St. Rita of Cascia

An Italian woman married against her will at twelve to a violent man whom she patiently won to gentleness over eighteen years before he was murdered in a feud. After her two sons died young, she entered the Augustinian convent of Cascia. For the last fifteen years of her life she carried a wound on her forehead — said to be a thorn from Christ's crown — and is invoked as the patroness of the impossible.

Rita had desired religious life from childhood, but obedient to her parents' wishes she endured a brutal marriage. When her husband was killed, she forgave his murderers publicly and begged her sons to do the same rather than pursue vendetta. Both sons died of illness shortly after — a grief Rita bore as a mercy, for she had prayed that God would take them rather than let them become murderers.

Three times refused entry to the convent because she was not a virgin, she was finally admitted — legend says she was carried inside by her patron saints in the night. Within the cloister she lived forty years of prayer, fasting, and quiet charity. She was canonized in 1900, and her incorrupt body rests in the basilica of Cascia, where pilgrims seeking impossible graces still come in unbroken procession.