Another Saint of the Impossible

Today, May 22nd is the feast day of my new favorite saint: Saint Rita of Cascia.

St. Rita is a saint of the impossible and desperate cases. She is the patron of wives, mothers and troubled marriages.

Currently, I am doing her devotion of Fifteen Thursdays. This consists of reciting a preparatory prayer, reflecting on a certain period of her life and asking for the graces to live and focus on certain virtues in the Christian life. Listed are the focuses of each week:

1:  Return to the Evangelical Life

2:  Obtaining the Spirit of Meekness

3:  Ensuring the Religious Education of Children

4:  Assisting Troubled Marriages

5:  Fostering Mortification and Sacrifice

6:  Obtaining the Christian Meaning of Death

7:  Practicing True Charity

8: Obtaining the Gift of Reconciliation

9:  Practicing the Evangelical Virtues

10: Obtaining True Contrition

11: Fixing Our Eyes on Heaven During Our Earthy Pilgrimage

12: Discovering What God Expects Of Us

13: Seeing Christ In Others

14: To Prepare For A Good Death

15: Imitating St. Rita in Bearing Witness To Christ

The prayers for these may be found in the book, Saint Rita, Saint of the Impossible, published by Catholic Book Publishing Corp.

Prayer in Difficult and Desperate Cases

O Powerful and glorious St. Rita, here at your feet is a disconsolate soul who, having need of help, has recourse to you with the fond hope of being heard. Because of my unworthiness and my past infidelities, I dare not hope my prayers will succeed in gaining God's mercy. That is why I feel the need of an all powerful mediatrix.  It is you that I have looked for, St. Rita, as the incomparable Saint of impossible and desperate cases.O dear Saint, take my cause to heart. Intercede with God so that I may obtain the grace I need so much and ardently desire ( mention the desired grace).

Do not, dear Saint, let me leave your presence without having been heard. If something in me is an obstacle to obtaining the grace I ask, help me to remove it.Infuse my prayer with your precious merits and present it to your heavenly Spouse together with your prayer. Thus enriched by you, kind Rita, my prayer will be heard. You were the wife most faithful, and you felt the sorrows of your heavenly Spouse in His passion. How could He reject a prayer enriched by you or not hear it?

All my trust is in you. Relying on your mediation, I await with a tranquil heart the fulfillment of my request.

Oh dear St. Rita, may the trust and hope I place in you not be lessened. Grant that my request be not in vain; then I shall make known to everyone the goodness of your heart and the great power of your intercession. Amen.