St. Rita of Cascia is the patron saint of the impossible. In Spain she is honored as La Santa de los Imposibles — “the Saint of Impossible Causes” — because so many who turned to her brought situations that seemed utterly beyond hope: a violent marriage, the murder of her husband, the danger that her sons would seek revenge, and her own long-desired entry into religious life against every obstacle. Catholics facing what looks humanly impossible have long entrusted those situations to her intercession.
In Catholic tradition, patron saints are holy men and women whose lives and intercession are considered especially suited to particular needs, groups, or situations. The Church's practice of invoking saints reflects the doctrine of the Communion of Saints — the belief that the faithful departed remain united with the living in the one Body of Christ and can intercede before God on our behalf. The designation of a patron saint for “The Impossible” reflects centuries of Catholic popular devotion and, in many cases, formal recognition by popes or bishops.
Saint Rita of Cascia is invoked as patron of the impossible. Born Margherita Lotti at Roccaporena near Cascia in Umbria about 1381, she longed to enter religious life but was given in marriage while still young to Paolo Mancini, a man of harsh and quarrelsome temper, by whom she bore two sons. After enduring eighteen years of a difficult marriage, she won her husband’s conversion before he was murdered in a vendetta; she then prayed that her sons would die rather than commit the sin of revenge, and both died of natural causes soon after. Widowed and childless, she was at length admitted — after repeated refusals — to the Augustinian monastery of Saint Mary Magdalene at Cascia, where she lived a life of penance and is said to have received a wound on her forehead as from the crown of thorns. Because every chapter of her life involved a situation that seemed beyond remedy, she is honored in Spain as La Santa de los Imposibles and venerated everywhere as patroness of impossible and hopeless causes. She was canonized by Pope Leo XIII in 1900. Source: catholic.org.
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