Saint Zita

Gentle, humble, and submissive to everyone, Zita was of intrepid courage regarding libertines. When one of the servants attempted to violate her modesty, she tore his face with her nails. To preserve this precious treasure, she joined almost continuous prayer to fasting and mortification. She would rise at midnight, attend Matins in the nearby church of Saint Frediano, and pray there with tears for herself and for others.

These exercises of piety and charity did not prevent Zita from serving her masters with humble and affectionate punctuality. When they happened to be angry with her or others, she would throw herself at their feet, even if it were not her fault, and humbly ask for their forgiveness. This humility, joined to her other virtues, inspired in them a religious veneration for her. However, they had not always done her justice: her modesty was treated as stupidity; her exactitude in all her duties was regarded as the fruit of secret pride. Signora Fatinelli allowed herself to be prejudiced against her by the other servants who hated her; her master despised her to the point that he could not see her without entering into violent transports of fury. Later, when they had appreciated the treasure that their house possessed, they entrusted her with the management of their affairs. A word from her mouth was enough to calm Signor Fatinelli, whose temper was very volatile. Ce rtainly, holines signor Fatinelli Master of Saint Zita in Lucca. s is not always glorified in this world. Zita did not foresee that hers would be: otherwise she would not have been a saint. That is why she was always equally humble and submissive.

On a Christmas night, when it was extremely cold, Zita was preparing to go to Matins. Her master said to her: "How can you run to church in such cold weather, when we can barely protect ourselves here with all our clothes? You, especially, exhausted by fasting, dressed so poorly, and going to sit on a marble floor? Either stay here to attend to your holy prayers, or take my fur-lined cloak on your shoulders to protect yourself from the cold." Zita, not wanting to miss such a solemn office, was leaving with the cloak, when the master said to her, as if sensing what was about to happen: "Take care, Zita, that you do not leave the cloak with another, for fear that, if it is lost, I will suffer the prejudice, and you, great anger from me." She replied: "Do not fear, sir, your cloak will be well kept for you." Having entered the church, she saw a half-naked poor man, who was whispering softly and shivering with cold. Moved by compassion, Zita approached him and said: "What is the matter, my brother, and what are you complaining about?" He, looking at her with a placid face, reached out his hand and touched the cloak in question. Immediately Zita took it off her shoulders, clothed the poor man with it, and said to him: "Take this fur coat, my brother, until the end of the office, and you will return it to me; do not go anywhere, for I will take you to the house and warm you by the fire." That said, she went to take her place where she usually prayed. After the office, and when everyone had left, she looked for the poor man everywhere, inside and outside the church, but found him nowhere. She said to herself: "Where can he have gone? I fear that someone has taken the cloak from him, and that, out of shame, he does not dare to appear before my eyes. He seemed honest enough, and I do not believe he wanted to snatch the cloak and run away." Thus she piously excused the poor man. But finally, not having been able to find him, she returned a little ashamed, still hoping, however, that God would appease her master, or inspire the poor man to return the cloak. When she returned to the house, the master said very harsh words to her and reproached her sharply. She answered nothing, but, recommending that he hope, she told him how the thing had happened. He glimpsed well how the thing had happened, but did not cease to murmur until dinner. At the third hour, there was on the stairs of the house a poor man who charmed all the spectators with his good appearance, and who, carrying the cloak in his arms, returned it to Zita, thanking her for the good she had done him. The master saw and heard the poor man. He was beginning, as was Zita, to address him, when he disappeared like a flash of lightning, leaving in their hearts an unknown and ineffable joy, which filled them with admiration for a long time.

It was believed that this old man was an angel; that is why the door of the church where she met the poor man with the cloak has since been called the Angel's Gate.

Every Friday she went on a pilgrimage to San-Angelo in Monte, two leagues from Luc ca; one Lucques City in Italy where Saint Zita lived and died. day, having been detained by household chores longer than usual, she was overtaken by night. A horseman following the same path predicted that she would perish in the precipices if she continued to walk in the darkness: but when he arrived, he was quite astonished to find at the church door the one he thought he had left far behind. Saint Zita had a great love for Saint Mary Magdalene and for Saint John the Evangelist; on the eve of the feas sainte Marie-Madeleine Saint to whom Zita had a great devotion. t of the former, she wished to go saint Jean l'Évangéliste Saint to whom Zita had a great devotion. and burn a candle before her altar in a church quite far from Lucca. She arrived late and found the doors closed; she lit her candle, knelt down, and fell asleep. During the night, a terrible storm arose, rain fell in torrents, and the Saint rested: when she awoke, the streets were covered with water, but she had not even been touched by a drop of rain, and her candle was still burning. The doors then opened before her, and when the priest arrived to say Mass, he found the Saint in prayer in that church which had not been opened since the previous evening. We could report many similar facts; they would serve to prove more and more the very special protection with which Heaven surrounded its servant. Her final years were spent in almost continuous prayer and ecstasy. She died at the age of sixty, on April 27, 1278, after having received the last Sacraments with extraordinary fervor: she had served only one master. As soon as she had breathed her last, a brilliant star appeared above the house where her body rested, and the children began to shout in the streets: the Saint is dead, let us go see the Saint in the Fatinelli house. The whole city came to pay homage to the virtue of the honorable servant whom God had just glorified by calling her to Himself.

Miracles multiplied so much at the tomb of Saint Zita that, four years after her death, the bishop permitted her to be honored with a public cult. This cult spread rapidly both in her homeland and throughout Europe. The coffin of Saint Zita was opened on three different occasions in 1446, 1581, and 1652, and the body it contained was found perfectly intact; it was still in a perfect state of preservation in 1841, just as the Bollandists described it in the Acta Sanctorum in the 17th century: it is enshrined and kept with great respect in the church of Saint Frediano. In 1696, Innocent XII confirmed the cult rendered to Saint Zita and published a decree of beatification.

She is given as attributes a bunch of keys hanging from her belt and a pitcher: the keys recall that she was invested with the trust of her masters after having been the object of their mistreatment, and the pitcher, the miracle she performed of changing water into wine for the benefit of the poor. — The well where she drew water to perform this miracle is still shown in Lucca. — She has also been depicted standing before the city gates, with the Blessed Virgin coming to open the wicket for her. The merciful Mary had to render this service to her servant one evening when the latter had been delayed by her good works. A fine old German engraving, which we have before our eyes, represents her with the features of a pleasant young girl, clothing the old man with her master's fur coat.

Saint Zita is the patroness of Lucca; she was also the patron ess of Lucques City in Italy where Saint Zita lived and died. the entire republic of that name, when it existed.

Servants and housekeepers invoke her as their model and their special protectress.

The cottage on Mount Sagrati, which had sheltered the cradle of the humble S mont Sagrati Birthplace of Saint Zita. aint, has been turned into a chapel dedicated to her.

Several spiritual maxims of Saint Zita have been collected: here are two which, while expressing known truths, highlight them perfectly: "A lazy servant," she used to say, "must not be called pious; a person of our condition, who affects to be pious without being essentially industrious, has only a false piety."

"To work is to pray," she also often said.

Let us conclude with this praise from one of her historians: "Zita had the piety of the Saints, which is not content with a few external practices, but which penetrates the depths of the soul. She was not one of those who are quicker to pray than to forgive; to go to church than to attend to the duties of their state; to give alms than to restrain their tongue or to tame their passions."

Stolz, Rohrbacher Rohrbacher Hagiographer cited as a source. , and other hagiographers.