My Friend the Friar
A podcast where we learn about our faith and share what it takes to live a Catholic Christian life through conversations and contemplations with my friend the friar, a Discalced Carmelite Priest.
My Friend the Friar
Saint Rita of Cascia (Season 3 Episode 44)
Saint Rita of Cascia’s winding path moves from a violent marriage and family feuds to quiet holiness, peacemaking, and steady fidelity that outlasts grief. We wrestle with God’s will, cultural narcissism, and how endurance can be wiser than escape.
• early life, legends, and a thwarted desire for religious life
• marriage, conversion, and the cost of peacemaking
• betrayal, loss, and a mother’s hard prayer for her sons
• ending a feud to enter the convent
• hidden holiness, stigmata, and incorruption
• fidelity in a culture that prizes escape
• prayer and perseverance
• reflection prompts for peace, forgiveness, and hope
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Welcome to the My Friend the Friar podcast, and thanks for listening. If you like My Friend the Friar and want to support us, please consider subscribing or following us if you haven't already done so. And if you found us on YouTube, then don't forget to click the notification bell when you subscribe so you'll be notified of new episodes when they release. Thanks again and God bless. Welcome to the podcast. Thanks for joining me and my friend the Friar, Father Stephen Sanchez, a discalced Carmelite priest. Good morning, Father.
SPEAKER_00:Good morning, John.
SPEAKER_02:Have you had any coffee yet?
SPEAKER_00:Uh two.
SPEAKER_02:Which is my second cup.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, which is minimum for me, but that's that's at least I can keep my eyes open.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Man, I did not sleep very good last night. I woke up, I got like seven and a half hours of sleep because I've been tracking my sleep lately, right? Um, and I guess it was not very good sleep because I feel so tired this morning. I don't know what the heck is going on. Um, and so my heart is sad because my coffee is still a little bit too hot to really kind of guzzle it down. And so I'm just like looking at it longingly. Um goodness, and joining all the cats are of course awake. So like Bertha's been in and out, and now Rosie Cotton, the little dogie, is she's sleeping underneath the desk. So maybe she'll get bored and walk away, and you'll hear tick-tick-tick in the background of her little her little claws on the little whatever fake floor we got stuff. Um all right, so in this episode today, we're gonna be uh diving into the life of who I've come to find out is a pretty remarkable woman in Christian history, Saint Rita of Casha. Um she's often called the patron patron saint of impossible causes, which I guess is shared with Saint Luke. Um, but anyway, her life, it's not just about like miracles and stuff like that. It's really about love, forgiveness, uh relentless hope in the face of kind of suffering and things like that. And what's spawning all this is when we were being silly, um about uh uh Pope Leo being elected and his election being rigged. Yeah, Augustinian, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so that was fun. And so anyway, um, and I guess what spawned even all that discovery was, of course, my mom passing away. And uh everyone please continue to pray for her. Um and for us, we do. So um, yeah, before I even go any further, I guess I do want to just take a quick moment and say it is strange how uh like missing her kind of comes and goes. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I guess it's I'm older, I'm obviously much older. My dad passed away when I was 18, so much older now. Um, and so it's obviously a different kind of point in life, different set of experiences that I I had with her versus my dad when I because I was so young. And so is it normal, I guess, for it to be easy? I don't know if easier is the right word. Like less yeah. I don't know how else to say it. Because it seems it seems I don't know. I don't know how to say it. It seems easier. It's it's I still miss her, obviously. Like I said, it comes and goes. You hear a song on the radio kind of thing, and you think about them and you're like, oh, or you see something, you're like, oh, I gotta go, I gotta tell mom, and you know, oh, can't do that, you know.
SPEAKER_00:Oh yes, you can. You just can't pick up the phone though.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And I think probably the older we I guess I shouldn't say the older we get. I should say that the the more life experience we have, the easier it is to deal um with loss like that, right? Um I mean I've we again in my life we've had you know people that had that pass away, or maybe family members and stuff, maybe people that we weren't that close or people that we were close to, it was kind of traumatic and and difficult and hard. And then I think as we get more life experience and we know that you know death is part of uh life, uh the our existence, right? People pass, whether old age or illness or accidents or something, and then I think the older we get or the more life experience we we have, the more it becomes just part of the cycle. And so it's like, no, it's part of reality, and it's not as traumatic anymore because it's you've got more experience uh as you live, right?
SPEAKER_02:Uh yeah, I guess when you're young, I yeah, most people I think, even at a young age, start to understand that death is a thing, right? But it's so far removed from your reality, you know. When you're a little kid running around, it's not what you think about for the most part. Um, and so then I guess when you experience it, it's so shocking because it's it's not just a new thing, it is a very challenging new thing, right? Yes. Yeah, so maybe as just because we're older, like, yeah, it's it's it happens. It's there, you know. Yeah, it's would you rather go quick or um well, yeah. Would you rather go quick or would it you rather go and when I say quick, maybe unexpectedly, or I don't know. Yeah, it was so sorry, let me preface with like a thought. Because I know how hard death is on other people, obviously. I often think when I die, not about me necessarily. I trust that the Lord knows where I'm going. Um and wherever it is I'm going, I trust him and I love him and and I know I deserve it, kind of thing. So I think about my family and I think about my friends. And so when it's really sudden, that can be traumatic in a certain way, but if it's very drawn out, then that can be difficult in a completely different way, you know. Right. So what do you think what how would you prefer to go with all your brothers having to take care of you and all that kind of stuff?
SPEAKER_00:I would have a hard time with that, being who I am. Uh I would have a hard time with that. I would just like like, you know, just leave me alone. Just let me let me do this. It's okay. I'm not really afraid of dying. Yeah. Uh that's not that. It's just uh I think I would like to be, you know, hopefully prepared and ready uh for that moment. But uh probably I don't know. There there are so many positives and negatives on in either scenario. I wouldn't know. And I just think it's whatever God God's will is, is okay. Um I think probably, I mean in a way, I think I wouldn't say a long drawn-out illness, but some sort of preparation so that it wouldn't be such a shock or a trauma to those around me. That they're just kind of like, okay, this is happening or it's or it's going to happen, right? And then prepare, right?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I think that's my um my father-in-law said that's kind of how it was with his dad. Um, just went to the doctor, and and I'm paraphrasing because I don't remember all the details, but went to the doctor, uh, found out that he had um something terminally wrong, said that he would probably have you know a couple weeks, and he goes, Well, I just want to live, I want to make it to my birthday because it was just a couple weeks away kind of thing. So he uh got to spend time with family, made it always birthday, and I think it was the next day or just very shortly after he passed away, and it was so it was it was that kind of scenario, right? Where he had just enough time to deal with it, but it wasn't so drawn out that it was a hardship on everyone and stuff. Yeah. All right, well, back to Saint Rita. Um, so as far as I know, Saint Rita's my mom's namesake, and because my mom was such a positive influence in my wife's life, uh, when Betty converted, she took Saint Rita as her confirmation saint. Um, and so I didn't really know, excuse me, I didn't know well, I knew a little bit about Saint Rita because my since my wife took her for confirmation um saint, but I didn't really know so much until, like I said, I was just kind of I stumbled across it one day and started looking into it, and you know, it triggered all of our our silly Poplio stuff. Um so anyway, so let me kind of set the stage for our listeners. And you don't know much about Saint Rita.
SPEAKER_00:No, I don't. I'm here to be edumicated.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, okay, so I'm gonna I'm gonna share with you what I've learned and kind of get ask you for some insight on some of uh some of these things. Uh so Saint Rita, she was born in the late 1300s, and from the very beginning her life seems to be kind of marked by mystery and grace, right? There's the all always the the mythos around saints, um, which is kind of fun. Um, but maybe something we should also discuss in part of this. Anyway, she grew up, excuse me, she wanted to be a nun, but instead she was married off at a young age. This tended to happen in the you know, middle ages kind of thing. Um, but this guy who she was married to was kind of known to have a violent temper, and so her story is like deeply painful and it's filled with resilience and unwavering trust. Um, and so we're gonna work through her her kind of life journey through childhood.
SPEAKER_00:How old was she when she married?
SPEAKER_02:Uh, well, I found two different ages, so I'm sure some kind of range, but it's basically like 12 to 14. And so it could be that she was like betrothed at 12, and that was like considered part like marriage, but like nothing happened until she came of age kind of thing. I don't really know. There's no details like that. Wow, so okay, different world, okay. Yeah, completely, completely different world. So she was born. Um, I guess Rita is short for Margarita. Uh her last name is Lati, I guess, and I hope I'm sorry to all the Italians out there where I'm saying it wrong. But anyway, she was born in 1318. Um, and again, she came from this little village called uh Rocaparina. Um her parents, Antonio and Amata, they were um nobles. Uh they were humble, they're known for their charitable charitable work. And when it really came down to it, they were like if they were kind of nobility, they were way at the bottom of the kind of totem pole. And when I say nobility, I probably from what I've read, it just means that they were more well off than the more peasant-y kind of folk around.
SPEAKER_00:They probably had some sort of bloodline, some sort of noble bloodline, and that's how they would count nobility. Like their great-great great-great grandfather was a Duke or uh something. Uh yeah, Marquez or yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Um anyway, I looked up the little town because I was like, well, how big, how big is this town? And so I have no idea how big it was back in the 1300s, but I did find online the 2001 census data shows that the population of the town where she was born is less than 100. So we're talking way out in the boonies in the in Italy, right? So uh even when she was a little baby, as a child, there's this neat little story about her on the about the day after she was baptized as an infant. Um no context clues here, but she was surrounded by a swarm of bees, and these honey bees, even though they were like crawling all over her and things like that, they never stung her. So I don't know if the moral of the story here is just don't let your kids near bees. I don't know. Kind of strange. And and one of the stories that I read, um, they were white bees, and so I kind of looked that up, and they were supposed they're supposedly kind of a gentle European honeybee kind of strain.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_02:That's interesting. Yeah, just like I said, there's all these little details that I don't, you know, just makes the makes the story what it is. Anyway, never got hurt. When she grew as she was growing up, she had strong religious values and she wanted to join the religious life because there was a local Augustinian um convent, Augustinian nuns in a local monastery. Um I think the monastery is Saint Mary Magdalene is the name of it, and I think it's still there. Anyway, she grew up around them, so you know, the things that you spend time around when you're a little kid, um, a lot of times attract you, and that's kind of what do you want to be when you grow up? I want to be like the nuns, you know. Um, but her parents obviously they had different ideas, and so they arranged for her to be married at 12 to uh a family that was more well off, that was more noble than them. So they're trying to, even though her parents were involved with charitable kind of works and stuff, they wanted something better, I guess, for her, the classic kind of parent uh mentality. So anyway, um yeah, is is 12 normal? Like if that's I think one of the most shocking things about her childhood. Is I Mary was very young uh in the Bible, right? She was like 14 when she had Jesus.
SPEAKER_00:I think it go uh it goes back to I think probably a lot has to do with our uh again looking back at that time and judging it from our perspective, right? That's it's we have to be careful about that because back then, what was the lifespan? What was the normal what was mortality rate? What was the lifespan? I mean, if somebody got to be 45 and that was considered, you know, being ancient, then yeah, 12 is you you want you want you want to start producing kids as soon as you possibly can. Um so 12 probably is not a a rare thing. Uh thinking I'm thinking back now to to for example Saint Agnes when she was martyred, she was 12. Um when uh she had suitors, so like there was this idea of this uh uh trying to marry young, right? Um for we would say young, right? But maybe back then it was sort of like the expected time. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02:Well, and girls always girls develop faster than boys anyway. And so maybe that maybe even back then it was a kind of thing where it's like as the well thinking now, just thinking out loud about this, like culturally for the most part, the girl, the woman of a marriage, of a family, right, is going to have kind of specific roles which are more toward like the housekeeping kind of thing and the child rearing, while the husband goes and does way more manual, like physical, outdoorsy kind of behaviors, right? So it wouldn't make a lot of sense for a young man to get married because he's not ready physically, mentally, experientially to be able to provide for a house. But um, I don't know, you you grow up you're Hispanic, right? So in families, like a lot of times, and even like in I'm thinking like white families, if there's a baby, everybody wants to pay attention to the baby. So everybody kind of gets exposure to the baby. Now I want to hold the baby and come help me change the baby's diaper and stuff like that, right? So maybe, and cooking too, right? So maybe these kinds of things are skills that can be acquired at a younger age. So maybe that contributes to for girls being married earlier.
SPEAKER_00:And mind me, I don't know. I mean, culturally speaking, it's hard to speak of the culture because we're not there in historical accuracy. We're not exactly sure exactly what was going on. But I think it's interesting that it in the 130s it's in the 1300s, and I think in that part, that's the beginning of the really hardest part of um European history. I mean, that's that's where the you had a lot of wars, you had a lot of famines, you had a lot of all sorts of things and that going on. So maybe that had something to do with it too, the culture of the time, the anxious the anxiousness of the time of wanting to to establish or continue your bloodline or continue your family or hold on to the farm or something, right? And so we need kids to help on the farm, or yeah, there's a lot, there's lots of things. But I think it'd be interesting to go back and investigate that.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I just had two thoughts. One, and this is obviously the most relevant, is maybe we don't have to go back to investigate, maybe we just need to go now to investigate so you and I can go take a trip to the middle of nowhere, Italy, and uh see if we make it. Um that'd be fun. And make it make uh make that 102? Uh yeah. Well, you've been to Italy, I've never been to Italy. Um is it nice? Is it what's the weather like? Is it well because have you just been to Rome?
SPEAKER_00:We went in the summer and it's extremely hot.
SPEAKER_02:Ugh, okay. Well, maybe we'll wait till later. Um, second thought I had was have you nerd alert mur movie time? Um, have you ever seen the movie Big Fish? No, I want to.
SPEAKER_00:It's a fantasy kind of thing. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Kind of. It's so good. Kind of. Um it was how uh I'm not no spoilers, but the premise of the movie is um somebody has passed away. And so at the funeral, or I guess at this moment people are like sharing stories, and so it's like the big fish story where it's like, oh, I went fishing, I caught a 700,000-pound, you know, catfish or something like that, right? So you're like these big stories. Um, and it's through these stories that people know of the person who passed away, and that those stories, how they bring them all together, um, and connect them not just to one another, but to this person. And so that's all I'll say about it because it's like I said, it's very interesting. I liked it. I need to go see it again now or watch it.
SPEAKER_00:I want to see, I wanted to see it because I like Ian McGregor. That's the reason I want to see it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Um, anyway, so that kind of makes me think about the the stories we hear about saints, too. Um, right, we get these big fish stories. She was surrounded by bees and she never got stung and whatever, whatever, right? Um I don't know, it's something maybe to maybe to think about. Maybe you go watch the movie and then you come back and talk to me about saints.
SPEAKER_00:I think part of it too, I think you know, and this is part of the hagiography or the writing of the lives of the saints.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:When you go back and you look at the life of someone who is a saint or who's a you know in the process of being a saint or being a venerable, a blessed or something, you go back and you start reading into things, or you start reading into things like, oh, maybe that was a sign, or oh, da da da da, right? And so like it's maybe going back and reading into that. I'm sure, you know, what if, yeah, what if there was a bunch of bees there were all crawling all over her because you know they had given her some sugar water or something, and so who knows, right? Yeah, but you read into it, right? And you begin to see it as a sign, or maybe it is, uh, I don't know. So yeah, when it comes to hagiography, uh sometimes the the authors try to um point out some extraordinary stuff or what they believe to be extraordinary signs, right? Like there's already this was already here, right? There would there's already signs of this happening or being uh a special individual, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So what what is what is one to do? Um like she had these dreams, and again, 12 is young, like to us, that's still a child, very much. Um, but you have these hopes and dreams, and like right away the answer is no, because you can't be married and go join a comment. No, right. So how do we how do we deal with when we have these kind of hopes and dreams, uh, and then just God says, nope, you gotta go do this other thing. Because it in in the stories that I read about Saint Rita, it doesn't it it's left out, right? Like nobody knows was she crushed, was she okay with it, was she whatever, you know what I mean? But for us, it's this is a real thing. Like, because you you want to be a go a famous uh psychiatrist, psychiatrist, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Or not famous, but you know what I mean. You want to be a psychiatrist, and God's like, nope, I want you to be a priest. So it's like, what do we do? How do we handle that when God says no?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I think well, we have to be careful about attributing it to God. You know, God says no. I mean, sometimes sometimes God wants something and we and we say no, or people around us say no. For example, here, I mean, it if there was if there was this inspiration in young Rita, and it was something by the Holy Spirit, yeah, inspiring her to want to be a religious, right, to live that life then. And then her parents say no. I mean, obviously, then God's will is being sort of um impeded by her parents. And yet she's again in her age, she's capable, she has to, you know, be obedient, right? And so she has to see, okay, within the scope of what I can do, what should I do, right? So I have to be obedient. This is my desire. I want to I want to go to be an Augustinian nun, but I can't because my parents say no, or my parents want to marry off. Well, why? Well, because we're poor and we need to, you know, we need to marry into uh a more affluent family. I mean, there's all sorts of things that can happen, right, in this situation. For us, uh this is one thing that it's really difficult for most people to deal with or they don't want to deal with. You have God's will, you have God's direct will to us. He wants us to be saved, he wants us all to be redeemed, he wants us to enter into a relationship, loving relationship with him. And there is the permissive will God allowed uh gave Adam and Eve free will, and not only original justice, but free will, and so that's where we have the the the capacity to say no and disobey God, right? In our life, uh we're surrounded by other people and their brokenness, their woundedness, their their will. And God's will may be one thing, but the people that are in authority over us or in our situation or our bosses or whatever, they may not be so open to God's will and more focused on what they want, and they can be an impediment uh to God's will. It doesn't mean that God's will will not be fulfilled, but it means okay, I have to deal with this. And so, like, for example, um I wanted to be a my plan was again to be a psychiatrist, right? That was my plan. So did God say no? Like I didn't say no, it's just that I became more aware of other things and a deeper reflection, and and then I began to really deal with this vocational question, which was always part of my life. And that's a different situation. Uh for example, uh if this is you know, and I still say if because I'm hoping it is, if if God's will for me is to be religious, then right, okay, then this is what I'm doing. Now hypothetically speaking, what if God's will for me was that I be married and I'm here living as a religious? Am I following God's will? Well, I'm doing what I believe is God's will, but if God intended me to be married, would I be disobeying God's will? No, I God would be dealing with me in my response to what I perceive to be his will. Okay, that's another situation. Uh, for example, in work. So God desires you to flourish, God desires you to grow in your relationship with him, right? And so uh all of a sudden, you know, your boss says you have to come in on Saturdays and Sundays to work. And you're like, uh, but I want to go to church. Well, too bad. You have to come in work. Well, can we work in something now? Like, well, either you take the job or you don't. Uh and so then the question is, okay, do I my family needs this money or I need this money, and I can't find another job, so I have to suffer and do the my job because my boss will not doesn't care about he's not a he or she is not a religious person. And so they don't care about those things. I do. And so now what is God's will? Well, God's will is God's will is that I come to church and I celebrate the Eucharist with others, but in this case I can't. So is God's will that I not go to church? Well, no, that's not God's will, but this other person is sort of standing in the way. Things get complicated, that's what I wanted to say. That's why I say you have to be really careful about you know God's will. Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. We have to let's let's there's some subtleties here we need to look at uh and say, well, within God's permissive will, he has allowed me to have a boss that is irreligious or you know, whatever. Um and so I have to deal with this, and I have to suffer with this. God still sees my desire, God still sees my intention, God still sees the suffering of wanting to celebrate the Eucharist or to you know celebrate completely, uh live out my my faith that way.
SPEAKER_02:So yeah, right, because maybe God wants you to just quit your job and let Him provide for you, uh right? Like you can spin it any way you want to spin it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that is where things get complicated.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, which is maybe why, and maybe we'll talk about this in another episode. Maybe prayer is important. Golly, our prayer, we talk about prayer a lot. Um, as we should, good sir. Okay, so I think we're gonna see a lot of this kind of play out in um Saint Rita's life, too, right? Where it's just how did she choose to move forward in faith and trust and hope that God's working kind of thing? Okay. So uh okay, so she's so she's married, right? Um uh her husband Paolo, um, he he was violent, he was unfaithful, he was hot-tempered. Um, they'd end up having two sons together, Giovanni Antonio and Paolo, uh Paolo, not Paolo, Paulo, Maria. Um, and of course, Saint Rita did her best to raise them in the the Christian faith. And so through um through 18 years, I guess, is around how long they were married. Um, through those, um, Rita's endurance and prayers eventually, very slowly, started to affect and transform her husband, Paolo. Um, he eventually began to accept Christianity and kind of repented and changed his ways and turned toward peace. And he was caught up. Um, I don't know if this was just the thing to do back in Italy, um, but there was a lot of feuding going on between the different rival families and stuff in the area. And so he he tried to end some long-standing family feuds between his and this other family, the Chiqui family, um, that you know he had been wrapped up in for so long. So what this is this kind of something about this though kind of made me think back of uh Saint Teresa of Avila, like she was faithful not just to like Paulo because he's she's married to him and he's doing all these bad things, but she was she is faithful to Christ first. That's that obedience and that's that faithfulness that she had to Christ first, even when things were bad. Everything else come kind of comes after that, right? So anyway, so like what we're making sure like we're not necessarily or we're not advocating, right? Is um like don't just stay in abusive, dangerous relationships, exactly different mentality, different time, yeah. Yeah. Um, but you know, if you're married, uh the fidelity to Jesus means fidelity to his teaching, and that is the unbreakable nature of marriage, right? So there's something there that again we can explore more later if we want to. Um but um I guess well no, so like what does Christian fidelity look like in a world like now, which like our world encourages escape over endurance, you know. I'm saying, like, everyone's like, no, do you do you go find what makes you happy, live your truth, or whatever? You know, I mean, everything is about get away from the thing, it's the hedonistic, like move to pleasure, away from pain is kind of our culture now. So, what uh might Christian fidelity like that look like in a more current, you know, at least in the United States kind of culture. Christian endurance, what's that look like nowadays?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I think in the current state, um since we've lost uh most of the Christian foundations in our culture, uh that's been sort of eviscerated, it's all been done away with, slowly taken out. Um it's a very difficult question because it's basically asking the question of what is a community of faith, how does a community of faith maintain its fidelity to Christ while they live in a pagan culture? Because that's what we're living in a pagan culture. Yeah. Um so how do we do that? Uh I think it's hard. Uh because now we have to talk about structures of support for the faith, evangelization, catech catechesis, uh catechal work of the church or the the corporal works of mercy by believers. How do we do that, right? So I think the fidelity for a Catholic Christian, and I say Catholic Christian because our understanding of things are a little different uh in terms of revelation uh are concerned. Um I think it really would be, I think fidelity would start with prayer, having a prayerful life, uh being faithful to the sacraments, understanding the sacraments, you know, catechizing ourselves, understanding how does this uh how is this supposed to uh influence my life, my life stance, my world stance, uh the way that I relate, the way that I perceive, the metanoia, my way of thinking. I think those are the things that would be important to work on. Um because again, and this is this is what's always fascinated me or confused me, uh a fascination a fascinating confusion is that the the United States uh proclaims uh itself as a Christian uh people, but that's not the truth. I mean, it is a nominal Christianity, maybe even if it's that much. But to actually uh allow Christ into your life into metanoia conversion and changing your way of living and perceiving and interacting, that's not so much. Or else we wouldn't be we wouldn't be seeing what we see now in the culture around us, right? Yeah, um and again, it's not I don't want to be moralistic or or you know trying to uh condemn or trying to you know you know shake the bat at people like you need to be ethical, you need to be more like well first you need to know Christ, or else those other things don't really make you a moral person or or an ethical person. Uh it's a matter of what is your understanding of as a disciple of Christ, what is your what is your stance supposed to be towards the world? And again, we know it's radical, and that's why a lot of people have a hard time with it, because it is called to be radical, and that's why a lot of non-Christians have a hard time with it too, with Christianity, is because a lot of Christians don't live their Christianity.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah, so it's hard to believe because you're not even living out. And it's also, I I guess an other layers of complication are when you're talking about you know uh support structures of the church and you know, catechesis and evangelical behavior, all that all these kinds of things. It doesn't just mean like the church hierarchy like the priests and bishops, it means like me the laity. Yeah, like it's all of us. So it's not like well, y'all should go fix this or y'all should behave a certain way, and I don't have to. No, no, no, it's all of us, right?
SPEAKER_00:Right, it goes back to the whole idea of you know the brokenness, the woundedness, the God invites us, and it's a matter do we take the invitation or not. And again, talking about you know, we're talking about the 1300s. So this is before the Reformation. Uh this is before the Protestant revolt. And so if we're talking about a Catholic Europe, a Catholic um basically a Catholic culture, yeah. Obviously, there's some obviously there's some people that weren't, uh, because you know, this Paolo, her husband is not a Christian. So obviously the people that are not believers, but we're talking about a culture that's supposed to be Christian.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so there's always that challenge. Yeah, yeah. And the thing which is gonna be back then as the way it is now, too, is that we're not called to live in a bubble either. We're supposed to live in this world and be counter-cultural to the world, and to change the world, yeah. That way, yeah, right. Yeah, all right, okay, back to the story. So uh Paulo, right? He he converts to Christianity, right? He renounces this feud between his uh Mancini and the Chi Kwi families. Um, his family is the Mancini one, and uh um the feuding, even though he's trying to back out of it, and I guess this probably happens a lot too, as people try to de-escalate and get out of things, it just makes things worse, right? So things start to escalate, and uh there was this member of the feuding family um who he who uh Paolo believed to be one of his ally kind of guys, and his name was um Guido. And uh anyway, Guido betrays him and stabs Paolo to death. So you got drama, right? Um it is very much like a like a uh an opera kind of a telenovela, yeah, kind of thing going on here, but anyway, so now Paulo's dead, and this only escalates more uh things more, right? Because Paulo's brother, Bernardo, he now gets um Rita's sons or encourages Rita's sons, because remember they were married for about 18 years, so now the boys are 17, 18 kind of years old, sort of thing. Um, and so he encourages them to join in the feuding to avenge their father, right? And so um Rita is obviously she's trying to dissuade the boys, she's trying to stop the boys, get keep them from getting involved, and the only thing she knows how to do is to turn to God, right? So um her biggest fear was that her boys would lose their souls to mortal sin by jumping into all this. Yeah, so she she prays, God just prevent them somehow, prevent them from carrying out their plans, from getting involved. And about a year later, um, just before their her sons can can kind of take out their vengeance, act out this plan that them and and their uncle had kind of planned out, both of them died from dysentery. And so that was one of those, like, okay, well, be careful what you ask for, maybe, right? Yes, God for help, and God writes straight on crooked lines, right? So it's not what you expected, but they died of dysentery in her mind and her heart that they were saved through that um untimely death.
SPEAKER_00:They were prevent prevented from carrying out uh murder.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So anyway, so after that now, she's a widower, she's got no children, and she goes, you know, maybe it's time to try to re-enter uh the convent and join the Augustinians, um, like I wanted to when I was a kid. But the the nuns are very aware of everything that is going on outside of the convent. Um and it does that hold true to still somehow today? Do the nuns seem to, or at least the Carmelite nuns, they know what's going on out and about in the world, or they do they do maybe a better job of being really kind of separated?
SPEAKER_00:Um they're aware of current situations. It's not like they watch TV or anything like that. I mean, yeah. They have uh Catholic publications that come in, uh they have those sorts of things, right? They do have ways of of getting information. It's not like they're not like staying up late at night and watching late-night talk shows or the talking heads on on Saturday or Sunday.
SPEAKER_02:So anyway, yeah, so they they knew they figured out they knew what was going on, and so they knew who Rita was, maybe from childhood too, but they also knew that she was tied up in all this stuff, right? This violence and feuding. And so uh eventually, though, um they decided they she they would let her join under one condition, and that condition is that not just that she would denounce the feuding, but she would also find a way to stop the feuding. And so as the story goes, it took her like six years of peacemaking, and she finally joined, or she would finally put an end to all of the feuding, and then she was finally allowed to join the convent as she wanted to when she was a kid. So, my question now to you this point in time in her life, she's gone through a lot of bad stuff, right? Um, abusive husband, things are looking better, he's converting, then he's killed, and then she's got these boys, and that she's trying to raise them Christian, they're turning away, they're wanting to go join in the fighting, and then they die, right? So she's got a lot of grief, a lot of loss. How does God use these things grief, loss, suffering to shape our spiritual life?
SPEAKER_00:It would be the the work of the Holy Spirit, you know, in the individual. And again, going back to the understanding that you know grace builds on nature, what is the nature of her personality, her understanding of things, right? I think with the work of the Holy Spirit, the inspiration of the Holy Spirit through peripheral life we get to see these things, uh these the corporal world, the material world, the temporal world. We get to see these things and say, like these are this is a sign and a manifestation of the temporality of things. I sh I I I can't depend on or put place my hopes upon the material world, the temporal world, the corporal, corporeal world, right? So I can't I can't uh presume that my children are going to grow up and be wonderful Catholic Christian noblemen, right? It's every day is a gift, every day is always a possibility of the person turning away or or or doing something else, right? So I think part of it is I would say underneath all of it is the spirit's uh education catechesis and the growth of the person's um understanding and trust in God's providence that God provides. And uh how do I how do I find God's will in the moment as this moment unfolds, right? And it's always about the unfolding moment, the unfolding mystery. And can I can I embrace the adventure that the Holy Spirit invites me into as my own personal redemption, salvation, sanation uh unfolds.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so it's a like a that disposition that we have to uh our disposition, and I guess our disposition is probably anchored in our relationship with God. If we see God as a loving father, we know he wants good for God language.
SPEAKER_00:What is your understanding? What is your fundamental understanding of who God is, right? If if my fundamental understanding of God is that God is uh uh a celestial policeman just waiting to punish me, right, then I'm going to see like, well, you know, uh God you know is punishing me or God is whatever, right? And I'm like, well, no, also we live in a broken world, and God's desire for us is to be fruitful to, and by fruitful I don't mean necessarily have children, but to be fruitful in terms of growth, uh to to be involved in life-giving relationships, to be involved in a relationship with God in Christ that allows me, as the scripture says, to come to full stature in Christ, right? This mature in Christ, uh, this perfection in Christ. Yeah. And so that's what God's will is for me. But I have to be able to understand that and believe that and know that. Then that helps me to see the brokenness of the world as a consequence of of the fall, and to see that God walks with me and that I'm not alone in this. And so God's providence is that he is accompanying me in this brokenness. The brokenness is not his will, but the his will is that we allow him to walk with us and allow him to transform the way we see things and and understand things, and by our uh change, our our conversion, our metanoia, we don't contribute to the growing to the growing collection of sin. We begin to uh try to be more virtuous, we try to bring good things into the world instead of creating things that shouldn't be created.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and and it's it's interesting you're saying that. It makes me think of when um you know, back my story when my dad passed away, I had this moment of where I wanted to be faithful to a promise I had made to God. I wanted to be trusting, and so I said, Thy will be done. And then the doctor says your dad passed away, right? And so in that moment, I guess what really shook me is not well, yeah, I guess in a generic way saying it, my relationship with God, because I thought I knew that God wanted good for me, and how could he have wanted good for me if this thing happened, right? And so that jarringness of that moment, then I go off on you know, this um, you know, decade plus long, you know, journey of thinking, well, then I'll just be God better than you, kind of thing, and messing stuff up to then now I have this framework where I can look back and go, Oh, I I suck at this. Like, God is good and I am not, right? And so then that helps me to like come back to him and be open to him in relationship again. And so maybe that kind of thing too for her, but maybe she had a better disposition, and I I hope more most people in the world have a better disposition for uh than than I did, where when things happen they go, No, you are a loving God, and this is this is part of the brokenness of the world that bad things happen, but you are a loving God, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And I think that has a lot to do with it too. What is your basic stance, your basic understanding, right, of who God is, and it goes back to um catechesis education, prayer life, for example, as I said, you know, like in the 1300s. I mean, okay, so if everybody understood who God was according to what God wants us to understand, or the way the gospel is intended to be understood, the world the world would have been different, right? And the culture that we live in today would be different. And so part of it is not just you know, why doesn't God do something? Like, well, yeah, he did do something, he sent Jesus into the world. It's up to you to to follow him. Yeah, you need to do it, and so regardless of other people follow him or not, you do. And so I think part of it too is that there is this idea of um I think it's a matter of growing up and being accountable and adult and taking responsibility for the choices that I make. Uh, and again, not being condemnatory or judgmental. It's like I I need to make better choices, and that's what I tell most people. Like, like, don't worry about perfection. It's not about perfection, it's about try to make better choices. God desires you to make better choices, He's not asking you to be perfect, he's asking you to make the best possible choice you can in the situation you find yourself in.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's uh that's maybe the simplest and best spiritual direction anybody could ever receive. Pray and try to make better choices. Try to make better choices. Yeah. Well, okay, so then after after she um she's able to to join the the convent Saint Rita, um there's really there's not a whole lot of information about her after that, um, because once she's in the convent, she's out of the public view, right? So it's a it's a deeply quiet life. Um, it's very private. But from what I guess they people come to know about her is that she was um she embraced penance and prayer, um, possibly for the those she loved during their life and things like that. Um she um uh what's it called? She developed stigmata, right? Uh she had like uh at least one, she had like a wound on her forehead. Um that's the only one I know of, but so she it's like the crown of thorns part of the stigmata. Um and then she um when she eventually passes away in uh 1457. I want to see how old that was. 1457. When did I say she was born in 13 uh 81? Do some quick math calculation. Yeah, 76. That's pretty good for back then.
SPEAKER_00:Um it is. That's that's that's pretty good. Darn good. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:That's pretty good for nowadays, too. Um so anyway, so she so she passed away 14 uh 1457, she dies, and she her body was incorrupt. I didn't know that, yeah, and it's still um incorrupt, I guess. I don't I'm sure at this point in time it's probably deteriorated some. I know how a lot of times the the bodies have like a mask or something on them kind of thing, but um but uh her body remains in incorrupt. People supposedly little Rosie Cotton just woke up, um, smell the scent of roses at her tomb and at her body. And um ultimately she was canonized in I think 1900 is when she was canonized. So again, after after she joins the convent, there's like I said, there's not tons and tons of information about her. Um, but apparently her story is still very kind of it resonates with people, right? Um, like I said, as far as I know, is my mom's namesake was Saint Rita. My wife took her as a confirmation saint.
SPEAKER_00:Um her body, her bob, her body is still on display. It's encased in a glass in a glass coffin in the basilica of Saint Rita in Cassia, Italy. Wow, okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's pretty and supposedly people like I think that what one thing I read is I don't know, that it seems really weird to say they had to do maintenance or something like that. Um sometime in the 1900s, and so when they had to open the coffin and people said they smelled roses, still, and so it's really interesting. Um, again, all the different kinds of stories um that you hear, the interactions that people have. So I don't know, just with that, all of that being said, um, she still her story resonates with people, right? Um I guess I would I would describe it perseverance, right? Kind of like what I said at the beginning, faithfulness, um not giving up on God, not giving up on her husband, even though um, you know, he wasn't the best husband, um always working towards peace, even when things are really bad, you know, not not being uh reactive and and vengeful and things like that, like let God take his vengeance, it's not our place to take vengeance, kind of thing, um, and to seek that justice. So um, I don't know, how do you think we can apply these kinds of concepts? Again, I we've been kind of dancing around this the whole time. Like, how do how do we take some of these concepts and these um story, the moral of the story, right? And and apply them to our lives, you know, and possible situations, grief, conflict, injustice, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00:I think it it's there has to be a perseverance in prayer, obviously keep praying, uh not to allow ourselves to be tempted into desolation or despair. It's like okay, this is again, this is part of the brokenness of the world, and how am I how am I able to perceive this or to see this as an opportunity for virtue or growth? Or is there you know, is there something here that I need to learn? What is it that I need to learn? Is it to be more trusting in God's providence? Is it to persevere? Is it to be humble? Is it to um grow in fortitude, yeah, to to stand against the injustice or something? There's several you know ways in which God can work in our lives when we find ourselves in these situations, but I think for for us, I think the biggest temptation, I think, in the culture today that we find ourselves in is excuse me, is to um walk away. So it's like I think one of one of the biggest biggest uh flaws in in today's culture is the inability to commit and to stay in that commitment. And because it's hard or it's difficult or it's not the way I thought it was going to be, or I don't find myself personally being fulfilled, uh I'm gonna walk away from it and go like, oh no, there's something here, there's a commitment that I make, there is something I truly, truly need to do everything within my power to make this commitment work, or to be faithful to this commitment. And so I think part of the temptation today is uh I think is that there's the there is an overriding concern or focus on my feeling about it, or my um I I think I think I know where you're going, like this f this feeling of fulfillment.
SPEAKER_02:Like, did I like I have um uh like let's say somebody's a great singer, like I have this gift and I should do something with it, right? Or I have this this interest and I really should do something with like I should I'm fulfilled through this kind of behavior or activity or action, and what if I don't? Or what if it never happens? Right. You know, I mean so I I think there's something very interesting culturally there. Maybe we should maybe we should r write some some notes down and you take some notes because I'm terrible at it. Yeah, yeah. Well that's that's interesting.
SPEAKER_00:I think there is there is, and I think psychologically speaking, I mean um several years ago, maybe 10-15 years ago, somebody two doctors, two psychiatrists uh wrote a book on narcissism and the culture of narcissism and how how it's so prevalent today, people uh are suffering from the consequences of that. And so not that everybody's a narcissist, but there's a there is a prevalence of narcissistic characteristics, and so basically it's sort of like, um, what am I getting out of this, right? Yeah. And so it's affecting, for example, uh and the job market, right? It's work, it's a job, but I want to feel fulfilled in it, so I keep changing, I don't keep my work, uh keep changing jobs uh every six months or every year because I keep looking for fulfillment in my work. And so like, okay, that's not what the purpose of work is. And if it is, if you mean if you do feel fulfilled, blessed be God, and it's a reward, and you should praise the Lord for that. But sometimes, you know, work is work, and so yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:All right, well, I guess um some reflection questions for for everybody that uh I've kind of come up with, excuse me, as we excuse me, as we um have kind of worked through this, is um maybe to reflect on in our lives, um maybe where in my life am I being asked or invited by God to seek peace? Um where am I uh where are there grudges or feuds kind of thing in my life that I need to let go of? Um, or are there people who need my forgiveness or my prayers right now that I can think about and I can take this to prayer? Um, and then maybe like how do I how do I respond to suffering um or challenges, right? Do I have that disposition of hope, or am I just finding myself growing kind of bitter in my life? Um, or like you said, desolation and despair. Do I feel myself moving away from God or moving towards God? So, yeah, just some some thoughts for everybody to consider while they pray. Yes.
SPEAKER_00:Um, what is my what is my stance towards suffering that comes into my life, right? How do I how do I process suffering? Uh do I feel um that's an inj uh do I feel that it's an injustice? Do I feel that the world owes me something or God owes me something? Or again, that's sort of like is there despair or is there anger? I mean, how do you process suffering that comes into your life? That's a very good question. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:All right. Um, well, before we go, I guess want to make my little reminder that I've been trying to do that uh you lovely Carmelites, you've found a way for people to make some on online donations to support y'all. And so um you guys can there's a link in the show notes. Um it's on YouTube or in whatever podcast player that you're listening to us to. And uh you can choose to make a one-time donation or a recurring monthly donation. Um, so we'd like to ask if you could please consider supporting the Carmelite Friars uh first and foremost with your prayers, and only if you're able to consider something financial, um, they would appreciate it. Um, but prayers always first. Prayers are always first. Amen. Amen. Yeah, and so yeah, thank you, Father. Thanks for chatting with me. And uh thanks for everyone for joining us. And uh, Saint Rita, pray for us. Pray for us, amen. We'll see you all next time. Bye. Bye.
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