Students from Mercymount Country Day School in Cumberland visited their neighbors at Mount St. Rita Health Centre to celebrate the Feast of St. Rita. Students joined the residents for Mass, shared prayer cards with the seniors and presented a statue of St. Rita with red roses.
“We are here spiritually for the residents and offering Mass daily and other spiritual activities is really making us keep the faith in our Catholic facility vibrant,” said Paul Rendine, Mount St. Rita’s director of Mission and Spiritual Care.
Born near Spoleto, Italy, Rita wanted to be a nun but married in deference to her parents. For nearly 20 years, she endured her profligate husband’s mistreatment. Following his violent death, she was admitted after three refusals to an Augustinian convent at Cascia, where she spent the next 40 years. She is remembered for her devoted care of sick nuns and for a deep forehead wound that lasted 15 years, caused she said by a thorn from Christ’s crown of thorns.
