue she avoided all opportunities of seeing or being seen, and she adopted this safeguard even with her own relatives. When she had sometimes to appear abroad she showed such recollection, modesty, and gravity as to excite the wonder of others and attract universal veneration. So remarkable was her modesty on such occasions that when she came back to the convent (in those days the obligations of enclosure were not so strict as they now are) she was sometimes able to declare that she had not seen a single person. This circumspection which our saint employed in the custody of her eyes may seem excessive to worldly-minded people, but 'everyone hath his proper gift from God';[2] and besides, the means of attaining to extraordinary virtue like Rita's are not always ordinary; nor were her penances, which were a means to this end, ordinary penances. If such was the violence of her spiritual struggles, there is no doubt but that the victories she gained were remarkable and productive of many good results, and that the reward which God reserved for her in a happy eternity was passing great.
[1] 1 Kings xv. 22.
[2] 1 Cor. vii. 7.
However hard and sharp penance may appear at the first glance, yet it, too, is a daughter of love, love that gives strength to put a curb on carnal appetites, which are ever striving to rebel against the first uncreated love, and which incites to reparation of past offences and atonement for them. It is no wonder, then, that Rita, who was burning with the flame of Divine love, and who had the holiest horror of sin, should carry her austerities even to the point of heroism. True, such innocence did not deserve so great pains; but she who, in her profound humility, thought herself full of defects and faults, who knew human frailty and the frequent dangers of falling into sin, and who was not exempt from the wicked suggestions of the world, the flesh, and the devil, did not consider herself exempt from those penances which she practised, for the good of sinners, as a defence against danger and an assurance of victory in temptation. Her whole life, therefore, was one continued exercise of penance owing to the great self-denial which she exhibited from her early youth, but more markedly in her married life and her widowed state, and owing also to the fastings she practised in the world, and the other mortifications which we mentioned in former chapters, but, above all, owing to the severe and almost incredible chastising of the flesh, which she made a law that she observed during all the years she lived in the cloister.
To begin with her fastings, hardly had she embraced the Rule of St. Augustine, which exhorts all to conquer the flesh by fasting as much as health will permit, than she abandoned herself to a life of the most rigorous and prolonged fasting. She never admitted any of those exaggerated pretexts which the delicate sex finds it so easy to allege in order to be dispensed from the laws of fasting and abstinence. She only knew that God is not deceived, and that to desire to deceive one's self is impious folly. She therefore had no hesitation in fulfilling the most rigorous laws of abstinence without any ill-timed fear of injuring her health. Every year she fasted during three entire Lents, and also on the vigils of all holidays of obligation, of all the feasts of the Blessed Virgin, of all the saints of the Order, and of her particular advocates, not to mention other extraordinary fasts which she observed. She took food only once a day, and never drank wine. Her condiments were often wormwood, ashes, and tears. For the greater part of the year she lived on bread and water, and as she advanced in years and progressed in sanctity she reduced her food to such scanty proportions that it was looked on as a miracle how she could in such a way support life. St. Augustine's most prudent Rule does not prescribe such things, and therefore Rita, by her heroic fasts, gave all the more glory to the Most High; and by imitating the abstinences of the Baptist, of St. Nicholas of Tolentine, and her other protectors, all well-known models of penitence, she rendered them the truest honour, for the best way of honouring the saints is to imitate their virtues. But not only did she try to follow their example by penances of this sort, but in all the other austerities of her life she endeavoured to imitate them as exactly as her condition allowed.
The very dwelling-place in which she hid herself proclaimed her penitential disposition, for it was only a little cell, bare and dark, and had rather the appearance of a prison to which she had been condemned for some serious crime. We do not know for certainty whether even for appearance' sake there was a bed in it, but we do know very well that when Rita was overcome by natural weariness she took her short repose stretched on the ground, or, at best, on a board. She rose without fail from that hardest of couches at midnight to begin the infliction of greater torment on herself; for at that hour she scourged herself with a scourge of iron in order to appease Divine justice in favour of the souls in purgatory, who, though still of the communion of saints and participators in our suffrages, are left to suffer the greatest sorrow, deprived as they are of the Beatific Vision and tortured by the pain of their fires. Her great charity made her feel the holiest compassion for these unhappy souls, and it was charity that nerved her arm to continue these scourgings; but if she ever felt for herself charity, too, might have induced her to lay aside her ensanguined whip of iron. On two other occasions every day she took the discipline, once for the benefactors of her convent and Order, when she used thongs of leather, and again for the conversion of sinners, at which her whip was of twisted and knotted cords. With all this she was not satisfied if that rebellious enemy her flesh were not suffering continual pain, and hence she always wore next her skin a cilicium made of rough bristles, and on the inner side of her habit she fastened thorns that pricked her painfully at every movement she made. Amongst these thorns and the painful practices of her life our saint lay hidden, like the mystic lily of the sacred Canticles, inaccessible to passions, guarded on every side, growing more beautiful and brighter every day, because more like her heavenly Spouse crowned with thorns.
If Rita's body, oppressed by fastings, imprisoned in hair shirts and galling bonds, made livid by scourgings, was forced to groan and sigh, it was far otherwise with her spirit. The more the body was crushed under the weight of penances, the more were the spaces of the soul enlarged, the greater its liberty, the more readily might it raise itself above all earthly things, to be plunged into the sublime depths of heavenly things and taste of their ineffable sweetness. And if her spirit sighed, it was a far different sigh from that of the body; it was the sigh of the dove—a sigh of peace and love such as was foretold by the Holy Spirit the Consoler by the mouth of the Psalmist to all souls that devote themselves to penance and prayer—'Rise ye after ye have sitten, you that eat the bread of sorrow.'[1]
The same wonderful effects of grace were experienced by St. Augustine, who in his exposition of that verse of the Psalms could not refrain from exclaiming, 'How sweet are the sighs and the tears of prayer! No pleasure of the theatres or of the world can equal the joy of such tears.'[2] We must not, however, come to the conclusion that this interior joy was the chief motive that made our saint love prayer, for she loved the God of consolations much more than she loved the consolations of God; but it was an innocent attraction to her God-loving heart, and on that account she never could interrupt exercises so dear to her without feeling pain.
We have already related that from her childhood she had received the gift of prayer, and which she developed in a striking way even in the years of her early youth; and we have told how she gave herself entirely to prayer during the year of her marvellous retirement in her father's house, and how she continued to make progress in devotional practices, especially when she was freed from the ties and cares of matrimony. Yet when we compare all these things with her advancement after she has embraced a conventual life, they seem but the very beginning of piety. As a nun, Rita's prayers were offered in the darkness of the night, in the early morning, throughout the day—prayer, in a word, was her life, for not even for a moment could she withdraw herself from the presence of her uncreated Love. The hours between midnight and the break of day were the fullest of delight for her, and the most favourable in which to treat all alone with God the most important affairs of eternity and to pour out the fulness of her love at the feet of the Crucified One. In the winter time, however prolonged her vigils were, that time was always short to her, and daylight came unlooked for. It seemed to her, as once to St. Anthony the abbot, that the sun was doing her wrong by appearing too soon, for she feared that he was coming to scatter with his rays the beautiful light of her heavenly exaltations and seraphic thoughts. She never wanted matter whereon to meditate, for the attributes of God and His inexhaustible beneficence were to her subjects that she could never be weary of considering. The sole thought that she was in the presence of the majesty of God, that infinite majesty that fills with its being heaven and earth and the abysses, was sufficient to raise her above every created thing and transform her into God Himself.
One subject, nevertheless, beyond every other, occupied Rita's mind—that of the Passion of Jesus Christ. It almost seems as if she had inherited from her parents this particular devotion, and that upon it she had laid the foundation-stone of her sanctity. It was to the Passion that she was accustomed from childhood to direct her thoughts and affections, her sighs and tears. The reader may remember how at a tender age she shut herself into the little room at home, and there continued to meditate on the sorrowful mysteries, which also were depicted in the pictures which hung on the walls, and, better still, were carved on her heart. The senses should do their part the better to assist the soul in its efforts after piety, and this was the reason why Rita procured and kept in her cell in the convent certain representations of the Passion of her dear Jesus.
To this end she kept in two distinct parts of her cell objects that recalled to her the history of the Passion. In one place she constructed a representation of a mountain, which, whenever she looked upon it, recalled Mount Calvary and all the torments which the Saviour of the world suffered there. She meditated with sighs and tears on her Divine Spouse arriving there, falling under the terrible weight of His torments, His cross, and all the sins of men. With an outburst of weeping she thought of Him deprived of His garments and fixed to the cross with rough nails. She meditated with the liveliest compassion on the cruel strokes of the hammer that tore His hands and feet, and on all the other terrible torments that Jesus suffered for love of men. In another corner of her cell she had a representation of the Holy Sepulchre, and at sight of it she considered how the adorable body of Christ was placed in it, how for three days it remained buried, how His spirit went down to console the holy fathers in Abraham's bosom, and, finally, how the Redeemer rose again to a new life triumphant and glorious. During these meditations our saint was always alone; as Jeremias says, 'she sat solitary and held her peace, and was raised above herself';[3] in that sweet silence, in those loving soliloquies, in that intimate intercourse with God she was superior to passion, to nature, and to herself. So great was her mental exaltation during her meditation on the Divine mysteries that she was often raised above the life of the senses and rapt in delicious ecstasies, and on one occasion, so strong was the ecstatic influence, the nuns thought she was dead.
Now, seeing that she soared to such sublime heights in prayer, it will be no wonder that she possessed also as she did, and in a singular manner, the gifts of wisdom and intelligence, so that she could reason on the perfections of God and on the most abstruse mysteries of faith with a subtle knowledge that could be acquired by no study nor any natural capacity. Thus God hides the secrets of His wisdom from the wise of this world and reveals them to His humble servants, to those who appear ignorant in the eyes of the world. All these things excited to rage the infernal enemy of all good and all sanctity, and in order to make the holy nun desist from her pious practice he tried to frighten her with horrible yells and dreadful apparitions. But she continued to be motionless in prayer, and by prayer itself triumphed over all the powers of hell. By the merit of her prayers, too, she acquired a certain authority over devils. A proof of this is that a woman who had for years been harassed by diabolical interference was freed from it by Rita. Through prayer, too, she obtained the grace of a supernatural healing for a young girl who was ill, whose mother had the consolation of seeing her cured after having brought her to the saint to ask the help of her prayers. We know that God was accustomed to grant whatever she asked for, and so great was the fame of her successful intercession and sanctity that devout people, confident in her advocacy, came to her in crowds, and of all who came none went away dissatisfied. Yet these were but the first-fruits that appeared externally and to the eyes of men to testify to the extraordinary efficacy of her prayers. We shall see more clearly in the remainder of her life, and much more so after her death, in the many prodigious works that God performed through her intercession, how great was the merit of our saint's faith and of her prayers.
We may also mention at the conclusion of this chapter the most fervent prayers which she often offered before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and before the pictures of the most holy Virgin; but it was not the circumstance of place that chiefly enkindled her devotion, for at every instant and in all places she found Jesus and Mary, and a thousand objects adapted to excite her most fervent piety.
[1] Ps. cxxvi. 3.
[2] Ps. cxxvi.
[3] Lam. iii. 28.