Feast Day Celebration of St. Rita of Cascia, Patroness of the Impossible

By Carol Wagner Williams

Located between the tracks, The Shrine of Santa Rita will celebrate 89 years in Vail this year. St. Rita in the Desert Catholic Community will commemorate this milestone with a St. Rita of Cascia Festival. Built in 1935 by Carolyn Beach, The Shrine of Santa Rita served the railroad and Mexican farm workers in the area. The National Registry of Historic Places includes several buildings in Vail: the Shrine of Santa Rita, the adjacent parish office building, as well as the Old Post Office, which is currently under renovation. For more information on Vail’s history, its historic buildings and tours, please contact the Vail Preservation Society. 

Who was St. Rita?

Saint Rita of Cascia, considered the patron saint of impossible causes, mothers, marital problems, sickness, wounds, and abusive situations, was born in 1381. At her baptism, she was given the name Margherita Lottie. As a child, she wanted to become a nun. However, customary at that time, her parents arranged for her to marry at the age of 12 to a man who was involved in much civil strife. Their 18-year marriage bore them two sons. She endured an abusive marriage. After her husband’s death by a rival family, she dissuaded her sons from evil interventions of violence and revenge, and her former brother-in-law’s desire for revenge. Margherita’s prayers pleaded with God to assuage the evil swelling up in the hearts of her sons or allow them to die without committing murder and a mortal sin. God granted her prayers by having both sons die in the state of grace from dysentery within a year.

After her sons died, Margherita applied to enter the convent and become a nun to fulfill her childhood desire. She was initially denied because of her family’s association with civil strife. Some of the sisters in the convent were relatives of the men responsible for killing her husband. Margarita’s disappointment was overcome through prayer, the spirit of charity (love), and forgiveness of her husband’s killers. She was eventually permitted to enter the convent. She shortened her name to Rita from Margherita when she became a nun. She often meditated on the crucified Christ and became known as holy and prayerful. 

There are four outward signs of St. Rita’s holiness. After she received the sacrament of baptism as a baby, bees swarmed around her mouth which was thought to be a good sign. At the convent, she tended the grapes at the winery. Today those grapes are still producing wine used by the Pope in Rome. During Holy Week of 1442, while praying in front of the Crucifix, she received a stigmata of a thorn on her forehead unifying her to Christ in his sufferings. Four months before her death in January 1452, she was visited by her cousin and asked the cousin to bring her a rose from the garden at her former home. Even though roses do not bloom in Italy during January, she received a beautiful red rose in full bloom.

St. Rita of Cascia died on May 22, 1452. St. Rita of Cascia is the patron saint of St. Rita in the Desert. St. Rita in the Desert Parish invites the Vail and Rita Ranch communities to celebrate her life, her example, and High Feast Day with the following festivities:

On May 22, 2024, the High Feast Day – Join us for 5 pm Mass in the St. Pope John XXIII Center. After Mass, attendees may process from the Center to the Shrine of Santa Rita to honor St. Rita. During the procession, the St. Rita song will be sung while parishioners present red roses at the statue of St. Rita. The festivities will conclude with a family-style picnic dinner for all attendees.

Novena to St. Rita --- Nine days prior to her Feast Day (May 13 to May 21), the Parish’s English and Spanish Legions of Mary will lead a novena to St. Rita in the Shrine of Santa Rita at 6:00 pm each night.