This devotion to Saint Rita helps us to have a difficult grace

Da Paolo Tessione - April 23, 2017

FIRST THURSDAY: Birth of St. Rita

Virtue: Spirit of prayer

Antonio Mancini and Amata Ferri, spouses with a truly Christian spirit, after confident prayers to the Lord, in their late age finally have the certainty of having a daughter. Thus was born Rita, in Rocca Porena, in the mountains of green Umbria, an elected gift from Heaven, an abundant and happy reward for the prayers and good works of her parents.

May your prayer rise from your heart, Christian soul, every day; may it be addressed to God in groan of anguish, in confession of weakness, in request for comfort, in joyful cry of consolation. Entrust your hopes, your joys and your pains to prayer. God will listen to you. Uniformed to the divine will, the prayer will be more effective and the divine graces and blessings will pour abundantly on your head.

Treat. By praying today, try to excite in your heart feelings of absolute confidence and full abandonment on every occasion to the divine wills and interpose to this the help of St. Rita.

Prayer. O most glorious Saint Rita, you who were, with an elect gift, bestowed by God on the prayers, tears and good works of your parents, welcome our humble and fervent prayer. We hope from your intercession the spirit of Christian prayer, which will make us turn to Heaven with confidence and perseverance, always sure of the loving protection of that God, who is our father and who even when he seems to abandon us, he does it to try our loyalty and therefore grant us his gifts more abundant. We are miserable and weak, the passions overwhelm us, the desires of the earth drag us far from Heaven; but we want to rise above all miseries and weaknesses; we want to be true Christians. Deh! Your mighty help come to support us; through your intercession we can feel faith, hope, charity more and more alive in us; kneel before your altar, let confidence be infused in our hearts, that confidence that makes us turn to God as loving children and there. makes. more and more certain that only in him is our rest and our peace. Amen!

Responsory

DS Rita pray for us. A. Because we become worthy of Christ's promises.

Prayer. O God, whom you deigned to St. Rita to infuse so much grace, to love the enemies themselves and to carry in your heart and forehead the signs of your charity and Passion, grant, we pray to you for his merit and intercession the sufferings of your Passion, in so as to obtain the prize promised to the myths and those who cry. Amen! Pater Ave Gloria.

SECOND THURSDAY: Childhood of St. Rita

Virtue: Readiness in divine service

Just regenerated in the sacramental waters of Baptism, heavenly gifts begin to manifest in Rita. Constant, tireless care that grows and gives abundant fruit day after day, in the practice of Christian virtues, in the search only for what can most closely unite it to God; here is Rita's childhood.

Hear you too, Christian soul, the voice of the Lord. Watchful and ready, study to love God with the practice of virtues without at all procrastinating in other times, which perhaps will never come, divine service, the full and exact practice of divine law. God wants not the leftovers and refusals of the passions and the world, but the firstfruits of your heart.

Treat. Trusting in the help of St. Rita, she tries to destroy with passion the acts of virtue that prevents you from practicing perfectly your Christian duties.

Prayer. O adventured St. Rita, who from the dawn of your days you felt how sweet it is to give yourself entirely to the Lord and with your heart filled with divine love you only wanted what would make you pleasing to God and be of his glory, oh! get this spirit to us, who, miserable and blind, running after the fallacious illusions of the world, forget our Creator and Father. You obtain from the supreme Giver of all good the heavenly grace, which illumines the mind, fortifies our heart and, breaking the tenacious resistance of unhealthy appetites, overcoming the difficulties of the enemies of our health makes us love only the spiritual advantages. Not in vain, O our amiable protector, we have placed trust and hope in you; you welcome, benignly, the vow made at the foot of your altar; first of all and above all we want only that which raises the soul to God. Accept this vow and present it to Heavenly Father; May the adventurous day come for us, when we can praise the benign Lord with you for having accepted him for our eternal health and happiness. Amen!

Responsory

DS Rita pray for us. A. Because we become worthy of Christ's promises.

THIRD THURSDAY: Marriage of St. Rita

Virtue: Obedience

Rita, renouncing the joy of forming a family, yearns only to the state of virginity to be holy in body and spirit. But the will of the parents prepared her and chose a spouse, and the Saint, after long prayers, offers the Lord the sacrifice of her pious desire and accepts the conjugal state desired by relatives.

Admire, Christian soul, the heroic obedience of our Saint and try to submit your desires to the prudence of those whom God has placed in your care. Obedient and submissive, the spirit will rejoice in the victory over evil, in the conquest of all good for the salvation of your soul.

Treat. Accept every wish of your superiors today without the slightest observation, in honor of St. Rita.

Prayer. Perfect example of obedience to divine wills, glorious St. Rita, welcome the prayer that erupts from our heart, only eager to do what it can make it similar to you. Our riotous and proud soul only wants what it pleases and forgets to recognize in those who command us the representative of God, who manifests to us his will for our sanctification and health.

Deh! You, O our Patron, ask us that the roots of rebellion and pride are destroyed in us; that our head humbly bend, that our earthly desires are broken and offered in a holocaust of propitiation and obedience to the Lord. We want to honor you with the most worthy of honors: make ourselves similar to you; but we are weak and our intentions soon weaken and languish. May your protection come to our aid; our homage will go up to you, when, your mercy, we will be your imitators in following and welcoming the voice of God. Amen!

Responsory

DS Rita pray for us. A. Because we become worthy of Christ's promises.

FOURTH THURSDAY: Family life

Virtue: Patience

Rita's bridegroom, of a harsh and angry temperament, makes the hardness of his passion fall on his sweet wife. But our Saint, already trained in the school of Christ, responds to harshness with love; appease the words of anger with accents of sweetness and use every care in fulfilling the wishes of the husband and in preventing the smallest desires.

Christian soul, in the adversities, in the contrarieties that come from men, do not concern the person, but see the hand of God, who wants to try you and wants to experience your faith. Victory is promised to those who will be patient; Peace, still in this life, is the reward of those who know how to receive every adversity as a manifestation of the will of God, who is always your Father, both when he appears benign to console you, and when he allows tribulation to correct you.

Treat. Offer to S. Rita the desire to always want in adversity to keep in mind your patience, repeating to yourself in whatever injury you are made: God's will be done!

Prayer. O S. Rita, you who gave us such a shining example of patience, you still obtain from the Lord the grace of being able to imitate you in this virtue so difficult for our weakness; see how opposed we are to suffering, how we are dragged by the impetus of anger and resentment at the rise of the smallest adversities! Deh! arrange that, in your example and through your help, every punishment is amiable in the name of God; that the grace of God moves us, penetrates our heart, still carnal, compresses its rebellions and harshness and at every occasion, prosperous or adverse, we do not hear from our lips to pronounce that only one word: Blessed be the Lord; blessed in health and infirmity; blessed in joy and sadness; blessed in this life, in the hope of being able to bless him eternally in Heaven. Amen!

Responsory

DS Rita pray for us. A. Because we become worthy of Christ's promises.

FIFTH THURSDAY: Killing of Rita's husband and death of the children

Virtue: Forgiveness of offenses

Rita's married life ends with a dark blood drama: her husband is killed by some enemies. In this mournful situation Rita reveals all her virtue; tormented in the innermost soul, bears the bitter blow without rebellion, forgives her husband's killers for love of God and asks and obtains the grace that her children, longing for revenge, are removed from her before their soul remains stained from sin.

Never answer, Christian soul, to the offense with the offense, but learn from Rita to forgive those who have done you some harm, if you want God to grant you his forgiveness and his graces. This is what the Lord wants of you, who makes the sun rise on the good and the bad and on all the dew drops.

Treat. In moments when hatred and aversions upset your soul, clasp the image of St. Rita to your heart and try to imitate it in the virtue of forgiveness.

Prayer. O admirable St. Rita, who showed forgiveness to those who had torn your heart how heroic virtue was in you. Christian of forgiveness, ensure that the flame of divine charity is still burning in our hearts, which destroys all feelings of aversion and hatred towards those who have offended us. All men are our brothers, we are all children of the same Father; yet out of blindness and malice a simple word, an act contrary to us, arise from our soul, accents of contempt come on our lips, pungent and harsh words; at the slightest offense, only solicitous to satisfy the passion, we call upon our neighbors for damage and shame. O glorious Saint, we turn to you, confused and terrified of our misery and malice, asking for your help, because for your intercession, the spirit of hatred and murder is confused, that before the gaze there is the Crucified One and ours ear the supreme accent of the dying Son of God resounds and at the same time the supreme vigor descends, which in the offender makes us recognize the brother, who gives the strength to be able to always repeat, what we now say at the foot of your image: Yes, each time the pardon; no longer offended among men because we must all unite in God, because God is Heavenly Father of all; no more offenses, no more! Amen!

Responsory

DS Rita pray for us. A. Because we become worthy of Christ's promises.

SIXTH THURSDAY: S. Rita enters the Monastery

Virtue Perseverance

Rita, determined to give herself more absolutely to God, asks three times to be admitted among the Augustinians of Cascia; but these, not used to admit in the pious enclosure if not virgins, refuse her entry. Divine help intervenes to fulfill his desires. Praying one night, she hears herself called by a heavenly voice, and, guided by her Protectors, St. John the Baptist and Saints Agostino and Nicola da Tolentino is miraculously introduced into the Monastery, to the surprise of the Sisters who, moved by the miracle, make it thank God.

Learn, Christian soul, from this to persevere in prayer and good. God warns you that constancy is one of the characteristics of true and effective prayer. He wants you to trust in; his word. Can you deny him confidence? In abandonments, in repulses, in pains he always loves and hopes; remember that perseverance is the aroma and balm, which preserves and defends good works.

Treat. When you feel like. do not be listened to in your prayers, trust in the Lord and repeat to S. Rita that you want to imitate her.

Prayer. Behold, O Saint Rita, at your feet souls, who too often assail the despair, who, weak and miserable, are unable to resist a long struggle, who do not fight a whole day if they do not have the hope of being able to rest at tomorrow. You, who were so persevering in the most obstinate repulses, that you did not let yourself run always animated in the way of God, however difficult obstacles hindered you on your way, come to the aid of our weakness. Without divine help we will not be able to keep ourselves constant in the good. Too strong is the desire to see ours fulfilled, impulses to Heaven, because we can long keep our thoughts and aspirations high. But we still know that we can do everything in the One who comforts us. 4 our protector, you obtain the divine grace that strengthens us, that tempers our soft and carnal heart for good. Under your guidance, supported by your power, we will persevere in desire, until we reach the promised prize; and praise will succeed alone and eternal. Amen!

Responsory

DS Rita pray for us. A. Because we become worthy of Christ's promises.

SEVENTH THURSDAY: S. Rita example of regular observance

Virtue: Loyalty to the obligations of the state

Rita's virtues shine more clearly in the cloister, where she makes herself a perfect example of observance; humble and docile with her sisters, submitted in mourning to the will of the Superior, Rita is the expression of the rule; in her it is given to admire its full and entire fulfillment.

From Rita's loyalty to her rules you learn, Christian soul, how to regulate your life. Whatever your state, it imposes duties on you, which others may regard as an unbearable burden, but which you; as a Christian you are, you must consider what precepts and means of sanctification. Parents and children, superiors and subjects, all remember that the small act, the least obligation, the most indifferent work, are stairs to ascend to Heaven, when they are accepted with a Christian spirit.

Treat. O glorious St. Rita, in the full and never interrupted practice of your religious duties you gave the luminous example of the fulfillment of the obligations of your own state, make this example of yours a powerful stimulus to fulfill with heart, burning with the desire to conform ourselves to the divine will, what is required by our condition. God through his immense goodness wanted everything to serve our sanctification and that the necessities of life and material concerns, accepted by his hand and offered by him, were transformed into merits of grace and virtue. For your goodness we can use this heavenly gift. Implòraci the light that guides our mind, the flame that ignites our heart, so that in the bulky and transient things of the world we collect the celestial harvest. For divine kindness and for your intercession, all cooperate for our good and bring us closer to the homeland, to which the soul sighs among the miseries of the earthly pilgrimage. Amen!

Responsory

DS Rita pray for us. A. Because we become worthy of Christ's promises.

EIGHTH THURSDAY: S. Rita lover of the Crucifix

Virtue: Suffering

The contemplation of the pains of the Crucified Lord and the ardent desire to savor part of the spasms of the Passion are for Rita continuous stimulus and care. At the feet of Jesus, pierced on the Cross, she tears and prays. One day, while more fervently she is absorbed in the contemplation of the Passion of Christ, one of the crowns of thorns detaches itself and goes to stick in front of the Saint, producing a painful plague, for which Rita makes herself more similar and more closely united to the Crucifix Lord.

Often, Christian soul, raise your thoughts on the Passion of Christ and learn for example from Rita that to be of Jesus Christ, you must patiently embrace the pains of life, accepting with resignation all the crosses that the Lord will be pleased to send you.

Treat. During the day you will do some mortification, denying your will and accepting from the hands of God the contrarieties that you will need.

Prayer. O passionate lover of the Crucified One, invites St. Rita, at least part of your love for tribulation is transfused in our hearts. Let our gaze open to contemplating all the Christian beauty of pain and goodness. We know that Christ voluntarily chose the Cross and tribulations, rejecting the joy and joys; this should make us more than persuaded the real good not to be in laughter, but in tears and that man must suffer, if he wants to make himself worthy of his God. But our misery and blindness is so great that we call the lucky ones of the century happy and we detest the healthy bitterness of pain. Deh! O our Protector, come and enlighten us with your example, so that we aspire to unite with Jesus, patiently accepting all pain and adversity; and, although so far from perfection, obtain that we can still, looking at Heaven where health awaits us and whence strength comes, repeat the sublime words of Saint Paul: I am superabundant with joy in all my tribulations. Amen!

Responsory

DS Rita pray for us. A. Because we become worthy of Christ's promises.

NINTH THURSDAY: Hidden life of St. Rita

Virtue: Recollection

Rita, all ablaze with the desire to gather with her God, feels no greater delight than in silence and solitude. If charity, obedience, devotion sometimes call her in contact with the world, she does not deny abandoning her cell, but, as soon as she is free, she returns to her retreat, where she learns more and more to esteem spiritual and eternal goods .

Here you are, Christian soul, a teaching in your various occupations; reflect that recollection is not only imposed on the Friars, but is a virtue common to every Christian. When the need of family, of office, when charity, prudence, convenience call you to the middle of the world, do not refuse; but escape everything that can dispel your spirit. God speaks to the collected heart and his inspirations are reserved for those who keep away from worldly distractions.

Treat. Hold on for some time today at home, dedicating yourself to the consideration of heavenly goods and making some special prayers in honor of St. Rita.

Prayer. O Saint Rita, may our previous supplication come to you today and move your heart with pity. How many moral miseries we are afflicted! How our soul runs after vanities, forgets its Factor and true good! Careless and unwilling to gather in ourselves to listen to the voice of God, who in the silence speaks to us warning and comforting, our looks, our memory, our desires and affections, all yearns for the conversations, pleasures and noises of the world . We implore your help in order to surrender to the love of Heaven. You take our heart, bring it closer to yours, and to the purifying contact take away your native inconstancy and lightness. The love of Heaven renders the conversations and noises of the earth insipid, and, your mercy, we still learn that there is no joy, there is no hope, there is no greater peace than that which God grants to those , who, not caring for or despising the vain words of men, only try to listen in silence to the divine voice. Amen!

Responsory

DS Rita pray for us. A. Because we become worthy of Christ's promises.

TENTH THURSDAY: S. Rita lit with divine love

Virtue: Charity towards God

Throughout the life of Saint Rita, love for God reigns supreme and unchallenged. Charity is the inspiration of every thought, every desire, every beat of our Saint and is manifested in her ardent aspirations, in the long, continuous prayers, in the tireless meditation of Divine Goodness.

Gather yourself, Christian soul, in yourself and meditate with deep attention on the first and greatest commandment of the divine law: Love your Lord, highest and infinite Good, with the most lively love. He loved you until he became Man and died for you. O soul, are you not confused by so much love? Therefore love God with your whole heart, with your whole mind, with all your faculties. If your love is not yet lit by the flames of divine love, oh! do not put more delay; surrender to your Heavenly Father and you will feel how sweet God is to those who love him.

Treat. Repeat three times during the day, with lively feeling the act of charity and, in imitation of St. Rita, try to think often of the love that the Lord has had for you.

Prayer. O glorious St. Rita, you who were turned on by divine love, welcome under your protection us so lukewarm and languid and do: we can imitate you. We know all the necessity, the rightness, the peace and the goodness, which is found in the love for a God, who has filled us with his benefits and for which every moment of our life marks a benefit. But petty and humble we cannot rise to the height of divine charity without the help of divine grace. You, O our Protector, obtain this grace for us; may our soul be transformed through it, so that we ardently desire to compete in divine love with the Saints and with the Angels. From the Lord, eternal charity and eternal mercy, compassionate Father of our soul, implore us for the treasure of divine charity and the most fervent will rise to you our most welcome and most welcome and accept you will present it to the Lord. Amen!

Responsory

DS Rita pray for us. A. Because we become worthy of Christ's promises.

DECIMOPRIMO THURSDAY: S. Rita and her kind

Virtue: Charity towards others

The life of Saint Rita also shows us a continuous and vigilant care to benefit men by all means, without any distinction. While she was in the century, of her tenuous substances she gave abundantly to the poor. The love of neighbor made her forgive generously to her husband's killers, driven by charity, she indefatigably corrected her vices and for all she had words of admonition, comfort and effective education. Even in the cloister, Rita, not to forget, doubled the practice of this beautiful virtue with regard to her sisters, in nothing sparing herself, just to benefit them.

Consider, Christian soul, that the precept of loving one's neighbor as yourself has been proclaimed by the Lord like the first, who is the greatest of all, that is, to the love of God. You do not ignore it. Well, have you fulfilled and fulfilled this precept, in which together with the first, the whole law is understood? Therefore, by all means procure to love your neighbor; but remember that then only you can rightly and truly love, when love has its foundation in God.

Treat. Practice some act of charity towards your neighbor and before you the image of St. Rita renews the purpose of extinguishing in you every aversion to others.

Prayer. Confused by the certainty of our unworthiness, we resort to you, o S. Rita. The precept and example of the Lord, the life of the saints and truly Christian souls inculcate in every way the need to love our neighbor, to nourish feelings of the most tender charity for everyone; but we, lovers only of our comfort, obedient to incorrect passions, forget it too often in practice, even though the lip still repeats the act of love. Deh! O our Protector, the tender charity, which for the wretched and sinful nourished on earth and that now, sublimated in God, with more intense ardor agitates your heart, convert to our advantage; noble triumph of your charity, which is the charity of God, the transformation of our soul, that from cold, become inflamed with love, selfish: full of tender concern for others, only desirous of one's own good, devoted to the relief of all happiness. Accept our prayer, O St. Rita, and listen to you, let us repeat the fullest and most heartfelt thanks day by day to the infinite mercy of God. Amen!

Responsory

DS Rita pray for us. A. Because we become worthy of Christ's promises.

TENTH SECOND THURSDAY: S. Rita penitent

Virtue: Mortification

The Saint of Cascia spends her life in continuous penance. Her faculties, senses, mind, will, whole body, whole soul are confessed by her to the Cross with Christ. it is precisely mortification that maintains the scent of its virtues and makes it remain unaltered the chosen flower of all good.

You too, a Christian soul, need mortification. Do not be deceived by the fallacious arguments of those who would make you believe man should always satisfy his every desire. Our Lord said that in penance is our health. So mortify yourself, living soberly, rightly and fully, removing every desire of the world and senses and keeping an eye on the blessed hope of the kingdom of God.

Treat. For the love of God and in homage to St. Rita refrain from some legitimate fun and futile and vain curiosities.

Prayer. O S. Rita, we present to you the purpose, born from the consideration of your penances, to want to mortify any bad tendency, to offer Heaven the sacrifice of our earthly desires, in order to make our offer benign; and you, who inspired us, you get to be able to keep it with fidelity and love. Make sure that, as soon as we return from our usual occupations, we do not forget it, becoming as before unmortified and intolerant of every restraint. We want to make ourselves similar to you, O our Protector! We know it; our will is weak and weak, but your intercession is powerful; this, therefore, fortify us and reinforce by virtue the soul inclined to evil. Give to the world again this spectacle of your power, of the immense grace that the Lord grants you that our rebellious will be bent to accept adversity with resignation and joy, which, sober and temperate, we know how to deny us the pleasures of the senses, to aspire only to the consolations of the spirit. Amen!

Responsory

DS Rita pray for us. A. Because we become worthy of Christ's promises.

DECIMOTERZO THURSDAY: S. Rita and the world

Virtue: Care of heavenly goods

Throughout the course of her life our Saint shows all her contempt for earthly goods. It gave proof of this in the life of the century, when it repeated to itself. I am not made for the earth, but for Heaven. The cloister gives a clearer sign of it, renouncing all good and the same lack of possession of it, not only in reality; but still with affection. His heart never clings to earthly good; none of his feelings are ever tied to any possession.

You too, Christian soul, who live in the world, are obliged to detach your heart from its goods. You are not forced to renounce all faculties; but fear that the honors and the care to accumulate wealth will not turn you away from Heaven. Riches, earthly means and honors will never serve you to commit evil more easily, but rather give you an opportunity for virtue and merit with God. Nothing will benefit you having gained all the goods of the world, if you have lost the your soul!

Treat. Deprive yourself of anything that is not necessary to you, and for love of St. Rita distribute the price in good works.

Prayer. Hear, O Rita, hear us, our hope and our comfort, our humble prayer. What an abyss of misery we have in us! So your intercession heals and opens our ears, because they hate the voice of God; heal and open our eyes, so that they may see the signs; healthy and fortifies our will, so that it will be decisive and strong in obeying it.

We made for Heaven, we heirs of the kingdom of God, have lowered ourselves to the mud; stunned by the noise of the world we listened to the voices, which promised us the happiness of earthly goods, forgetting the stern voice of our Father, admonishing that in the love of wealth we lost his love. Deh! you who experienced all the sweetness of heavenly goods, infuse a drop in our hearts; and then we will cure nothing, nothing will be able to move for their purchase; and material goods will not be sought by us even at the cost of religion, justice, charity. May it be a splendid triumph of your grace that they all make themselves lovers of Heaven, those who have hitherto not sought and yearned for anything but the earth. Amen!

Responsory

DS Rita pray for us. A. Because we become worthy of Christ's promises.

DECEMBER FOUR THURSDAY: S. Rita enriched with heavenly gifts

Virtue: Confidence

In S. Rita we admire, in an uninterrupted succession, miracles and extraordinary graces. The candid swarm of bees that enters and exits its mouth in its cradle, its prodigious entrance into the monastery, the thorn that wounded her forehead, the knowledge of the future and of the absent and distant things, the gift of healing, do not remind us that a small part of the extraordinary graces, whereby our Saint is adorned. And the gift of miracles is always kept alive and grows after her death .. The past centuries serve only to magnify them more, to make her resort with lively trust and to larger groups, the peoples are moved to invoke the hero of Cascia: SANTA DEGLI IMPOSSIBILI.

The heavenly gifts, Christian soul, must inspire your confidence in God. In the difficulties of life, in distress, in adversity seek God and you will be comforted.

Confidence in the Lord is the basis of all life. Where your strength is failing, abandoned with confidence in the arms of the Redeemer, who created you, it is true, without you, but does not want to save you except with your cooperation.

Treat. In your worries, trust the Lord and propose that you want to interpose the intercession of St. Rita in danger.

Prayer. O glorious St. Rita, who formed the object of God's complacency and you were enriched by him with the greatest miracles, move with pity on us weak and infirm, exposed to a thousand temptations and dangers! The great power granted to you, convert to our good. Now that you live blissful and glorious, in the security of perpetual union with God, you can better do your best so that the heavenly blessings are poured out on our heads and through these divine graces and blessings, live and strong vigor in your soul, confidence in Heaven. .

Deh! there, you get that by stripping us of too fallacious trust in human means, that in us grows in the divine. Our soul entrusts itself entirely to the Lord, so that in the Lord you hope more than in your own strength, in your own ingenuity, in your own power or in that of every creature. Impetraci this confidence, or great Saint; and at the foot of your glorious image we promise to keep it as a treasure and to bless it forever. Amen!

Responsory

DS Rita pray for us. A. Because we become worthy of Christ's promises.

THIRTEENTH THURSDAY: Death of St. Rita

Virtue: Desire of Heaven

On May 22, 1457, at the age of 76, after an illness, during which she shows heroic patience and a very strong desire to fly to Heaven, Rita dies. The sweet peace of the Saint is accompanied by miracles, by visions of her glory; his body seems to rejuvenate and clothe himself with that incorruptibility, so that the Lord has consecrated it to the centuries and made clear proof of the excellent holiness of the soul, who informed him and who now sings with the Blessed Citizens the perennial praises of the Almighty.

Remember, Christian soul, that death is the beginning of a new life and always repeat with St. Paul: O death, where is your victory? Reflect that death is the transit to rest and eternal happiness for those who are in God's grace; you too aspire to this happiness with all your heart. Up, high, very high, beyond the stars is the homeland; don't forget it for a moment. This desire, this prayer will make you better and make you low and cowardly nauseated, make you love good and virtue.

Treat. As the result of this pious exercise, you propose to imitate the virtues of the Saint, in whatever state of life you are in, repeating St. Rita's thought to yourself every day: I am not made for the earth, but for Heaven.

Prayer. O St. Rita, to you whom we venerate in Heaven resplendent with glory, our prayer from this low valley of tears is humble and trusting. We yearn for eternal rest; but a terrible doubt assails us and pierces the heart. Will we get to the promised land? Will we enjoy a day with you after so many faults, so many promises made and not kept, so many inspirations and despised graces? Deh! interpose yourselves: for us with God and you obtain mercy from us; if our unworthiness is great, divine mercy is infinitely greater; we repent, let the Lord grant us what we ask without any merit; and He who made us out of nothing, so that we might implore his gifts, will not fail to welcome our prayer and repentance. You, O our Protector, help us to remain faithful to the promises made to the Lord; you get us to always guide and comfort us and protect the blessed hope of Heaven in life, so that at the end of our days we can close our eyes to this life, confident that, by the grace of Divine Goodness, we will reopen them to the joy of Heaven, where with you we will praise, thank, eternally bless our Father, our Redeemer, our God. Amen!

Responsory

DS Rita pray for us. A. Because we become worthy of Christ's promises.

DEVOTION OF 15 THURSDAY TO SANTA RITA