Saint Rita - The Saint of the Impossible

In this episode of Saints in the Sticks, we reflect on the life of Saint Rita of Cascia, the patron saint of impossible causes. 

Through suffering, loss, and hardship, Saint Rita remained faithful to God with patience, forgiveness, and perseverance.

We talk about what her story teaches us about trusting God in difficult seasons and living faithful everyday lives out here in the sticks.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Hey y'all, welcome back to the Saints and the Sticks, and where we talk about saint stories and scriptures and the beauty of the Catholic faith out here in the middle of nowhere, also known as the Sticks. Today we're going to talk about a saint who knows what it feels like when life doesn't go the way you plan it. A saint who's dealt with suffering, a lot of suffering and loss and rejection and grief and situations that look completely impossible. Notice that she will be a patron of hopeless, impossible causes. And still God chose to trust, and she still chose to trust God through all of this. And we're going to talk about Saint Rita, the saint people turn to when all of it does feel impossible. So we're going to slow down and just settle in and spend some time together reflecting on her life and what it means for us today. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. Lord Jesus, through the prayers of Saint Rita, teach us to trust you even when life feels heavy and confusing. Help us to remain faithful when things don't make sense. And please just make us strong when we're tired, heal us when we're broken, and give courage to us to keep following you even in our suffering. Saint Rita, pray for us. Amen. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Alright, so let's just start about who was Saint Rita. Now she was born around 1381 in a small little village in Italy. And from a young age, she hadn't had a deep desire to dedicate her life fully to God, and she wanted to be a nun. She wanted to live out that life of prayer and just simplicity. But like many people in that time period she's in, she wasn't really given that option. Okay, so her parents arranged a marriage for her with a a man that they had known. And the tradition describes describes him as harsh, temperamental, uh, involved in violence and the a lot of conflict. And Saint Rita enters this marriage and she doesn't she doesn't choose it. And for many years she lived in deep emotional and spiritual suffering. But what stands out the most about Saint Rita is not the suffering itself, it's how she responds to it. She didn't become bitter. Now a lot of us don't have well when we do get married, uh w we get to choose who we are and or who we want to be married to. And usually when we get married, we we're not bitter. Not yet in the beginning. And she didn't she wasn't bitter. She didn't repay anger with anger. In a sense, she responded with patience, prayer, and just this quiet endurance, and we'll talk about it later. She she prayed though constantly for her husband's conversion. Over and over. And think about this. Someone that has been bitter to you, someone that's physically, emotionally abused you, someone that you didn't even pick to marry to be even to be a friend to, but you yet you have to live with this person. And she prayed daily for his conversion. And over time, something remarkable happens, and her husband begins to change, and all the violence in his life is lessens. Uh he becomes more peaceful. And that right there is already a that's power that's pretty powerful, right there. It's a powerful witness because Saint Rita shows us that the holiness is not always about escaping the difficult situations. It's not. It's sometimes about how we have we need to endure those in order to become more faithful. Saint Rita and her husband had two sons, and she deeply, deeply loved them. She tried to raise them in the faith and protect them from all the violence that's in the world around them and around the world today. But the tragedy struck when her husband was murdered. So he was murdered, and likely it was probably tied to on ongoing family feuds, and after his death, her two sons became consumed with that desire for revenge. And in that culture, revenge was okay, so this is 700 ish years ago. So revenge wasn't just it wasn't not just common, it was expected. And it was considered a matter of honor. But Saint Rita saw it as something different. She knew that so if her two sons chose revenge, that they could lose their souls in hatred and in violence. And being Saint Rita, she prayed something incredibly painful, and that God would protect them from committing any mortal sin, and even if that meant taking them from this life before they could act on revenge. And soon after both of both of her sons became gravely ill and they died. Now, at this point, Saint Rita's lost she's lost her husband, who was murdered, and her two children uh that died of illnesses. And think about the especially for her husband, you know, it's just always the how she prayed for him, the conversion for him every day, every day, and even though the the physical, emotional abuse and everything that she had to suffer. And as time went on, things did become more peaceful with him. And yet now she's lost him. Now she's lost her two sons. And yet she stayed with him. She stayed with God. She brought her grief into prayer instead of turning away in anger. And this is why Saint Rita's is so powerful. It's to so many, to so many of us. It's a credible story. She lived through the heartbreak that would break most, break me. It would break most people, I believe, and it's she still remains faithful. Now, well, on to her religious life, after losing her family, St. Rita finally pursued the vocation she had desired since her childhood. She thought this was the right time, the religious life, and she asked to enter the Augustinian covenant, but she she was refused. Refused because of the violence that was connected to her husband's family and the fear of the ongoing feuds that the family still had, and the covenant didn't they didn't feel safe accepting her. Essentially, Saint Rita was just caught between two worlds, grieving alone and unable to enter the life she had always wanted since she was a kid. But instead of her giving up, Saint Rita chose reconciliation. She worked to bring peace between the feuding families that she was a part of and connected to her husband's death. She chose forgiveness in a place where in this time revenge would have been expect expected of them. And only after peace was restored, she was finally accepted. And inside the covenant, Saint Rita lived for about forty years in hidden holiness, and she didn't become famous through the public preachings or the leadership. But her holiness was formed in a quiet, daily faithfulness. The examples would be prayer, fasting, and obedience, service to the community, the small community, and the deep meditation on the passion of Christ. She became well known for humility and wisdom. People, a lot of people would come to her and for her prayer and counsel because they could just sense something different. There was something different about her, and it was a peace that came from the suffering, the suffering united to God. Saint Rita's spiritual life centered deeply on Christ's passion, in which she believed that suffering, when united to Jesus, isn't wasted. It becomes something God can transform into grace. It's a Catholic, it's a Catholic thing. And this is a Saint Rita's a perfect example of this. If you've seen a picture of her, you've probably noticed something about it, and I'll explain it. She's meditating on the passion of Christ. During it was during a sermon, and she reflected on Jesus wearing the crown of thorns. And she was deeply moved by it, by his suffering, and she prayed to share in his pain out of love for him. And after that moment of prayer, a wound appeared on the forehead as if one of the thorns from Christ's crown had pierced her own skin. And this became known as the wound of the thorn. Now, she carried this wound for the rest of her life. It caused her physical pain and even isolation at times because of its condition. But Saint Rita accepted it quietly and didn't complain about it. And she saw it not she saw it as something to be admired, but as a participation in the suffering of Christ. And in the in the Catholic understanding, such a mystical experiences, they're appropriate they're approached with great care by the church, and they're never something to seek out to r romanticize. Okay, put it that way. In the in certain in lives of certain saints, they're understood as signs of deep spiritual union with Christ crucified. And for Saint Rita, the thorn was more than a physical wound. She already lived through emotional thorns, if we could say. And there's two things that she teaches that I that really come that I can just I really take to heart. And the first one is that she teaches us that faith isn't proven when life is easy. Faith is proven when life is hard, and yet we still choose God. And the second one is she teaches something very important about how God doesn't waste suffering when it's given to him. So he can transform it into something redemptive. Even even when we can't see how in that moment, we may not be able to see it the next day, the next week, month, year. That's why that that's why in so many people turn to her as the saint of impossible causes. Not because her life was, I mean, easy at all, but because it's her trust, it's the trust that she had in God that was deep. Deep even when everything around her was difficult. So summary, to summarize this here in the sticks, when you really step back and look at St. Rita's life, it's it starts to sound a lot less like a distant history lesson. And it's more like something you'd understand if you ever lived where life's quiet, hard, and doesn't always give you the easy answer. Because in this here in the sticks, in the in this rural life, people learn pretty quickly that you don't just you don't you don't control much. Weather shifts our plans. Money stretches or it doesn't. Relationships don't always heal on our timeline when we when we want to. And sometimes you can just carry things for a long time because there isn't a quick fix to them. And Saint Rena's life carries that same weight. She didn't choose the life she was handed. She wanted something, she wanted something simple and devoted. She wanted, as we've talked, a quiet life with God. But in s instead of that, she spent several years in a marriage marked by struggle, tension, abuse, trying to live faithfully in that situation she could have just walked away from we can walk away from in our situations. But it's patience. That kind of patience. It's not dramatic though, or spontaneous. It's a patience that's daily, daily, just every s every second, every second of our lives. It's quiet. It's showing up again in the small snip steps every day, the next day, and choosing not to just let this bitterness take root in us. The negativity take root in us. And when things finally when things finally did break, when she lost her husband, when she lost her sons, she didn't give in to the kind of closure that people hope for. There wasn't a neat resolution, an answer. It was just it was just grief. The kind it doesn't really fit we can't we've all been there. It's the type that you can't put into words. The kind that you just learn to carry while still getting up in the morning and just doing what needs to be done. Then even when she finally gets to the step into the religious life, you can un you can we usually just assume it's it's good. But it still wasn't easy for her. There was still the barriers that she had, the hesitation and the past that she couldn't escape. But it instead of instead of forcing her way through or just demanding to be understood loudly, she kept just choosing peace where the conflict we think sometimes would be easier. And that's where her life starts to speak in a way that feels familiar. It feels familiar to anyone who's lived a life that doesn't always move in straight lines. Especially out here. Out here you learn pretty quickly that faith isn't about everything working out fast or clean. It it's usually slow. It's about it's about the waiting. It's about the patience. It's about who you become when things don't change as quickly as you've hoped. About staying steady when nobody else sees the effort, the patience. It just takes that mindset to keep going. Even the image of her carrying the thorn, that constant reminder of the suffering, it feels it feels less like something strange and it more like what a lot of people know in their own way. Not a it's not a dramatic wound, but the kind of quiet burden you just learn to live with while still trying to be kind to everyone, still trying to pray, and still trying to do right by everyone. Saint Rita's life isn't really about escaping from the suffering, it's about what happens when we don't waste it, when you don't let it turn cold, when you keep it when you keep bringing it to God instead of just letting it harden someone else. And maybe that's the most in the sticks part of her story. Not that life is simple or is fair, easy to explain, but it's that holiness can grow in ordinary, ordinary times, ordinary days, and long seasons where nothing seems to be changing, changing for us in the quiet and quiet faithfulness that nobody really sees except God. Saint Rita shows us that even when life doesn't move the way we hoped, you can still move toward God. And sometimes that's enough. Before we before we wrap up, I want to leave you with something simple but not easy. Because Saint Rita's life isn't just something to admire, it's something to respond to. I remember the first time that I heard it. We it's we I was just thinking, we live, we live in a world where it's easy to react fast. It's so easy. It's so easy to react fast to everything, to cut people off, to block people, to shut down, hold grudges quietly, just carry bitterness, and we don't even have to name it. And honestly, a lot of that doesn't even feel like it's dramatic in the moment. It just feels like survival. Like just we're we're just getting through the day. But Saint Rita's life pushes her life pushes against that. And so here's here's the challenge. Here's the challenges that you can take and and just take one of them. I give you a couple, but just take one of them. Um and don't don't overthink it. You can just like again, like I said, just pick one thing and try to live it out. The first one I give is is there someone think about if there's someone you've quietly written off in your heart, not publicly, you hadn't said anything, it's not you hadn't said anything loud. About it, but just internally you've thought about that you've just disregarded this week. Pray for 'em. Pray by name, and not just in a vague prayer, just make it make it a real one. Make it a real one. Even if you don't feel like it, especially especially if you don't feel like it. The second one, second challenge would be if there's a situation you've been carrying where resentment is starting to settle in there, instead of just replaying it again in your mind, again and again, just bring bring it to God. Bring it to God. Bring it in prayer and say something honest. Like, uh, Lord, I don't know what to do with this, but I'm not letting it turn me bitter. A third thing is uh there's a place where you've accepted discouragement as normal. Something you've stopped praying about because you just feel like nothing's gonna change about it. And this is a challenge that I've I really refer, I really go back to. Pick it back up. Not because you're gonna be guaranteed an answer as soon as you pray it, as soon as you think about it. It won't happen the next day, maybe not the next week, but remember it's because faith, it doesn't stop just because results are slow. Think about Saint Rita. And the la and the last last one would be do one hidden act of patience or kindness that nobody would ever notice or applaud. Remember, she lived a quiet life. Do it not for the recognition and not because it just feels good. You you feel good about yourself. It's so easy, and I've go on I go on and on about, especially in the social media aspect, it's so easy for us to get on there and do something or where we're patting ourselves on the back. It's so easy to do that. It's um not about feeling good about ourselves always, just because it's good. That kind of quiet faithful faithfulness is exactly where Saint Rita's life was doing the hidden acts of patience and the kindness that people are not gonna see, may not ever know, or you may not get likes or applauded by. The point of these challenges isn't to fix everything in your life in a day or a week, whenever. It's not about becoming perfect. Okay? It it's about it's not about letting your heart go numb in places where maybe you feel God is still trying to work. Saint Rita didn't become a saint because everything around her got easier. She became a saint because she kept choosing God in the middle of things that didn't. And that's the invitation for us too. One decision at a time, one prayer at a time, one act of faithfulness at a time, even in sticks. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen. Saint Rita, faithful servant of God, please pray for us and when we feel hopelessness, when we feel forgotten or just we're so overwhelmed in the world. Pray for us, pray for those who are carrying impossible causes, situations, and the heavy crosses. Please teach us to forgive when it's hard and just to trust when we don't understand it all, and we just need to remain faithful when life feels crazy. Lord Jesus, through the prayers of Saint Rita, strengthen our faith and give us peace in every trial. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Thank y'all for spending this time with me today on Saints in the Sticks. If this if this episode has encouraged you maybe to share it to somebody who might need hope right now and helping spread the beauty of the Catholic faith one small town at a time. Until next time, keep your eyes on Christ and keep running the race. And may God give you strength for every impossible thing you that you place in his hands. Peace be with you.