...is May 22, St. Rita de Cassia's memorial, and I was pleased to receive a picture of her from a fellow Byzantine Catholic parishioner who was unaware why I would be so pleased. St. Rita's day coincides with my anniversary and is the patron, among many other things, of "difficult marriages". I hope I don't have to ask her intercession!
Her optional memorial is new to the USA liturgical calendar. I wonder how does it happen a saint from the Middle Ages get added and not subtracted from the calendar? Perhaps because her patronages are so needed? She was made a saint relatively recently, in 1900.
Speaking of saints, I was in a Catholic bookstore the other day and there was an attractive three volume set of Padre Pio's letters I hadn't seen before. The owner explained that only the first volume was worthwhile to her since in the subsequent volumes he was writing to his spiritual advisor instead of giving advice to struggling penitents. Volumes II & III were inaccessible to her, she said, because saints are so much farther along the path. That makes much sense. If someone is describing a land way beyond what I can conceive I'm not going to get as much out of it as someone describing the flora and fauna and obstacles on the path just ahead. Unfortunately my desire to move ahead on the path is often questionable at best.
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