Catholic Pilgrim

Prayer for Enlightenment

O Holy Spirit, divine Spirit of light and love, I consecrate to Thee my understanding, my heart and my will, my whole being for time and for eternity. May my understanding be always obedient to Thy heavenly inspirations and the teachings of the holy Catholic Church, of which Thou art the infallible Guide; may my heart be ever inflamed with love of God and of my neighbor; may my will be ever conformed to the divine will, and may my whole life be a faithful following of the life and virtues of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, to whom with the Father and Thee be honor and glory for ever. Amen.

The rose garden of St rita.

ROSE GARDEN

Coming out of the door near the cell of Saint Rita, you will find a rose garden, created in memory of the miracle of the rose and two figs.

At the end of her life, sick and bedridden, Rita asks one of her cousins on a visit to Roccaporena to bring her two figs and a rose from the garden of the family home. But it is winter and her cousin does as she asks, thinking it is due to the delirium caused by illness. Returning to the family home, the young relative finds a rose and two figs under the snow and, amazed, rushes back to Cascia to take them to Rita.

The rose is the symbol par excellence of Rita: Rita was able to flourish in spite of the thorns that life reserved for her, donating the good perfumer of Christ and melting the icy winter of many hearts. On the other hand, the two figs probably represent her sons and the awareness that, after all, they had been saved.

The flower symbol of Santa Rita characterises also the name of the magazine of the monastery From the Bees to the Roses and the traditional Blessing of the Roses, which takes place every year after the Pontifical Mass of May 22, the feast of the saint, in the square of the Basilica.

The rose garden that can be seen today in the Monastery was planted in the nineteenth century. The garden of the miracle is in Roccaporena, Rita's birthplace, about 5 km from Cascia. There you will also find: the house where Rita lived with her ??husband and sons, converted into a chapel in 1629; the church of San Montano, where she celebrated her marriage and where her family was buried; the Rock where Rita went to pray; the Sanctuary of 1948 which conserves a layer of skin of the saint.