For the zeal with which Urban VI., successor of Gregory XI., sought to remedy the evils which afflicted the Church was intolerable to some, and hence followed the election of an anti-Pope, which gave rise to that terrible schism which burst forth a little before the birth of Rita, and ended only a short time before her death.
Who can recall without tears the separations between friends, princes taking opposing sides, the spiritual and temporal arms put in antagonism, the neglect of the canons, the numberless scandals and losses of the Church, which would at that time have been threatened with absolute ruin, but that the gates of hell can never prevail against the unshakable edifice founded on the rock of Peter, which can never fail? The Church was at that time, moreover, filled with sorrow by the heresies of the Beguins, the Flagellants, the Adamites, the Waldensians, the Wickliffites, and others, and by the rapid successes of Amurath I., who, to the loss of the Christian name, took possession of Thessaly and Macedonia about the time of Rita's birth. Neither in the Eastern nor in the Western Church was there an Emperor either fitted to oppose a bulwark against the inrush of such evils or disposed to oppose them. John Paleologus in the East had lost heart through his frequent defeats, and was leagued against the powers of Christendom; and in the West, Wenceslaus, given to the wine-cup and to luxury, was become good for nothing.
The republics of the time, amongst which was Cascia, were not much more fortunate than the kingdoms. Genoa and Venice, which only a short time previous might have been compared in their rivalry to Rome and Carthage in the ancient world, had now both become exhausted of all their strength through a long series of stubborn wars undertaken against one another, and although they were now mutually at peace and also with the other Powers, through the intervention of the Duke of Savoy, they were unable to show any opposition to the common enemy of Christendom. Nor did the avarice and ambition of these States fail to bring in their train a fruitful crop of all other vices. Florence, too, although happy in the cultivation of the fine arts, was infected with the general depravity. The city was torn by faction, and weakened by those other vices against which Blessed Simon of Cascia had so strenuously preached a few years earlier. And although these exhortations brought about a reform, it was but half-hearted and short-lived. Vicious practices increased in the city, and open rebellion against the Holy See was their eventual outcome. Of Cascia itself we read that in 1380 the Guelphs and the Ghibellines committed horrible atrocities throughout the city and its dependent territory. And although the opposing factions patched up a peace between them in that year, it was of no long duration, since, as we have said in the first chapter, the people of Cascia rebelled against the Holy See during the first years of the schism of the anti-Popes, just after the birth of Rita. Murder and robbery, pillage and incendiarism followed in the wake of rebellion, and brought ruin to many families in Cascia and destruction upon her religious places. A war soon broke out between Cascia and Leonessa, which lasted for twelve months, and would have continued much longer but for the friendly intervention of the Trinci of Foligno, through whose efforts peace was made. Such was the wretched condition of affairs in Italy at that time.
It is truly wonderful, as St. John Chrysostom says of a somewhat similar case, how so fair a rose as St. Rita was could have bloomed amid so many thorns. Yet such was the disposition of Divine providence, which decreed that where sin superabounded grace should abound in that chosen soul who, from the miraculous events that preceded her birth and her innocence, which she preserved intact, seemed almost to have been sanctified in her mother's womb. Rita, then, was born in the village of Rocca Porena in the year 1381, during the pontificate of Urban. Her parents were Antonio Mancini and Amata Ferri, the child of whose old age she was, the first and only fruit of their chaste love, or, rather, of their remarkable virtue. The pure joy which filled Amata's heart at the sight of the infant, which heaven itself had extolled, must have made her forget those trials which every mother has experienced since our first mother Eve committed original sin. Antonio, too, as he gazed tenderly on the predestined child, must have exulted in the Lord, and must, like Simeon of old, have felt himself ready to die content; he, too, could now sing a hymn of thanksgiving to God, who had granted him the happiness of seeing the glory of his family, of his country, and of the new house of Israel. The general joy and universal congratulation of relatives and neighbours added to the happiness of the pious couple, whose virtue and charity had made them esteemed by all. Thus did the relatives and neighbours of the holy Elizabeth rejoice at the equally wonderful birth of St. John the Baptist, for the Lord desired to make known the mercy he had shown in the first appearance of the Precursor. 'All who love goodness,' says Simon of Cascia, 'participate in the joy that is occasioned by the birth of one destined to live for the common good.' Those who rejoice in grace, and in the sight of the fruits of justice, must let their sentiments be evident to all, as in the present case, in which a pious mother brought forth a saintly child. It is part of the spiritual life to be pleased at the prosperity of others, and to rejoice with those especially who have been marked by the favour of the Omnipotent God.
Meanwhile, the parents of the newly-born infant, in the midst of these rejoicings, were pondering on what name they should call her, and again that God, who had by an angel announced her birth, again in a vision of the night made them know that Rita was to be her name. It is a rare privilege of some saints, remarks St. Ambrose, to deserve to get their names from God Himself. Thus Jacob was named Israel by the Lord, thus was the Baptist named John by the angel, thus the Eternal Father called the Word made flesh by the name Jesus before He was born, and thus did she who was to imitate the virtues of the Baptist and be a faithful follower of Jesus Christ get her name from heaven. The name Rita, as being quite an unusual name, must have been meant to signify the sanctity that was to mark the life of the child so designated, and if we were to give credence to the opinion of the Augustinian author Didacus, Rita signifies virtue and grace.
But this name foreshadowed only what Rita was to be, not what she was. For although she could be considered from then as a child of God in the order of predestination, yet according to the order of nature, and according to her actual state, she was, owing to original sin, a child of wrath; and to become an adopted child of God she needed to be cleansed from the hereditary stain of original sin in the sanctifying waters of the Redeemer. Her baptism took place on the fourth day after her birth, although we may believe her pious parents wished her to be baptized with all possible speed, and from the delay we may conclude that the time of her birth must have been in the winter season. There was no baptismal font at that time in Rocco Porena, and the child had therefore to be taken to the collegiate church of St. Mary in Cascia, where that grace which was to be the beginning and the seal of her sanctification awaited her. There Rita put off the garb of sin, and came forth from the salutary bath of baptism clothed in the garment of innocence and enriched with the gifts of the Holy Ghost, who from the moment chose her to be His spouse. Thus did the regenerated babe return to her mother's bosom and the joyful embraces of her parents, fairer to the eyes of faith than her beauty made her to the eyes of men.
CHAPTER V
THE WHITE BEES OF ST. RITA
When the godmother and her attendants returned from Cascia after the baptism, a feast was prepared for them and the relatives of the happy parents, to celebrate in a manner becoming their humble position the double birth of Rita in the order of nature and of grace. Meanwhile, the child had closed her eyes in a tranquil slumber. When the next day dawned, the fifth day of her existence, a swarm of bees, all of the fairest white colour, and such as were never before seen, made their appearance. They flew a-buzzing about the cradle of the child, and after alighting for a moment on her angelic face were seen to go in and come out of her slightly open mouth in a sort of regular order, as if to take from her lips the honey of Paradise. What feelings of wonder and awe must have been awakened in the heart of Amata and those who were present by so marvellous an occurrence!