Читать книгу Life of St. Rita of Cascia, O.S.A. from the Italian - Richard Connolly - Страница 16

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St. John the Baptist experienced a similar strengthening of the spirit, as we read in that place in which it is also written that he went into the desert, where he hid himself, as Blessed Simon says, in order to give himself up entirely to prayer, contemplation, and penance. The comparison between these saints is often a fitting one, for Rita always follows closely in the footsteps of her great model. It is true that, according to the example of the Psalmist, she walked in the innocence of her heart, in the bosom of her virtuous family, for she found nothing abroad that could distract her spirit from the affairs of her home, whilst her gravity, modesty, and habitual seclusion opened to her a wide field for the exercise of her love of prayer. Yet she was so enamoured of heavenly things that she wearied of the things of earth, and desired, in a certain sense, to be out of the world; and since this could not be, she regarded with a holy envy the lot of so many anchorites and heroines of solitude, who, in deserts and in the depths of woods, lived lives more like those of angels than of men. She had before her eyes the examples of Blessed Simon, of Blessed Ugolino, of Blessed John, and of the other saintly hermits of St. Augustine, who had only recently passed to their reward in heaven, or were still living in the neighbourhood of Rocca Porena. The example of these models of holiness increased in her heart her dearest desire to serve her beloved Jesus amid the silence of the woods and on the mounts of myrrh. But the love of her aged parents, and obedience, more than any thought of her youth and sex, prevented her from fulfilling her generous design. The sacred love with which she was animated made her industrious, and suggested the thought of converting her home into the solitude she longed for. With the consent of her parents she chose a little room separated from the others, and turned it into an oratory. Its walls she decorated with pictures of our Lord's Passion, and there she shut herself in, as into the midst of all delights. Her Divine Lover awaited her there to speak to her heart, and there, far from the eyes of men, in perpetual silence and abstinence, she enjoyed those ineffable consolations of grace which the profane know not of. The constant object of her thoughts, of her ecstasies of soul, of the most ardent love of her heart, was the Passion of her crucified Spouse; and in the midst of the tears which accompanied her meditation, whilst her heart was filled with Divine compassion, she experienced that true peace and happiness of soul which only grace can produce—how we know not—from sorrow. She felt herself transformed into the Crucified One, for whom alone she now lived—rather, she no longer lived, but Jesus Christ lived in her. In that school of love, through that Divine teaching, she came to know more certainly the fallacy of all worldly things; she saw how the world deceives us, and she saw also the charms and pomps and pleasures of this life, but she saw them as they really are, and could therefore say with the wise man that they are but vanity and affliction of spirit. She therefore resolved to have no part in this deceitful world, and since life in the desert was denied her, she resolved to bury herself in a cloister. But she had not yet reached the age in which to put her design into execution. Meanwhile the holy child lived in her first place of retirement for a full twelvemonth, until the obligation of assisting her parents and the duties of charity and obedience forced her from the place of her spiritual happiness. This happened probably when she was about eleven years old. Her parents were now beginning to feel the burden of their years, and Rita had perforce to enter upon an active life, and exercise works of mercy and justice, without, however, entirely abandoning her practices of meditation. Her history does not tell us how she performed the domestic duties that fell to her lot, perhaps because, from what we know of her life hitherto, that may more easily be imagined than described. Whilst fulfilling the parts of both sisters of Lazarus, she did not cease to envy John in the desert. Although the Holy Spirit had, through her prayers, made known to her many things, and although she continued still to be enlightened from above, yet she knew not what was written in the eternal decrees concerning herself, that Providence only put off to a better time the fulfilment of her thirst for solitude and for a cloistered life. Rita was intended to be an example to every age and condition; she should therefore live other lives before reaching the cloister she panted for.