Life of St. Rita of Cascia, O.S.A. - the Catholic Kingdom!
Life of St. Rita of Cascia, O.S.A. - the Catholic Kingdom! Life of St. Rita of Cascia, O.S.A. - the Catholic Kingdom!
inhabited and the spot in which her body waslaid to rest, we are met with a sight that cannotfail to move us to admiration. For there, evento the present day, the bees, commonly called ,St. Rita's bees, have their nest. They are calledSt. Rita's, for they have been there since hertime, and have come there, we may believe,owing to her, and, as it were, to do her honour.There is only a small number of them-sometwelve or fifteen-and everything connected withthem is extraordinary and wonderful. In theh t place, as we have hinted above, the speciesto which these bees belong has never, as far as 1we are aware, been determined. They live eachone to itself in a hole which it has dug in the wall,and as often as these holes have been stopped upin the process of plastering the wall they haveagain excavated them. They spin a sort of whiteIsubstance, with which they stop the entrance totheir retreat, as if to hide themselves from viewduring their long retirement and fast of elevenmonths. They appear only on those days dediicated to the memory of our Lord's Passion, and,be it noted, these are mostly movable feasts;land they betake themselves to retirement aboutthe time of the death of St. Rita, who was devoted,as we shall see, to meditation on the Passion of ourLord. For four centuries they have been foundPrivate Use Only
in the same place, without ever. having changedtheir place of abode. These ascertained factsseem to declare clearly enough that it has beenthe will of the Most High to extol through themthe merit and the glory of His beloved servant.There is no need to add the many anecdotes ofthese bees, which are related in some lives of oursaint, and which the nuns of Cascia still tell ;let one suffice. Jacobilli says that one of thesebees was sent to Pope Urban VIII. in a crystalvessel, and that it soon flew back again to theplace it occupied in the convent wall.Here it may be asked whether the bees we havedescribed are the same that appeared when Ritawas an infant in-swaddling-clothes. It would beharder to give an answer to this question than tothe riddle which Sampson proposed to his bridesmen.Sampson's faithless spouse was able towrest his secret from him and then reveal it to her. Philistine friends: that the sweetness that cameforth out of the strong was the honeycomb thatwas made in the mouth of the lion that he hadtom in pieces a short time before. But we canfind no answer to our question. However, thosebiographers of St. Rita who, without hesitation,confused the bees that appeared at her birthwith those in the convent may be excused, asthey supposed both to be of the same whiteMore Free Items at www.catholickingdom.com
- Page 1: ST. RITA RECEIVES HER MIRACULOUS WO
- Page 5: CHAPTERPAGEV. RITA'S OBSERVANCE OF
- Page 8 and 9: e forced to write, so important did
- Page 10 and 11: to stamp out incendiarism, to crush
- Page 13 and 14: CASCIA: A GLANCE AT ITS HISTORYi I5
- Page 16 and 17: -nearly so, as Angelus and Louis of
- Page 19 and 20: CHAPTER I1IIIIFTHE fortunate parent
- Page 21 and 22: cising a beneficent liberality towa
- Page 23: IIInature innocently inspired them,
- Page 28 and 29: CHAPTER IVNOW that we are about to
- Page 30 and 31: Italian tyrants were not sufficient
- Page 32 and 33: possession of Thessaly and Macedoni
- Page 34 and 35: many thorns. Yet such was the dispo
- Page 36 and 37: and thus did she who was to imitate
- Page 38 and 39: CHAPTER VwTHE WHITE BEES OF ST. RIT
- Page 42 and 43: colour. But they have been mistaken
- Page 44 and 45: CHAPTER VI5T. AUGUSTINE in his Conf
- Page 46 and 47: Tobias, who, although he was the yo
- Page 48 and 49: possible. But the Lord, who searche
- Page 50 and 51: this could not be, she regarded wit
- Page 52 and 53: of her spiritual happiness. This ha
- Page 54 and 55: John Paleologus, who had succeeded
- Page 56 and 57: God calls them to a state of perfec
- Page 58 and 59: plunged into the dangerous cares of
- Page 60 and 61: CHAPTER IXRITA AS WIFETHE Apostle's
- Page 62 and 63: justice' sake, she took every care
- Page 64 and 65: was named Gian Giacomo, and the oth
- Page 66 and 67: If ever she deemed it necessary to
- Page 68 and 69: 70 LIFE OF ST. RITA OF CASCIAas gru
- Page 70 and 71: death reached the ears of his widow
- Page 72 and 73: the fear of judgment and of hell, t
- Page 74 and 75: prayer,* according to St. Paul's in
- Page 76 and 77: ness of the night and went to sacri
- Page 78 and 79: Rita led in the world, where she wa
- Page 80 and 81: Private Use Only
- Page 82 and 83: The government of the Church, then
- Page 84 and 85: how the incident is related by the
- Page 86 and 87: which these extraordinary events oc
- Page 88 and 89: and praising the Most High, they pu
in <strong>the</strong> same place, without ever. having changed<strong>the</strong>ir place <strong>of</strong> abode. These ascertained factsseem to declare clearly enough that it has been<strong>the</strong> will <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Most High to extol through <strong>the</strong>m<strong>the</strong> merit and <strong>the</strong> glory <strong>of</strong> His beloved servant.There is no need to add <strong>the</strong> many anecdotes <strong>of</strong><strong>the</strong>se bees, which are related in some lives <strong>of</strong> oursaint, and which <strong>the</strong> nuns <strong>of</strong> <strong>Cascia</strong> still tell ;let one suffice. Jacobilli says that one <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>sebees was sent to Pope Urban VIII. in a crystalvessel, and that it soon flew back again to <strong>the</strong>place it occupied in <strong>the</strong> convent wall.Here it may be asked whe<strong>the</strong>r <strong>the</strong> bees we havedescribed are <strong>the</strong> same that appeared when <strong>Rita</strong>was an infant in-swaddling-clo<strong>the</strong>s. It would beharder to give an answer to this question than to<strong>the</strong> riddle which Sampson proposed to his bridesmen.Sampson's faithless spouse was able towrest his secret from him and <strong>the</strong>n reveal it to her. Philistine friends: that <strong>the</strong> sweetness that cameforth out <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> strong was <strong>the</strong> honeycomb thatwas made in <strong>the</strong> mouth <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> lion that he hadtom in pieces a short time before. But we canfind no answer to our question. However, thosebiographers <strong>of</strong> <strong>St</strong>. <strong>Rita</strong> who, without hesitation,confused <strong>the</strong> bees that appeared at her birthwith those in <strong>the</strong> convent may be excused, as<strong>the</strong>y supposed both to be <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> same whiteMore Free Items at www.catholickingdom.com
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