Real Love

Today is the feast of St. Rita of Cascia, an Augustinian nun who died in 1457 and who is the patroness of my parish, St. Rita's in Alexandria, Virginia.

I have been in other parishes when they have had patronal feast days come up and I have usually seen them offer a few extras at Mass, a mention in the homily perhaps, or once a presentation on the saint prepared by schoolchildren and displayed in the church's vestibule.  But St. Rita's has done far more.

Yesterday evening, in honor of  the eve of the Feast, The Palestrina Choir performed music from William Byrd's Mass For Four Voices and included some of his propers for the Feast of Corpus Christi and some Eucharistic hymns. The musical event transported me.  If there is ever something I envy it is others ability to sing, and these 12 people were just so very good and performed so well.  And the choir explained in the program a lot about William Byrd, a Catholic composer living in Anglican England and who wrote mostly for Masses which could only be held in secret and for which both lay and ordained Catholics were being fined or even put to death.

Even more potentially dangerous than the publication of he Masses was Byrd's project to provide music for the propers of major feast days of the Roman rite....Byrd doubtless wrote the music for the kind of services he himself attended, which, by necessity, were held secretly in private homes and chapels....

Then, on the feast day itself, the homilies didn't just touch upon the Saint's life, they also sought to show how the Saint's life could show us something about God as well as provide us examples of Christian life and attitude.

For example, although St. Rita is almost always depicted in an Augustinian habit, for she was an Augustinian nun for 40 years, before she entered religious life she was a wife and mother of two boys who may have been twins.

Interestingly, accounts of her life differ.  According to accounts like this one and this one, Rita married early in accord with the wishes of her parents to a man who was cruel and abusive to her. Nonetheless she bore him two sons, persisted in prayer for his conversion and eventually saw him converted - sadly only a relatively short while before he was set upon by enemies and murdered.  Rita then saw over time that her sons were becoming steadily more caught up in the notion or avenging their father's death through murder and prayed that God would either grant the grace to change their minds or allow them die before having the time to commit a sin which could endanger their eternal lives.  Shortly afterward the young men contracted illnesses that, eventually, did take their lives - but only after having both been forgiven and forgiving their father's killers.  Rita then entered the convent after some difficulty and lived a holy life replete with signs, including a stigmata of a wound of thorns on her forehead.

Now,  The National Shrine to St. Rita, in Philadelphia, omits any real information about her husband's abuse in its account of her life, and significantly downplays her praying for her sons to be allowed to die rather than sin.  But it does offer an interesting account of her entrance into religious life.  According to the National Shrine, Rita's problem with entering was that one of the members of the family widely seen as responsible for her husband's death was already a sister and the convent thought it imprudent to introduce so much potential rivalry into the community.  The only way Rita could enter was to approach the family in question and make sure there was peace and only upon doing so was she admitted.

I guess I can see why the National Shrine might downplay the notion that someone might pray for a loved one to be allowed to die rather than to sin.  That idea can shock our contemporary ears and attitudes since our culture so radically downplays the serious nature of sin.  But one of the facts about God is that God is love, and love does not merely mean that soft and sentimental words that trickle off Hallmark Cards but that fierce and, yes, potentially hard and terrible reality in which we will what is truly best for the beloved even though it may cost us so very dearly.

In St. Rita's case, she was willing to, by one account, either pray that her children die rather than sin or abandon them to the love of God so much, in the other account, that they might die rather than sin. In each case she was willing to lose them from her life on earth so that she could see them safe in heaven for eternity.

We live in culture which is steadily more confused about what love really is and what it means to genuinely love someone.  Part of the problem is our language which can be so descriptive in some ways but for some reason can only give us one word, love, for how we feel about food, our pets, our families, our vacation spots and our sports and hobbies.  Do we really feel the same thing for Fido as we do for our parents and children when we say we love them? 

Additionally, love is more than just a feeling.  Love is a verb, a choice we make to will the best for the beloved, even at deep cost to ourselves, because in doing so we participate in the Love God has had for us since the beginning and which He has still.   But St. Rita knew and knows now that love, while being the most wonderful and important thing in the universe, can and often does exact a fierce and terrible cost.  May we all be ready to love as we are called to love and to pay whatever costs real love asks of us.

Comments

[Blanche The Davidian]

Well said, David. Both St. Rita and William Byrd risked much for authentic love, so they were well-paired.

[Phil Hoover]

I'm reminded of the words of Christ, "Greater Love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."

John 15:13

[David Morrison]

Yes - and how many of us read those words in Scripture and shrink from them?

[Phil Hoover]

Actually David,

Most of us do.

I first found this verse experientially when I was a senior in High School (1979), and the Lord used it profoundly in my life then---and ever since.

For many years, when I would send out correspondence, I would always sign my name and then list John 15:13 at the bottom. On more than one occasion a person would ask me what "John 15:13" was, and I'd encourage them to "look it up" in their Bible.

In every phase of my life, this verse continues to remind me of exactly what Christ requires if I want to show "no greater love."

Laying down my life requires that I remember how I was DEAD in my sins, and that Christ showed me the greatest love of all. Not only did He show me the greatest love, but He gave me the command to show it myself....that's where the "rub" comes in.

Laying down my life means that I always look out for the best interests of those people I call "friends." It means that I give them my very best...not just the leftovers.

I'm gonna start using that verse again....

Phil Hoover
Chicago