CHAPTER II
RITA AS NOVICE: HER PROFESSION
From her early youth Rita had a great longing for a solitary life, but now that the Omnipotent God had placed her in the convent she had no further reason to sigh for the deserts of the Jordan, the solitudes of Tagaste, the silence of Valmanente, the groves of her native place, or any other home of hermits. The cloister constituted the fulfilment of all her desires, and her only remaining anxiety was to emulate the great virtues of her three holy patrons, the blessed hermits of Cascia, and the other holy ones whose lives had made the glory of the solitudes. To say truth, it must have cost her very little labour to follow in their footsteps, for there was no need for her to change her habits and manners when she put off a secular dress for the garb of a nun, and she had but to live the remainder of her life as she had hitherto lived in order to reach the highest point of perfection. Jesus Christ teaches us that the surest way of attaining perfection is by renouncing all earthly possessions, and our saint, although she had always lived completely detached from worldly things, hastened to practise the Saviour's teaching in the most effectual manner by distributing all her slender fortune amongst the poor. Thus, without property, without husband or children, and far from her relatives, Rita rejoiced to be an abject slave in the house of the King of Peace, and deemed herself to enjoy a nobler freedom, more ample wealth, and a happier lot than they who dwell in the sumptuous tabernacles of sinners surrounded by the riches, the pomp, and the glory of this world.
No one can tell us better than her companions in religion how she lived during the year of her noviceship, and they were astonished and confused at what they observed in her, and from the first regarded her as a model of the purest and most tried virtue. Poverty, chastity, and obedience had nothing to alarm her, for she was long accustomed to live in poverty in Rocca Porena; her body she had crucified with Christ in God; and she had lived subject not only to her prudent parents, but to a cruel husband. So also had the other virtues which she practised in her noviceship become familiar to her in the world, if we except alone some prescribed corporal penances and the more abundant prayers which she was enabled to offer. Nothing else regarding her can be established from the scanty memorials of those obscure times, and we only know that as the time of noviceship went on she persevered in those holy practices of extraordinary piety and austere penance, and prepared to bind herself to her God with stronger ties on the day of her new regeneration. The learned Cardinal Seripando and others call the day of the formal profession of monastic vows the day of new regeneration, for through the sacrifice then made of one's will, of bodily pleasures, and of property, the total remission of all punishment due to sin may be merited. That day at length arrived, and the holy novice, having first made a rigorous examination of her whole life and marked all the stains on her pure conscience, which she removed by the fire of her sorrow and the blood of Jesus Christ, presented herself before the altar to vow perpetual observance of the evangelical counsels. She had no hesitation in placing her hand on the holy Rule of the great Augustine, for her heroic trust in the assistance of grace gave her courage, and for the rest, although the Rule may seem severe to the minds of worldlings, the saints regard it but as a law of love, and a cord to unite souls to God. Therefore Rita preferred this sweet servitude to all the kingdoms of earth, and considered herself the happiest of women since she had at last reached the goal towards which from her earliest years she had felt herself drawn by heaven's gentle violence.
The exact date of the profession is unknown, but it very probably took place when Fr. Pietro di Vena Tolosano was General of the Order, and he succeeded in that office Fr. Saracini, who was from Rocca Porena, and who had been made Bishop of Macerata. The date of profession would therefore be about 1414. History leaves us to imagine also the feelings of the newly-professed nun, but we may well judge from her past that that solemn day was one of an outpouring of love and gratitude to God. But of one incident connected with the day we are informed, and it is that whilst Rita, never satisfied that she had sufficiently extolled the goodness of the Lord, was still kneeling late at night before the crucifix, she suddenly felt herself ravished out of her senses into a state of sublime ecstasy. She thereupon saw in spirit what was given Jacob to see in a dream—a ladder that reached from earth to heaven, and angels ascending and descending by it, and at the summit our Lord, who was inviting her to ascend. We may believe that this was the mystic ladder of charity, whose steps, as St. Augustine says, God Himself prepares, so that those chosen souls which He wishes to exalt may ascend by them, and at whose top He stands to await them at the term of their journey to receive and introduce them into the possession of heaven. But no one could penetrate its meaning better than the ecstatic Rita. The holy woman awoke from her ecstasy enlightened by these heavenly instructions, and came out of the light of God to seek Him again and follow His leading with greater anxiety amidst the darkness of our mortal state.
CHAPTER III
RITA'S CHARITY
What constitutes the greatness of the mystic city, the new Jerusalem, is not the number and variety of its inhabitants, or the fame of great undertakings, but charity alone. In fact, the Virgin Mary was exalted above all the choirs of heaven, and St. John the Baptist was called the greatest of the saints even before the testimony at the Jordan, although their lives were nothing more than a continuous exercise of charity. Hence, coming to speak of Rita, if she had charity she possessed all things,[[1]] since the fulness of the law is charity, and if she had it in an eminent degree she was a great saint, for perfect charity is perfect justice.[[2]] This is the sublime principle which St. Augustine, himself a great master of charity and evangelical perfection, proposes in that golden Rule of his, which so many religious Orders have adopted, and which Rita observed to the last letter—a principle which, as Blessed Alphonsus of Oroza says, is a summary of the entire Christian religion, and which at the same time proves the excellence and the adaptability of the Rule to all ages.
It was to the attainment of charity that Rita even before her profession, but more determinedly afterwards, gave her undivided attention, and employed all the affections of her heart and the powers of her mind. We leave it to others to describe her heroic faith and hope; for us it will be enough to treat of that virtue which presupposes the other two—embraces them and gives them their life. The first proof that one possesses this virtue is fulfilling the will of God by observing His holy law, as Jesus Christ taught us when He said: 'He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them: he it is that loveth Me. And He that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him.'[[3]] Now, all those who have written the life of our saint and the evidence of tradition regarding her assure us that she observed with the utmost exactness all the commandments of God, the precepts of the Church, and the commands of her superiors. The very manner with which she observed these precepts was perfect, for she always obeyed cheerfully, and with joy readily and exactly sought to anticipate commands, and to exceed in fulfilling them. And this exact observance was extended not only to what is of command, but to the evangelical counsels also, and yet so light to her was the weight of this burden that she took upon herself very many works of supererogation to give an outlet to her burning piety. She was the first to rise from her bed at midnight, the first at prayer, in the choir, at instruction, at penitential observances and the works of mercy, in obedience, first at all the duties of the community, in which latter she was always best pleased the meaner the office entrusted to her to perform. In the midst of her uninterrupted occupations and vigils she had no other thought than to find the safest ways of seconding the holy will of God, a thought that produced in her that holy fear which is the offspring of love. She was always afraid of offending her most loving God even in the slightest matter, and so fearsome of it was she that the very name of sin was a horror to her. Hence, to remove as far as possible all danger of sin, she imposed on herself a law of rigorous silence, for she knew the truth of the saying of St. James the Apostle, that 'if any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man.'[[4]] In order more easily to carry out her design she remained shut up in her cell alone with her agonized Spouse Jesus, like a 'dove in the clefts of the rock, in the hollow places of the wall.'[[5]] She never left her cell except to find her sovereign good either in the Blessed Sacrament or amongst the poor and sick, or in such other works of charity as her state permitted her to perform. Even in circumstances such as these she was on her guard to utter no word that she had not weighed well, and it is said of her that she even used to keep a pebble in her mouth to remind her to preserve the silence she loved.