In fact, at that time, Santa Maria is located outside the civic walls and it can be attested, instead, that the baptismal font is in San Giovanni Battista, a church located in the heart of the city (near the church of San Pietro, the matrix church of Cascia) . The only instruction that Rita can have is that of the Augustinians: from them, he learns the devotion to his patron saints Agostino, Giovanni Battista and Nicola da Tolentino (who, at the time of Rita is still blessed)

With the birth of two children, a more appropriate and responsible conduct is certainly required of Paolo – already a man of arms – but also a domestic routine. This is when the Mancino family probably moved to the “Mulinaccio” ( owned by Paolo), where they have a larger dwelling and the possibility of running a grain milling business directly and responsibly.

Closed up in her forgiveness, an even greater fear afflicts her: that her sons can become victims or protagonists of that spiral of hatred that has been triggered. This explains the prayers to God that they should not become guilty of such atrocities and should distance themselves from the desire to avenge their father. The two young men, Giangiacomo and Paolo Maria, die very soon one after the other, probably from the plague or because of some other illness.

Now on her own, around 1406-1407 Rita moves increasingly closer to the suffering Christ. According to tradition, the climbs to the top of the Rock of Roccaporena perhaps date back to that time.

Asceticism, contemplation, prayer, penance, but also action were certainly the parameters of the fifty years of cloistered life of Saint Rita of Cascia.

It is said that during the period of the novitiate, in order to test the humility of sister Rita, the Mother Abbess ordered her to plant and water a dry piece of wood.
The Saint obeys without delay and the Lord rewards his servant by making a luxuriant
vine bloom. This is why the vine is the symbol of Rita’s patience, humility and love towards her sisters and, more generally, towards others. Even today, for all the faithful, the testimony of this prodigy is the vine of Saint Rita. The one we see today in the cloister of the Monastery is not the same as that of the tradition; it dates back more than two hundred years. Despite this it continues to represent a strong symbolic value.

Based on the example of her parents, Rita works as a peacemaker. One day, an event upsets Cascia and certainly does not leave Rita indifferent. In 1426, a real battle breaks out between supporters of the Bernardinian ‘tabulella’ (the IHS inscription used to indicate Jesus Saviour of men) and the Dominicans joined by the Augustinians, led by friar theologian Andrea, who opposed them. The Augustinian Order completes the Bernardinian inscription with the trigram XPS (= Christ); in doing so the two inseparable natures of the Saviour would be highlighted: the human and the divine. The tension unfortunately degenerates into a series of crimes in which the Saint certainly worked to restore peace. Not surprisingly, her solemn sarcophagus – now preserved in the cell of Saint Rita – bears the Bernardinian formula IHS as well as the one introduced by the Augustinians as XPS.

The epitaph on the solemn case reads: you bore the thorn for XV years. After having experienced the pain of the death of loved ones, within the walls of the Monastery, Rita raises her pain to the sufferings of Christ for humanity: she asks and obtains from the Beloved, as a pledge of love, to become even more involved in His suffering. The year is 1432. One day, while absorbed in prayer – perhaps mindful of the preaching on the Passion of Christ made by Fra Giacomo della Marca in 1425 at the church of Saint Mary and, even more, trained in Augustinian spirituality centred on the love of Christ’s humanity (which finds its highest expression in the Passion) – she asks the Lord to make her share his sufferings. We do not know what happened at that moment, a light, a flash of lightning, a thorn detached from the Crucifix sticks to her forehead and soul.

During this period, Rita makes the only journey of her life outside the confines of the town of Cascia; she goes on foot to Rome on a penitential pilgrimage. Tradition links the journey to the canonisation of Nicholas of Tolentino in 1446. For the occasion, the wound on Rita’s forehead is healed before departure and then reopens on her return to Cascia.

Still today, those who visit the Monastery can see what according to tradition is the Christ of the prodigy. It is not certain whether it really happened there or not, but the substance of the fact, historically proven, remains unquestionably the same; indeed, perhaps the desire to place the miracle before a painted crucifix excludes any natural traumatic cause. It is certain that Rita lived this gift with much humility, without ever boasting about it, talking little about her wound and presenting it as such: a sore.

Immediately after her death, Rita is worshipped as a protector from the plague, probably due to the fact that in life, Sister Rita Lotti dedicated herself to the care of plague victims, without ever contracting this disease. Hence the attribution of saint of impossible cases.

With a physique now tested by so much suffering Rita arrives at the dawn of her heavenly encounter in the night between May 21 and 22 of the year 1457. In this moment, tradition has it that the bells of the Monastery, moved by invisible hands, began to ring, summoning the citizens of Cascia who, as if by heavenly inspiration, went to the Monastery to venerate the Holy sister.

On seeing Rita’s body, Mastro Cecco is healed immediately. This testimony has great historical importance because it makes us understand clearly that, as soon as she died, the Blessed is taken to the church without a case, certainly wrapped in a sheet, to then be buried in the burial niche of the nuns. But people continually rush to venerate her, thus preventing her sisters from proceeding to the burial ritual. The body, therefore, remains like this for some time and, in the meantime, the rumour spreads that Rita is performing miracles.

Still in 1457, due to a fire in the oratory, the case and the body which have remained intact are placed in the sarcophagus, known as “solemn case“. Probably, also this case is made by the same Cecco Barbari as an ex-voto, or commissioned by his family which was very devoted to the Blessed.

This solemn case, made just ten years after Rita’s passing, shows her fame of sanctity already widespread. A commemorative epitaph is inserted above. The body of Saint Rita is then moved again, until reaching the beautiful chapel inside the Basilica named after her. Today, the humble case is kept inside the solemn case, in the cell of Saint Rita and can be seen while visiting the Monastery.

In 1737, the Augustinians and the municipality of Cascia intend to press for canonisation. Due to a long series of vicissitudes, the canonical process is repeatedly interrupted and resumed, until the reopening in 1853 and the turning point represented by the miracle obtained by Cosma Pellegrini from Conversano in 1887.

On February 25, 1896, the decree on heroic virtues is finally drafted. In 1899, after having examined the various miracles deemed useful for canonisation, among those approved are: the fragrance that emanates from the body of the saint, the healing of little Elisabetta Bergamini and that of Cosma Pellegrini, who is cured of an incurable disease.

Finally, on May 24, 1900, Margherita of Cascia was proclaimed Saint by Leo XIII.

John Paul II, during the great jubilee of 2000, on May 20 grants a general audience to a special pilgrim and her brothers. Rita of Cascia returns to Rome, flying with the state police, diocesan archbishop Msgr. Riccardo Fontana, rector Father Bolivar Centeno and Father Giovanni Scanavino on May 19. She is immediately escorted to her confreres in Sant’Agostino in Campo Marzio. The whole day is spent in prayer, until late at night. The next day, accompanied by a crowd of jubilant people, while devotees who have flocked from all over the world are already waiting for her in St. Peter’s Square, the meeting takes place between the Vicar of Christ, the humble Saint of Cascia and her brothers, testifying to the world that the message of love and peace must still triumph today. From this meeting, by the will of the Supreme Pontiff, Saint Rita is in fact included in the typical Latin edition of the Roman Missal of 2001.

Since May 18, 1947, the body of Rita has rested in the Basilica of Saint Rita in Cascia, inside the silver and crystal urn made in 1930. Medical investigations have ascertained the presence of a bone sore (osteomyelitis) on the forehead, proving the existence of the stigmata. The face, hands and feet are mummified, while beneath the habit of an Augustinian nun there is the entire skeleton (thus reduced from the first half of the 1700s). The right foot has signs of a disease suffered in her last years, perhaps a sciatica, while her height was 1.57 metres.