We believe that Redemptive Suffering is a powerful offering to Our Lord. It's a way of taking a terrible negative, the pain inflicted on us by the suffering, and turning it into a great positive, by offering it to Our Lord Jesus. We believe that St. Rita used this unusual twist of not receiving the fragrance of Heaven that accompanies the Stigmata, to glorify Our Lord Jesus. She offered up to him the isolation caused by the putrid odor of her wound.
In 1450, Pope Nicholas V declared the first Holy Year, proclaiming Rome, once and for all, the center of the Christian world, and of our Faith. The popes had been away from Rome for sixty seven years. Our Lord wanted to unite His Church, to end the scandal of division and dissension caused by self-interest and resultant schism, so He inspired the pope to institute this Holy Year. And unite He did! All the Religious of Italy, as well as pilgrims from all over the world converged on Rome.
The Nuns of Cascia were also planning a pilgrimage, which was not to include St. Rita. Knowing and understanding the reasoning behind her exclusion (her wound which continued to bleed, fester and emit unbearable odors), she nevertheless did not take it lying down. She went to the Big Boss! She prayed that her wound be temporarily healed, that there be no external signs, only the internal pain of the wound to remain. Her petition was almost immediately granted; the wound disappeared and St. Rita was on her way to Rome with the other Nuns.
The pilgrimage to and from Rome was one of hardship, deprivation, suffering and sacrifice; the walking and living on the road, at times, more than the little band of pilgrims from the Monastery of Cascia could bear. But the always patient, never complaining joy of the eldest Nun, St.Rita, now in her late sixties, encouraged and sustained them. The highlight of the trip was to be the canonization of St. Bernardine of Siena. Little did the Nuns present with St. Rita this Holy Year know, that four hundred years later this humble Nun in their midst, Rita, with similar pomp and ceremony, would likewise be recognized by Holy Mother Church, by being raised to the Communion of Saints.
The wound did not bleed or reveal any evidence it had ever existed during the entire pilgrimage, but upon their return to the Monastery, not five minutes passed when the wound opened, with all the accompanying signs. Rita was again quarantined into seclusion with her Beloved Lord.