THE THREE MIRACLES APPROVED FOR HER CANONIZATION
_First Miracle_.--The odour which is felt near St. Rita's body,
especially when miracles are worked through her intercession, and which
is diffused in a wonderful manner.
As regards this miracle, we told in full everything about it in the
fourth chapter of the present part. We have only to add our joy that
the oracle of the Holy See has solemnly confirmed what historians have
written regarding this sweet odour, and what has been alleged in the
processes and confirmed by experience.
_Second Miracle_.--Complete and instantaneous recovery of Elisabetta
Bergamini from conjunctivitis complicated by ulcerous keratitis of the
small-pox form.
Elisabetta Bergamini of Terni, about seven years before the time of
which we wrote, had been attacked by the small-pox in so virulent a
form that it left her whole face pitted, and destroyed the sight of her
eyes, so that she could hardly distinguish light from darkness.
Several physicians consulted by her parents had submitted her to
different forms of treatment for the recovery of her sight, but to no
purpose. She was then sent as a boarder to the Augustinian convent of
Cascia, where her father's sister was a nun, known as Sister Maria
Maddalena, in order to pray the Lord through St. Rita's intercession
either to restore her sight or else take her to Himself. She was there
principally because her father's stepmother had been miraculously cured
by St. Rita some years before.
The girl was brought to the convent and confided to the nuns' care in
1833. Pitying the sad case of the afflicted child, they took most
loving care of her. The doctor who attended the convent was called in
to visit her, and he confirmed the opinions of the doctors of Terni
that her disease was incurable, and that only a miracle could restore
her sight. The poor child suffered great pain, and even the light
caused her so much inconvenience that two patches of green silk had to
be hung over her eyes. Besides, there was a constant flow of humour
mixed with tears, which was so corrosive that it ate away channels on
her nose and cheeks, and gave forth a nauseating and insufferable
stench. To give some relief to the little patient, her aunt and the
mistress of the boarders used to wash her eyes, by the doctor's
directions, with a decoction of marshmallows; but even from this
treatment she suffered a good deal, for in the course of it her eyelids
had to be raised as much as possible, and this caused her acute pain.
Elisabetta continued in this deplorable state till September of that
year, when the nuns thought of getting her to wear a black votive dress
in honour of St. Rita. This dress was first blessed by the confessor
and touched to the receptacle in which the saint's body lies. She was
dressed in that habit and her eyes touched with a little silver rod,
which tradition says once touched St. Rita's forehead. The mistress
noted that afterwards the flow of humour from her eyes had decreased,
and this fact gave Elisabetta courage to have greater confidence in the
saint's protection. That morning the nuns, according to custom, were
sorting in the courtyard the corn to be employed in making the little
loaves of St. Rita. The mistress brought Elisabetta to them, and she
sat down near one of the nuns, and, owing to her blindness, began,
instead of selecting the best, to mix what had already been sorted with
the inferior corn. The nun told her to keep quiet, and the mistress
then gave her a cup with some corn in it to play with. As soon as
Elisabetta got the cup she began to stir the corn with her little hand,
and suddenly called out that she could see, and as she did not know
what corn should be rejected, she held out a grain in her hand and
asked whether that should be put aside or not. At the same time she
threw off the green patches, and the nuns ran in astonishment to look
at the child's eyes, and saw that they were most beautiful and entirely
cured. To make sure that she had recovered her sight they made her
sort all the corn that she had in the cup, and she did it perfectly.
Then they all went together to where the saint's body was to thank her
for so great a miracle. The child then saw for the first time the body
of her benefactress, and she wept with love, and with her arms crossed
returned her thanks in a loud voice. When the doctor of the convent
saw Elisabetta he declared that the saint had worked a great miracle,
and that otherwise she never would have been able to see.
The child remained in the convent for nearly three years after, and her
eyes were always strong. She learned so well to read that she used to
recite the office in choir with the nuns, and read instruction for the
lay sisters. She also learned to write and sew, and do other feminine
work that needs very acute sight.
As a complement of the narration of this miracle, we judge it right to
quote the words of a famous Roman physician, who was called on to give
his judgment on this prodigious event. His learned opinion, delivered
in writing, ends thus:
'It is a matter of conscience and of necessity to reiterate my opinion
that this cure has been instantaneous, perfect, and lasting, in no way
caused by art or by natural forces, impossible to take place except by
miracle, which by science and by conscience must be classified with the
great inexplicable portents which the Omnipotent God allows to be
performed by His faithful servants, and in our case by Blessed Rita of
Cascia; and this I again repeat in my deposition under my oath.'
_Third Miracle_.--Instantaneous and perfect curing of Cosimo Pelligrini
from chronic catarrhal gastro-enteritis, hemorrhoidal affection, and
serious and permanent chronic anæmia.
Cosimo Pelligrini, of the town of Conversano, in the province of Bari,
a tailor by trade, and fifty years of age, broken in health by long
years of labour and by troubles of mind, began to lose strength, and
his eyesight became so weak that although he used very strong glasses
he could distinguish only with difficulty objects a short distance
away. He had, besides, grown so deaf in both ears that it was
necessary to speak in a very loud voice to make him hear, and so great
was his deafness that he did not even hear the strokes of a hammer with
which on one occasion his cloak was nailed for a joke to a bench on
which he was sitting.
Besides his great loss of strength and the weakening of his organs, he
also suffered from serious disorders of the stomach, pains in the
abdominal region, frequent vomitings and hæmorrhoids. He, moreover,
experienced frequent sudden attacks of dizziness, which were so serious
as to make him fall to the ground unless he speedily retired to bed,
and stupefied him for hours, during which time his sight was altogether
obscured. At night he often suffered from muscular contractions, and
if he spoke for long or listened to others for any length of time he
was seized with shakings in all his members. His ways of curing
himself made his already sufficiently deplorable state of health still
worse. For, instead of consulting a doctor, following his own caprices
he took frequent purgatives, and bled himself so often and to such an
extent that he developed chronic anæmia, which showed its presence in
his pallid, emaciated countenance. He was thus often forced to keep
his bed, and his bodily weakness and mental agony made life a burden.
Such for many years was Pelligrini's miserable condition. About the
year 1877, on the 22nd of May, the feast of St. Rita, to whom he had
great devotion, when he was entering his house after hearing Mass at
the saint's altar in the church of the nuns of St. Cosmo, he fell to
the ground, deprived almost entirely of sense. He was put to bed, and
the doctor immediately sent for. On his arrival the doctor instantly
saw the very grave state of the man, prescribed some remedies, of
which, however, almost no use could be made, and ordered the last
Sacraments to be administered. After being anointed, Pelligrini became
so ill that he lost all strength and the use of his senses, and was
hardly able to breathe; his face became corpse-like in its pallor as he
lay motionless in bed. In this state he passed two days, and on the
third day the doctor was of opinion that he would not live till evening.
Meanwhile a lay sister of the convent, who was sister of the sick man's
wife, sent to ask how he was, and in sending an answer his wife
requested the nuns to light the lamp at the saint's altar and offer
prayers for her husband, who was in his last agony. The request was
immediately attended to by all the community. Little over an hour
passed when Pelligrini, as if waking from a profound lethargy, opened
his eyes, began to move his arms, and, calling his wife, said to her,
'I am cured. Blessed Rita has made me well.' He then began to tell
how the saint had appeared to him, had touched him on the forehead,
shoulder, and breast, and assured him that he would be cured, and that
after only a day or two of weakness he would be entirely well. He also
gave the same account of the vision to others who came to see him, and
the fact proved that the saint had miraculously saved him from imminent
death.
The next day he left his bed completely cured, as Rita had told him he
would be. He was able to eat and digest his food as well as any person
of strong robust health, and all those chronic ills that afflicted him
for so many years were instantaneously and entirely eradicated, and his
deafness and lack of vision also were entirely gone. He could see as
well as if he had never been shortsighted, and could detect the least
noise, and although he was seventy years of age he had regained full
vigour and strength.
Many people went to see Pelligrini, who seemed as one raised from the
dead to a new life, and who was filled with a new strength. All who
saw him gave glory to God and to Rita for so wonderful and surprising a
fact. After ten years, when he was eighty years old, he was examined
by doctors, and found perfectly healthy and full of vigour.
CONCLUSION
We have now come, oh, reader, to the end of our journey, and however
short it has been, you, the faithful follower of our steps, cannot fail
to look back, as travellers do after a difficult passage, and consider
with us the difficulty and roughness of the way that Rita traversed in
order to reach her sublime goal. We are convinced that it is not
simply curiosity that has moved you to follow our plain narration of
facts, but the proposal to follow on the path that Rita has travelled
by, and walk in her footsteps, for the lives of the saints are written
and read for no other object than with the Divine assistance to cause
their virtues to be imitated. And you must have remarked that Rita's
virtues have this peculiar characteristic--that persons of both sexes,
of all ages and conditions, may put themselves in the way of practising
them and turning them to account. The young, married persons, parents,
widows, persons in religious life, the troubled and afflicted of both
sexes, have each in the life of this saint a bright and shining mirror
wherein to behold their stains, their weakness, their imperfection, and
see also how to remove these blots under Rita's care and protection.
The incident of the wondrous bees flitting about her cradle, described
in the first part, seems to us to symbolize the great multitude of
Christian souls, each of which in its proper place may extract, like
industrious bees, the honey and fragrance of virtue from this mystic,
odoriferous, and precious garden. She is indeed the jewel of the
Umbrian province, as the inspired Pontiff, Leo XIII., styled her in
most happy phrase on April 8, 1900, whose beauty can never fade, about
which thousands of souls may gather and be excited to thoughts of
ineffable sweetness that will produce good fruits in time and in
eternity.
You young people, you parents, you religious, you troubled and
afflicted, never lose sight of your model! Have recourse to her in all
your trials, and even when your troubles seem irreparable, do not lose
courage, for she who is commonly called the _Saint of the Impossible
and of desperate cases_ will then especially guard you and bring you
consolation.
R. & T. WASHBOURNE, 4 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON