St. Rita

Each new year, along with a really serious resolution, I go to a website for a saint for the year; an extra patron to pray for me, from whose life and holiness I can learn. The selection is random - until this year a nun prayed for my request for a saint, then assigned one to me. This year I used a Saint's Name Generator website. My friends and I have always referred to this process as the saint's choice.

The saint who chose me this year is St. Rita of Cascia. She is so powerful! She is also a little frightening to me. If I'm going to need her help this year...God may ask a lot of me in 2012. St. Rita is a patron of those in difficult marriages (can't see how that could ever happen, my beloved Bill is the most even-tempered person I've ever met!). She's also a patron of desperate causes, harsh illnesses, and widows.

That's stuff I don't want to face. I'd much rather the Christian life be a picnic. I'd rather read and study and have a theoretical understanding of the providence of God. As it is, we understand God providing our physical needs - there's always more month than money, yet everything is...comfortable. I LIKE comfortable. And it seems, if I'll need St. Rita's intercession, the lack may not be monetary (which I'm used to); but perhaps health. Quinta has been having pain issues; no cause has been found, so she has been in physical therapy. Or mental health; with her pain, Quinta has become glued to my side. I am struggling against resentment at losing "me" time. We won't even discuss the possibility of widowhood - which scares me beyond measure.

And maybe, just maybe, I am simply to learn from St. Rita's life and holiness. To enrich my own life and increase my own holiness. I'm going to try to reign in my wild imagination and approach my new patron in that way. St. Rita of Cascia, please pray for me to the Lord our God!