Novena to St. Rita of Cascia

Rita was born around 1381 near Cascia in Umbria and longed from childhood to enter religious life, but her parents arranged her marriage at a young age to a violent, unfaithful man. She endured eighteen years of an abusive marriage with patience, eventually softening her husband's temper before he was murdered in a local feud. After her two sons also died before they could carry out a revenge killing she had prayed against, Rita sought entry to the Augustinian convent of Santa Maria Maddalena in Cascia, was turned away for being a widow rather than a virgin, and was admitted only after repeated attempts. She spent some forty years there in prayer and penance, and late in life received a wound on her forehead that she and others understood as a mark of Christ's Passion, which she carried until her death on May 22, 1457. She was canonized in 1900 and is invoked above all in situations that look hopeless.

Biographical facts drawn from standard public-domain hagiography (Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913) and widely corroborated historical summaries; exact birth year and some marriage-age details vary slightly between sources and are given here in their commonly cited form.