The year after a certain Ferrantino di Benedetto of Collecurioso, in the Cascia district, was so terrified by a phantom of the night that he fell into convulsions and became delirious. St. Rita, to whom he had remembered to pray, appeared to him in one of his lucid intervals and advised him to go to her tomb and pray there, and that he would there regain his health. He went on St. James's Day, and although he was as ill as usual whilst going, no sooner had he reached the blessed tomb than he was cured in body and mind.
Nicola, the son of Francesco Cascianelli of Antrodoco, in October, 1562, had recourse to the saint to heal him of a chronic illness, promising to make an offering of three crowns at her sepulchre. He, too, was instantaneously cured.
On the last day of May, in the year 1563, there happened another noteworthy miracle wrought in favour of Donna Cheava di Paolo, of the Castle of Uncciafora. Two months before she had an apoplectic fit, and during all the intervening time her tender mother could obtain no relief for her, and was herself condemned to useless weeping, till she determined to make a vow to the saint. After two days she had the happiness of seeing her daughter restored to her former health. On the very day of the recovery the mother went to Cascia to perform her vow at Rita's tomb, and the assembled people celebrated the miracle with a procession.
Four years afterwards, on the 23rd of April, Angelina di Marco of Poggio-Primocaso was prostrate at the saint's tomb, returning thanks to her for having saved her nephew, who had been at the point of death after falling down a precipice.
Many other wonderful cures are recorded in the process of beatification without a date being mentioned. We read, for example, that a woman from Monte Leone named Pazienza, who was obsessed by the devil, was freed from her great misfortune on being brought to the tomb of the saint; that Ristorio Sarsio from Amatrice, who was brought almost to death's door by pains in his sides, was cured whilst in the act of making a vow in the saint's honour; that a child of four years—Giovanni Andrea, son of Fabiano Fortunati—who had fallen into a vessel of boiling water, and thereby lost sight and speech, as soon as his mother had asked the saint's intercession for him, again spoke and recovered sight, and in a short time was as well as ever; that a certain Bernardino di Tiberio, who had become blind of an eye from a wound, was brought to the saint's tomb, and instantly regained the sight of his eye whilst the coffin was being uncovered; and that a woman from Logna, who was returning from Cascia after being cured there miraculously, suggested to another woman to make a vow to St. Rita in order that a daughter of hers who was blind might recover sight. The daughter promised St. Rita to become a nun in the Augustinian convent in Cascia, and her vision was immediately restored. She was afterwards Prioress of the convent for thirty-five years. Fr. Galli, who wrote the saint's life, through fear of wearying his readers contented himself with simply alluding to many other like miracles and wonderful favours worked by St. Rita. Most other writers of her life have followed his example, except that a few have given some little additions. We, too, shall imitate these older examples, and close our list of miracles worked by St. Rita before her beatification.
CHAPTER III
EFFICACY OF RELICS OF ST. RITA
It is quite certain that the power of working miracles belongs only to Omnipotence; nevertheless, the many wonderful works done at the tombs of the saints seem to indicate that in those holy places there breathes an air participated through that incommunicable virtue by means of which not only those sacred bodies, but everything that belongs to them, co-operates in performing the wonderful works of God and in celebrating and making known these wonders. This is the same power that first accompanied the shadow of St. Peter, as the Holy Spirit assures us it did,[[1]] and that afterwards, on the testimony of St. Augustine, was communicated to those renowned chains that were the instruments of his generous confession and his guide to martyrdom. The Church's history supplies us with innumerable examples of cases in which similar virtue was annexed to relics of the saints and to objects connected with the veneration of them, and in St. Rita's case we have a special confirmation of this fact. And, to keep to our subject, the truth of this assertion as regards St. Rita is witnessed by immemorial report, by such examples being recorded in the process for her beatification, and by proven cases, some of which we here record.
Before the saint's body was removed to its new resting-place—that is, before the year 1745—it was the long-established custom of the nuns to cover it with a new veil every year, the old one being divided into minute portions and distributed to the faithful to satisfy their devotion. 'Many miracles were worked through them,' says Father Rabbi, who cites the following case as an example: