CHAPTER VII
MIRACLES WORKED BY RITA AFTER HER BEATIFICATION
It is related in the holy Gospels that once when the Saviour was going to Jerusalem, as He entered into a certain town He saw ten lepers coming to meet Him, who began to shout from afar off, 'Jesus, have mercy on us,' and that all of them were miraculously healed by Him, but only one fulfilled the duty of gratitude by publicly giving glory to God and going back to give thanks to his Divine Benefactor.
We are forced to think that something similar must have been the case with those who have received extraordinary favours and graces through the invocation and protection of Rita. For, on the one hand, the constant appeals of the faithful for her intercession, the numerous triduums and novenas which the sick cause to be celebrated in many places in order to be cured of their diseases, and the fame which is spread throughout the earth of the benefits she has conferred and the miracles she has worked, show with sufficient clearness the truth of them and their frequency. But, on the other hand, there are few who give full praise to God by publishing the wonderful works He has done in honour of His beloved, or, at most, they content themselves with hanging a tablet or votive offering on her altars. The present author, too, may perhaps be not altogether free from fault, for he confesses in his nothingness that he has neither sufficient zeal, nor correspondence sufficiently wide, to enable him to know all the facts. Nevertheless, we shall for the last time, for the glory of God and of Rita, relate a few of the more striking miracles we have been able to gather, and which seem best authenticated.
When we were speaking of the marvels done through such relics of the saint as the portions of the veil or by the use of the little loaves, we took occasion to mention some miracles that took place after the time of her beatification, and now, in order to avoid repetition and to pass over what is hidden in the obscurity of a period long past, we shall confine our attention to the century in which the cause of her canonization was resumed.
A youth of fifteen years, by name Francesco Cavalieri of Cascia, was in the year 1746 confined to his bed by gangrene of the leg, which had broken out in five different places, and was so bad that the surgeons had resolved to amputate the limb. His father thereupon made a vow to the saint, who heard his prayer, and deigned to appear to the sick youth, first in the silence of the night, and again at dawn, telling him to get up and go to her church. He went as told by the saint, and was restored to perfect health.
Sister Chiara Isabella Garofili, professed nun of the convent of Cascia, was twice cured through the saint's intercession in ways that were certainly more than natural. The first case happened in 1775, when she had been suffering for eight years from a complication of diseases, of which the description would be long, and which had then become incurable. St. Rita appeared to her in a dream, telling her to get up—that she was cured. When she awoke she found that she had been restored again to health. The second case occurred in 1786, in which year Sister Chiara's right arm unexpectedly lost all power of motion, and she was also deprived of speech. She tried several medical remedies without avail, and ultimately abandoned their use, and put all her confidence in the help of Rita alone. Her trust was rewarded, for then, to the surprise of the doctor and of the community, she found herself well once more. Yet the impediment in speech still remained to some extent; but she went to the saint's tomb accompanied by her sisters in religion, and the Superior anointed her tongue with oil from the lamp that was burning there, and in an instant her cure was perfected. This fact is confirmed by the legal testimony of the doctor, Laurenti.
During the year 1777 Giovanni Graziano of Poggiodomo, in the district of Cascia, fell from his horse, and was dragged for a considerable distance along the road, receiving a number of bruises and lacerations; but as soon as he invoked St. Rita she appeared to him, and restored him to his former health and strength.
Another miraculous recovery, which has been authenticated in legal form, was that of Sister Vittoria Teresa Bargagnati, which took place in 1781, when she was a novice in the convent of St. Teresa in Terni. Her malady was that she could retain no food in her stomach. She had in consequence been confined to bed for several months, and seemed at the last extremity. In this state, seeing that all the resources of medical science were of no avail, she resolved to have recourse to more effective aid, the intercession of St. Rita. Animated, then, by that lively faith which is able even to move mountains, she applied to her stomach a picture of her saintly advocate, and immediately after rose from her bed, went to the refectory, and ate the same food as the others, nor did she ever after experience any trace of her malady.
There is a still more marvellous recovery, which is also proved and confirmed by legal testimony—that of Rosa Mazzi, a young lady of Cittei di Castello, who was afterwards Sister Anna Rita of the Augustinian convent of St. Maria Maddalena in Spello. In the year 1780 she began to suffer from pains, difficulty of breathing, and vomitings of copious quantities of blood, and afterwards from inflammatory fevers and ischury, so that in two years she was reduced almost to the point of death. In this desperate crisis her confessor, who was attending her as a dying person, told her of the miracle we have just related, which had recently happened in Terni, and encouraged her to have equal confidence. She determined to make a devout triduum to the saint. The triduum was hardly finished when Rosa felt herself well again, rose from her bed, and continued to be even haler and stronger than she had been before her long and mortal illness. This wonderful miracle occurred on February 6, 1783.