Dear St. Rita Parishioners,
A blessed Solemnity of St. Rita to you all! Today’s feast is a good reason to ponder just why it is that we celebrate. You will recall the words of the Book of Ecclesiastes, some of which were put into a popular song by The Byrds back in 1965: “For everything there is a season, and time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die…a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and time to dance” (Ecc 3:1-4). The list includes many more pairs, and while the musical rendition of the passage was part of the anti-Vietnam War movement, the Biblical original is much more detached, meaning that it looks to a higher purpose for all things under the sun.
Feast days are a time to rejoice (and if you’re coming to the Dinner/Dance tomorrow, a time to eat and a time to dance)! Our celebrations on this feast and on the many other feast days of the Church are not meant to glorify pleasure and parties and ease (or even eating meat!). Our celebrations are a joyful shout of gratitude to the God who has done such wonders in the world for His people and for His Church. They are an anticipation of the cries of gladness and joy that will unceasingly flow from our hearts for all of eternity in Heaven. To discover that joy and to taste it, even just a small portion of it, is one of the ways that we know we are on the right track in our Christian life: not that every moment is superficially happy or even easy, but that I know in my heart and experience in my life what God has done for me, and I desire to praise Him for it. The praise of God should always be on the lips of every Christian, and two of the things that we praise Him for today are the gifts of St. Rita the Saint and St. Rita the Parish!
St. Rita the Saint was a model of sanctity in various states of life – as a girl and young woman, as a wife, a mother, a widow, and a religious sister! It is a beautiful thing to contemplate the working of God in her life and to rejoice in what He did in her. She is such a great friend and intercessor for us, precisely because of what God did for her, and so it’s easy to see how we reap the benefits of God’s graces in her. We can be nothing but grateful to her that she responded so well to God’s Grace, and to God that He raised her up to the heights of sanctity, both to give us an example and an intercessor and friend.
In this particular saint, however, we are given an example of joy in the midst of deep suffering, as well as a desire to suffer, which to the modern world can come across as strange, to say the least. The point is that in the midst of her great sufferings – some chosen by her and others accepted – she remained joyful! Such joy was not just an act of the will that made her grit her teeth and smile. That would not be joy. Her joy was real as it was deep, because she found that in her suffering, she found Christ, and in Christ alone, she found joy. You and I likewise are called to find our joy in Jesus Christ. As much as we may love music and dancing (and other finite, terrestrial joys), they pale in comparison to the Goodness that is Christ Himself.
Finding joy in Christ, then, can and should be an essential part of our Christian life. It means addressing our sufferings and wounds in our prayer with Christ. It means seeking to eradicate sin which only brings me sadness. It also means carrying my crosses well, and turning to Christ in the suffering and darkness of my crosses, so that I can be attentive to Him there. Suffering is very personal, since things that affect me do so partly because I am who I am, and they may not affect another person in the same way. This means that the remedy must also be very personal. I have to find the things that I need in order to alleviate my pains. Christ Jesus, the one who knows every detail of my life, and what is more, who loves me with Divine Love – This One it is who knows how to address my suffering and to communicate Himself to me there, so that I find the joy that I am looking for, and ultimately so that I find Him.
Therefore, on this Solemnity of St. Rita, I hope that you have found a taste of the joy that God desires for the hearts of His faithful ones. I hope that her intercession has proved fruitful for you. I hope that you are able to praise God a little more than yesterday, because you have seen His Goodness and you desire to rejoice! May the joy that God gives to you spur you on to seek Him ever more fully, every single day. St. Rita, Patroness of Impossible Causes, pray for us!
In Christ,
Fr. Christensen