St Rita's Feast Day 2004

St Rita feast day
22.05.2004

From her childhood, she wished to dedicate herself to Christ, however the early years of the fourteenth century were ones of great discord in both church and state. To protect her from the dangers of the times her parents arranged a marriage for her with Paolo Mancini. This took place when she was but twelve years old. She remained a devoted and faithful wife and a loving mother of two sons for the next eighteen years when her life changed tragically with the murder of her husband, and, the death of both her sons within the next twelve months.

After many difficulties and much opposition, she entered the Convent of St Mary Magdalene in Cascia. There she spent her remaining years in prayer and penance – an example of the monastic life. In the twenty-fifth year of her life in the convent she received the sitgmata on her forehead. The Lord thus invited her to share evermore closely in his sufferings – an invitation which she lived out with total surrender to his divine will until her death on 22 May, 1457.

In St Rita, you have chosen, as your patron, a holy woman whose life embraced all the states of the Christian life – unmarried, a wife, a mother, a widow and finally a nun. In her, so many wonderful possibilities for Christian vocation were most happily met.
There should not be one amongst you who cannot find something meaningful in his/her life – something that speaks to your hearts and moves your souls.

I t is, indeed, a most appropriate occasion for me to entrust to your affection and support our beloved Father Hassan. As I said recently, at the dedication of the first stage of the renovation of St John's Church at Greenacre, - so much can be achieved, when people and priest work together in love and harmony. I am sure that you, who have taken Father Hassan to your hearts, will not fail to encourage and to support him in the years ahead as this parish is consolidated and develops.

So often I have been told by young and old that we cannot maintain our Melkite identity because we have no priest and we have no celebration of the Divine Liturgy - well, now there is no excuse. You have a priest. You have the spiritual nourishment of the Liturgy and the Holy Mysteries – the rest is up to you! May this great endeavour which you have undertaken be – with God's help – an example to the whole Eparchy.

I also take this opportunity to urge you – no, I implore you! – to remain faithful to the Melkite Catholic Church and Community. I fully understand that there is the constant temptation to adopt the ways of the majority community, to be absorbed into the local Latin parish – thus so many of our brightest and our best have been lost to our Church.

Remember your heritage – it is no exaggeration to say that countless of our forebears were persecuted, suffered and died as martyrs for our Faith, and our Melkite Church It would be an unspeakable tragedy if indifference were to cause, in this country, what sword, fire and prison could not achieve in the generations past in our homelands.

Especially to you, dear parents of our young Melkites, do I address the sincerest and most heartfelt appeal – do everything in your power, especially by your prayer and your example, to keep your children close to the Melkite Church and community.

And amongst the young adults of our community, I look for the future – a future blessed with great and beautiful things for God – but that future can only be if you also remain attached to the faith community that has nourished you thus far.

Rejoice in your faith, rejoice in your history, rejoice in being Melkite. To put it bluntly – be Melkite and be proud of it!!

It is my great pleasure to welcome so many of our dear friends and supporters from other communities and groups. In particular, I wish to acknowledge our friends in the Focolari movement who have come to join with us in this Holy Liturgy.

In the year 2000, on the one hundredth anniversary of her canonization, the relics of St Rita were brought to Rome as part of the celebrations. The great crowd escorting these blessed remains was received by His Holiness, Pope John Paul II. Today, I would commend to you but a few sentences from his beautiful address – The Holy Father said:

"In her example of total abandonment to God, in her transparent simplicity and in her unflinching fidelity to the Gospel, we, too, can find sound direction for being authentic Christian witnesses.

"She learned to understand the sorrows of the human heart. Rita thus became the advocate of the poor and the despairing, obtaining countless graces of consolation and comfort for those who called upon her in the most varied of situations.”