Visit to Cascia

In the last post, you might recall that I described my visits to Santa Maria degli Angeli, Pisa, and Eremi delle Carceri. These were really the halfway points on my trip, and the subject of this dispatch will be the conclusion of my visit to Assisi, which I think really was a lovely little break from some of the more frenetic few months that preceded it.

A few minutes after my hike to Eremi delle Carceri, I became sick again. I had not taken very diligent care of myself after my last illness, and this time it came on quite severely. Each day after finishing class, I would not usually have much energy left.

Nevertheless, the weekend was approaching, and I was remiss to “waste” it by remaining home instead of paying a visit to some nearby municipality of historical significance.

I had initially thought to visit Siena, given that it had been a preferred spot among my classmates at the Academy and that it was not hard to reach from Assisi. However, the day before I was set to leave, Fr. Youssef Abi-Zeid recommended to my mom that I visit Cascia. That Friday happened to be the feast of St. Rita, and the town was quite nearby to Assisi.

At once, I resolved to go. I soon discovered that thought the town was nearby, the method of arriving there by public transit was a bit tedious and required three bus changes. My mother recommended to me that I look into booking a ride as the car route was much more direct and would require much less complicated maneuvering between buses. Nevertheless, after the morning classes were over, I set out, determined to avoid booking a ride. I boarded the bus from Assisi center down to Santa Maria degli Angeli, where I was to catch the next bus. However, I was still not feeling well at all, and as I sat waiting for the bus to come, I began feeling a sneaking sensation of regret. Perhaps it would have been better, I said to myself, if I had just stayed back at the Casa Papa Giovanni. I belonged in bed, really; I had a bad headache, a nose that ran like a faucet, and the feelings of a low-grade fever. As the minutes ticked by before the bus came, I decided to book the room I would need that night, no easy task given the limited hotel rooms in a town like Cascia and the big feast occurring that day which was drawing in above-average amounts of pilgrims. Finally, I found a place not far from the town center that was available for that night. No sooner had I entered the credit card information and completed the payment than I looked up and saw the bus drive by…on the other side of the road. I had been standing on the wrong side. I could hardly have planned it worse.

I was now, as it were, caught out. I could not turn back, for I had already booked the room, and I could not well continue on as that was the last bus for the day. I found myself back at what my mother had originally suggested and what I probably should have just done from the beginning, booking a rideshare.

I quickly discovered that Uber was not to be relied upon in a place such as this. I tried calling a driving service I found online but hung up after only a couple of rings, thinking my proposal, an immediate hourlong ride, was likely preposterous.

Having felt sure that the Lord wanted me to visit Cascia on the feast of its patron, I uttered a short prayer to God and to St. Rita, “If you want me to get there today, you’re going to have to make it happen because I have run out of options.”

Just then, my phone pinged. I looked down. Someone with an Italian area code had sent me a WhatsApp message. It was someone the driving service I had tried calling, inquiring if there was anything they could help me with. Astonished, I responded, explaining my situation. He answered that his drivers could not help me but gave me two numbers of other taxiists to try calling. The first one of the two I tried told me his father could drive me and quoted me a reasonable price. Still not quite believing this extraordinary turn of events, I accepted and walked into the Basilica to wait until the driver would show up.

Upon arriving at Cascia and checking into the hotel, I discovered that it was a few kilometers from the town center. Thankfully, the lodging provided a shuttle, and I was informed that one would be swinging by at 7:30. Accordingly, I got changed, showered, and waited. When he arrived, the driver agreed to take me directly to the Basilica where St. Rita’s relics were located.

When we arrived, I expected to find the Basilica closed since online it had said that the normal closing hours were some time ago. However, I was surprised to see that the doors were still open; they must have extended them for the feast. 

I walked in, prayed, and just had time to venerate the relics of St. Rita before an usher came through, informing us that the Church would be closing. I made sure to mention the intentions I wished to present to St. Rita, said a prayer of gratitude, and then walked slowly out.

Once outside, I took a moment to look about me, appreciate at the village around me bathed in the gentle Italian springtime sunset, and marvel at how God had managed to take me in the palm of His hand, as it were, and bring me to this place. I reflected on the challenges that had to be overcome: my illness, the bus, the lack of taxis, the limited hotel rooms. And then, on top of that, He had gotten me here just in time before the closing of the basilica. It was not easy, I admitted to myself, but then I do not believe it was supposed to be. St. Rita herself had been a saint of enormous suffering, as I will relate later, so perhaps this was her way of doing things; she would get me there, alright, even if it wasn’t the smoothest of trips. And it would not be the end. 

Feeling a bit hungry for a nice warm dinner on that rather chilly Umbrian spring evening, I walked through the stone streets looking for such a restaurant. However, there were none to be had. All of the restaurants were filled with locals and pilgrims who had had the same thought as me. Three restaurants that I entered told me they had no open tables, and so finally, I simply wandered into an ice cream shop and bought myself two Kind bars and a bag of nuts; so much for a nice warm dinner on a chilly spring evening!

However, perhaps it was for the best because in the course of my futile wanderings, I came across an old church at the end of a long street of shops called the Chiesa di San Francesco, or the Church of St. Francis.

Seeing that it was still open, I went in and took the opportunity to say my night prayers. There was only one other man inside, and he was sitting in the row adjacent to me. He nodded smilingly at me when he saw me, and something about him told me this was likely a priest. When he finished praying and turned towards me, his Roman collar came into view, and this confirmed my suspicions. Thinking this was a perfect opportunity to mention to him about the Children’s Rosary, I did so and gave him a book and a flyer. He responded very positively, saying that he though this would be an apostolate that would fit in well in his parish. I am very optimistic about where that could go, and again, I was sure that this was the Lord’s and St. Rita’s doing.

Upon going back to the hotel, I remember feeling having not had the feeling of gratitude for a bed that I had that night in a long time.

The next morning, after breakfast, the shuttle again took me into town where I attended Mass at the basilica. During that Mass, the priest preached beautifully on St. Rita’s life and on her witness of trust in God throughout suffering. I remember that it really moved me. Here is what he recounted:

Margherita Lotti was born at the end of the fourteenth century in a small hamlet near the village of Cascia. She was a girl known for her piety and virtue, and though she wished to enter the convent, her parents would not hear of it, and they married her off to a young man named Paolo di Ferdinando di Mancino. Paolo’s family had been involved in a style of medieval Italian gang warfare in which families became stuck in a cycle of retribution and killing that lasted for generations. After their marriage, Paolo liberally took part in this, but after some years of being under the influence of Rita, his character began to change. He became a kinder, gentler man, and he renounced the wars of retribution, to the great embarrassment and chagrin of his own clan. The couple had two children, and all seemed to be going well.

And then, one day, Paolo was brutally murdered while riding on his horse by members of the rival family that still had a vendetta out for him due to something he had done years before. Such a tragedy would be the undoing of many people, but Rita was not one such person. Instead of reacting with outrage and a bloodthirsty revenge like many of those in her society at the time, she dove deeper into prayer and embraced forgiveness, determined to end the family rivalries. However, her two sons were not of the same mind, instead expressing their willingness to kill to avenge their father. Rita began to pray earnestly for them that they might not do such a thing.

A few months later, both of her sons died before her eyes of a sickness that swept through her town, and she was left with nobody. Rather than express indignation at God for this great Job-like tragedy (she had, after all, lived the life of a saint), she instead thanked God for the gift He had given to her of her husband and two sons and thanked Him that the souls of her sons had reached Heaven safely without being stained by the blood of their father’s killers.

After this, being now a widow and childless, she was permitted to enter the convent which had been what she had originally desired to do. During her time there, she was afflicted with a deep would to the forehead which would not heal, much like receiving the stigmata. This wound was so much a burden to her that often the other sisters did not wish to pray with her as the smell was so putrid. On one pilgrimage to Rome, she was quite old, necessitating that she be carried. The sisters were so resistant to having to be in close proximity to the smell for the whole journey, that, miraculously, the wound healed up just for the journey. But, of course, it came back once they got home.

St. Rita died on May 20, 1456, 570 years exactly before I arrived in Cascia, and her sanctity by that point was already widely known. For instance, the flowers in her garden were known to bloom deep into the wintertime when it was prohibitively cold for them to do so. As I say, this was my first experience with St. Rita, and I must say that I was deeply moved. She was so deeply a woman of God, a woman of suffering, and of patience that lies buried deep in the heart of Umbria.

After that wonderful Mass, I walked around the town some more and hiked up to the Church of Sant’Agostino. It was a wonderful old church with absolutely nobody inside, to the great contrast with what one would find below at the Basilica. I stayed and prayed in silence for an hour, drinking in the stillness and fresh interior.

Following this, I started walking back to the hotel. This was a walk of about 25 minutes, but it turned out to be more challenging than I had anticipated since the road was quite narrow, and the cars traversed it at high speed. I was forced to walk on the other side of the jersey barrier, and in this spot the ground sloped down at an extreme angle; it was quite literally almost impossible to go on foot.

At the hotel, I waited for the ride to arrive that I had reserved to take me back to Assisi. Not long after, he pulled up, and we were speeding along the road in return to my home away from home.

In conclusion, it was quite apparent to me after I returned that that little excursion to Cascia, though it had not been without its tribulations, had also been a special experience well worth remembering and treasuring.