Like Elizabeth Ann Seton, Rita of Cascia was a wife, mother, widow, and member of a religious community. Her holiness was reflected in each phase of her life.
Born at Roccaporena in central Italy, Rita wanted to become a nun but was pressured at a young age into marrying a harsh and cruel man. During her 18-year marriage, she bore and raised two sons. After her husband was killed in a brawl and her sons had died, Rita tried to join the Augustinian nuns in Cascia. Unsuccessful at first because she was a widow, Rita eventually succeeded.
Over the years, her austerity, prayerfulness, and charity became legendary. When she developed wounds on her forehead, people quickly associated them with the wounds from Christ’s crown of thorns. She meditated frequently on Christ’s passion. Her care for the sick nuns was especially loving. She also counseled lay people who came to her monastery.
Beatified in 1626, Rita was not canonized until 1900. She has acquired the reputation, together with Saint Jude, as a saint of impossible cases. Many people visit her tomb each year.
Like Elizabeth Ann Seton, Rita of Cascia was a wife, mother, widow, and member of a religious community. Her holiness was reflected in each phase of her life.
Born at Roccaporena in central Italy, Rita wanted to become a nun but was pressured at a young age into marrying a harsh and cruel man. During her 18-year marriage, she bore and raised two sons. After her husband was killed in a brawl and her sons had died, Rita tried to join the Augustinian nuns in Cascia. Unsuccessful at first because she was a widow, Rita eventually succeeded.
Over the years, her austerity, prayerfulness, and charity became legendary. When she developed wounds on her forehead, people quickly associated them with the wounds from Christ’s crown of thorns. She meditated frequently on Christ’s passion. Her care for the sick nuns was especially loving. She also counseled lay people who came to her monastery.
Beatified in 1626, Rita was not canonized until 1900. She has acquired the reputation, together with Saint Jude, as a saint of impossible cases. Many people visit her tomb each year.
Reflection
Although we can easily imagine an ideal world in which to live out our baptismal vocation, such a world does not exist. An “If only ….” approach to holiness never quite gets underway, never produces the fruit that God has a right to expect.
Rita became holy because she made choices that reflected her baptism and her growth as a disciple of Jesus. Her overarching, lifelong choice was to cooperate generously with God’s grace, but many small choices were needed to make that happen. Few of those choices were made in ideal circumstances—not even when Rita became an Augustinian nun.
Pope Francis passed away on April 21, 2025, at age 88, and the Jesuit Conference joins people around the world in mourning. May he rest in the peace of Christ.
Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on December 17, 1936, Jorge Mario Bergoglio entered the Society of Jesus on March 11, 1958, and was ordained a priest on December 13, 1969. As a Jesuit, he served as novice master, a theology professor and provincial of the Jesuits in Argentina (1973-1979).
Undated photo of Fr. Jorge Mario Bergoglio , SJ (Jesuit Curia)
He was named auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires in 1992 and archbishop in 1998. Pope Saint John Paul II elevated him to the College of Cardinals in 2001. On March 13, 2013, Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected pope, making him the first Jesuit pope and the first pope from the Americas and the Southern Hemisphere. Read his full obituary at America magazine.
Below, read a statement from Fr. Brian Paulson, SJ, president of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States, on Pope Francis’ passing:
I join the countless people around the world who are mourning the death of the Holy Father Pope Francis at this hour. I pray for the repose of his soul and for the consolation of his family, friends and brother Jesuits. While more thorough reflections and examinations of Pope Francis’ legacy will be published in the coming weeks and months, I wanted to offer this brief expression of gratitude for the Holy Father’s extraordinary life of service to God’s people, energized by the love of Christ.
First and foremost, Pope Francis was a pastor. He consistently encouraged bishops, priests and all church ministers to meet people wherever they are in their life journeys, in messiness and complexity and ambiguity, and to help them grow in holiness. The Holy Father’s witness as a shepherd “with the smell of the sheep” from closeness to those on the peripheries of the church and society always inspired and challenged me in my own priestly ministry.
Pope Francis met refugees at Centro Astalli’s soup kitchen in Rome in 2013. (Jesuit Refugee Service)
And Pope Francis indeed went to the peripheries time after time: His first official trip outside of Rome as pope was to visit the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa, a common entry point to Europe for migrants, to pray and advocate for those who had left their homes and risked their lives in pursuit of a better future. He washed the feet of prisoners at Holy Thursday liturgies. He directed the construction of showers for the homeless in St. Peter’s Square. And he appointed cardinals from regions on the planet that had never seen a cardinal named there before — the Amazon, the Philippines, South Sudan, Myanmar and more. These decisions and hundreds of similar ones made headlines so often during Francis’ papacy that it’s easy for us to take them for granted, but let us not forget how much his boldness surprised us. I believe Pope Francis will always be remembered for how he brought marginalized individuals and communities to the heart of the church.
Pope Francis with Father General Arturo Sosa, SJ (Jesuit Curia)
I also believe future appreciations of Pope Francis’ leadership will reflect the ways his reforms in church governance, the roles of the laity, and the social engagement of the church in service to the world were rooted in the teachings of Vatican II. The “Francis Project,” as it has sometimes been called, was not his own personal vision alone, but one formed by his experiences as a leader in the Latin American church in the decades following the Council.
The distinctly Ignatian influence on Pope Francis’ ministry was also unmistakable. In listening to Pope Francis and reading his writings, it is clear to me how much his thought was marked by the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. The Spiritual Exercises are a “school of the heart” that help a retreatant to grow in self-knowledge of their gifts, weaknesses and sinfulness while meditating on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Ignatian spirituality is extraordinarily practical; it engages our own hopes, desires, dreams, struggles, joys and sorrows. In works like “Evangelii Gaudium” and “Laudato Si’,” just to name two, Pope Francis offered his own “school of the heart” meditations, inviting all believers to find the joy of the Gospel within their everyday lives and to commit to responding to “the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor” as an integral, concrete part of discipleship.
Fr. Brian Paulson, SJ, with Pope Francis
In recent years, the Synod on Synodality emerged as a signature moment of Pope Francis’ outreach toward the peripheries, calling the universal Catholic Church to live a deeper and more inclusive process of listening that includes the voices of all stakeholders. I pray this new mode of dialogue and decision-making continues to develop and take root in the church in the years to come.
Before all else, the Gospel invites us to respond to the God of love who saves us, to see God in others and to go forth from ourselves to seek the good of others. -Pope Francis
I will close this brief reflection with a quote from “Evangelii Gaudium,” the richness of which will continue to make the document a gift to the church for generations. In the quote, as in the exhortation as a whole, we get a sense of what Pope Francis saw as the heart of the spiritual life. “Before all else,” Pope Francis writes, “the Gospel invites us to respond to the God of love who saves us, to see God in others and to go forth from ourselves to seek the good of others.” Let us honor Pope Francis by trying to follow that advice every day.
May the Holy Father Pope Francis rest in the peace of Christ, his brother and Lord.
HOLY THURSDAY is the most complex and profound of all religious observances, saving only the Easter Vigil. It celebrates both the institution by Christ himself of the Eucharist and of the institution of the sacerdotal priesthood (as distinct from the ‘priesthood of all believers’) for in this, His last supper with the disciples, a celebration of Passover, He is the self-offered Passover Victim, and every ordained priest to this day presents this same sacrifice, by Christ’s authority and command, in exactly the same way. The Last Supper was also Christ’s farewell to His assembled disciples, some of whom would betray, desert or deny Him before the sun rose again.
It requires a bit of detective work—pulling a few threads here, a few more there, and so on throughout the Gospels—to form a viewable tapestry of the holy Galilean women. However, by taking the time to delve into the verses on these women, this lovely group slowly comes into focus, and we can better learn to appreciate them for who they were and all they did for Jesus. St. Mary Magdalene, Blessed Joanna, Susanna, St. Salome, St. Mary of Clopas, and many others unnamed are indeed a special collection of women to know.
It is Luke who gives a formal introduction to these women. At the start of his eighth chapter, he presents them as a unique cluster from the region of Galilee who ministered to Jesus from “their resources.” Luke also lets us know that at least some of these women had suffered terribly and found healing.
We can only imagine the day-to-day lives of these women while they traveled with and assisted Jesus and the Twelve Apostles. Obviously, they had “resources” to spare. Perhaps it was strictly financial assistance that they gave. However, it seems possible that they helped with other things too—maybe they did some cooking, helped with laundry and mending, or nursed anyone who got sick. With a bit of imagination, it is easy to envision them helping in a variety of ways. These women most certainly gleaned some significant insights and understandings during their time of accompanying Christ. It would be nice to have more biblical elaboration on their roles, but we don’t.
After pondering their time going from town to town with Jesus and the apostles, Bible readers pretty much have to wait until the Passion narratives in each Gospel to read anything more about these women (a short narrative on St. Salome is one exception).
Their Home of Galilee
The region of Galilee was the site of many wonderful New Testament events: the Sermon on the Mount, the miracle of the wine at Cana, the healing of the centurion’s servant, and the Transfiguration—just to name a few. And, of course, Jesus’ childhood home in Nazareth was in Galilee as well. This collection of women is another star for this region west of the Sea of Galilee.
St. Mary Magdalene
Poor Mary Magdalene has been stuck for centuries now with the reputation of having been a prostitute. In reality, though, all we know for sure about her past is that she had been burdened with seven demons that had left her—under the authority of Jesus (Lk. 8:2 & Mk. 16:9).
During the early medieval days, Pope Gregory the Great once connected Mary Magdalene to a passage shortly before Luke’s formal introduction to the Galilean women (Lk 7:36-39). In it, a sinful woman who washed Jesus’ feet with her tears and then anointed them with a flask of ointment is presented.
Evidently, the pope had a hunch that the sin of this woman was prostitution and that she was likely the same as Mary Magdalene, who is mentioned just 12 verses later. Pope Gregory the Great (who we must remember really did do many “great” things) also linked Mary Magdalene with Mary of Bethany. These well-intentioned ideas stuck for a long time.
You still don’t have to go far to find someone who thinks Mary Magdalene was undoubtedly a prostitute and the same as Mary of Bethany. Many now assert that seven demons may actually represent mental illness—not prostitution. And most conclude that Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany, and the woman who washed Jesus’ feet with her tears are most likely three separate women.
Of all the holy Galilean women, Mary Magdalene is the most prominent. Three evangelists name her specifically as being at the Crucifixion, two at the burial, and all four Gospel writers put Mary Magdalene at the empty tomb. Matthew, Mark, and John also assert that she saw and spoke to the risen Christ.
Blessed Joanna
Joanna is the next Galilean woman Luke introduces. Little is said about Joanna, but the brief mention that Luke presents offers an intriguing clue. He included the fact that Joanna had a close connection to Herod Antipas the Tetrarch, who had John the Baptist beheaded. Joanna was the wife of Herod’s steward, Chuza.
Being a steward, Chuza likely had the responsibility of overseeing Herod’s estate, a job that surely demanded a certain loyalty to this ruler. One can only guess how Joanna managed to support her husband and follow Jesus without any conflict. Perhaps Joanna and her husband were present at the ill-fated birthday banquet. Maybe they heard Herod’s order for the beheading of John the Baptist and perhaps even saw the gruesome platter. We can only wonder.
Joanna is mentioned by name only one other time in the Bible—Luke lists her as one of the women who went to the tomb on the day of the Resurrection.
According to Luke, Joanna—along with other women of Galilee—saw two men in dazzling clothes at Jesus’ empty tomb, learned of Christ’s resurrection, and shared the great news with the apostles—who did not believe them! Although Joanna’s name is never mentioned again, it is reasonable to consider that she was likely a part of the group whenever there is a general reference to the Galilean women.
In the current Roman Martyrology, Joanna is listed as a blessed, rather than a saint. This is hard to discern; in the earliest days of the Church, the words blessed, holy, and saint were often used interchangeably. So you might see Joanna listed as a saint in some resources and as a blessed in others, similar to the way we call Mary the Blessed Virgin Mary or St. Mary.
It’s impossible to know with certainty what exactly was meant. Was Joanna considered an official saint in heaven or just a really good and pious person (perhaps not martyred)? Either way, she gave much and is an inspiration to all.
Blessed/St. Joanna’s memorial is May 24.
St. Salome
It is Mark and Matthew who let us know that Salome is another holy woman of Galilee. Mark provides us with her name—within his Crucifixion and Resurrection narratives. Matthew, who calls her “the mother of the sons of Zebedee,” gives an additional, somewhat amusing account of St. Salome. In his 20th chapter, he relates how this mother of two apostles—James the Greater and John the Evangelist—had big ideas for her sons and boldly requested: “Command that these two sons of mine sit, one at your right and the other at your left, in your kingdom” (Mt 20:21).
Of course, Jesus took the opportunity to preach on the importance of humility and that serving others would count for more than grand places of honor.
St. Salome is listed on the April 24 page of the Roman Martyrology.
Susanna
Susanna is mentioned one time only—in Luke’s introduction to the Galilean women. So we can only glean that she, like Mary Magdalene and Joanna, had been cured of some demon or malady, traveled with Jesus and the apostles, and offered assistance in whatever way she could. Susanna was credibly present at the Crucifixion, burial, and empty tomb. It would be nice to know more, but we just don’t.
Susanna is not listed in the current Roman Martyrology; however, that does not exclude her from sainthood. Actually, if you were to attend Mass at a Byzantine Catholic church two Sundays after Easter, you would notice that Susanna is given special notice and is commemorated as a part of a group called the Holy Myrrhbearers.
St. Mary of Clopas
St. Mary of Clopas is especially hard to pin down in the Gospels, for she is referred to by a variety of titles:
Mary, the Mother of James and Joseph;
The Other Mary;
Mary, the Mother of the Younger James and of Joses;
Mary, the Mother of Joses;
Mary, the Mother of James;
Mary, the Wife of Clopas.
It is through John’s labeling, “Mary, the wife of Clopas” (19:25), that she has received her name: St. Mary of Clopas. Although she doesn’t stand out like Mary Magdalene, one variation or another of her titles appears at the death, burial, and empty tomb scenes repeatedly. Matthew’s Gospel asserts that both Mary Magdalene and Mary of Clopas saw and heard Jesus that first Easter morning.
Some propose that Mary of Clopas’ husband was the Cleopas who traveled to Emmaus with a friend and met up with Jesus in Luke’s 24th chapter. Many even suggest that it was St. Mary of Clopas who was the unidentified traveling partner. This is not known for sure, but it is an intriguing thought to consider.
St. Mary of Clopas shares a memorial day with St. Salome: April 24.
The Unnamed Other Galilean Women
Although we don’t know their names, it is only fair to also remember the unnamed women of Galilee—many others, according to St. Luke. Perhaps these nameless women were shy or had other responsibilities that took them away from Jesus and the apostles from time to time.
Whatever the reason, the Gospels give plenty of assertions that there were others. And they deserve our notice—especially if we have ever experienced being overlooked or not named. When we get to heaven, we can meet these women, learn their names, and thank them for their rich contributions to the mission of Jesus, for bringing comfort to his crucifixion and love to his burial.
Honoring the Holy Galilean Women
Even though the Gospel writers vary somewhat in their placement of the holy Galilean women, we can still get the general idea. They were there, they were helpful, they were devout, they were fearless (braver than most of the apostles at the Crucifixion!), and they loved Jesus dearly and showed it. And at least Mary Magdalene and Mary of Clopas were highly blessed by being the first to see Jesus resurrected. Though not specifically mentioned, it seems highly probable that at least some of the holy Galilean women were present during the nine days in the upper room in Jerusalem, praying and awaiting the Holy Spirit.
The holy Galilean women were generous in many ways and great adorers of God; their good works are an example to all Christians. They fully and very bravely lived out Christ’s command to deny oneself and follow him.
Restoring St. Mary Magdalene’s Reputation
Hopefully St. Mary Magdalene’s mistaken reputation as a prostitute will continue to steadily diminish. It seems reasonable to offset this unfortunate label by putting a special emphasis on a far better one—a label given to St. Mary Magdalene by St. Thomas Aquinas: “The Apostle to the Apostles.”
This 13th-century Italian doctor of the Church wrote a commentary on the Gospel of St. John, a Gospel that offers particularly poignant highlights on Mary Magdalene’s role on that first Easter morning. John’s 20th chapter presents Mary Magdalene arriving at the empty tomb alone. His unique and rich portrayal of this special woman asserts that she tearfully glanced toward the empty tomb, was visited by two angels, mistook Jesus for a gardener, and then was overcome with emotion as she recognized her Lord. Then, Mary Magdalene—without hesitation—followed Jesus’ charge to share the news of his resurrection: “Mary of Magdala went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’” (Jn 20:18a), and shared what he told her.
It was Mary Magdalene carrying out Jesus’ wish to announce his resurrection with eager confidence that prompted St. Thomas Aquinas to call Mary Magdalene the Apostle to the Apostles within his commentary.
It is compelling to note that St. Thomas Aquinas also pointed out Matthew’s inclusion of another holy Galilean woman—”the other Mary” (St. Mary of Clopas)—during the first appearance of Jesus. Certainly, her role was profound as well, and more elaboration on her story would be welcome. However, St. Thomas Aquinas couldn’t help but notice Mary Magdalene’s overall prominence, especially in John’s Gospel, and felt inspired to highlight her apostle-like role.
Evidently, Pope Francis has read this commentary of St. Thomas Aquinas and agrees. In June 2016, the pope expressed a great appreciation for this title bestowed upon St. Mary Magdalene and felt it was time to elevate her day of remembrance (July 22) from a memorial to a feast. (The rank of Church celebrations are: optional memorial, obligatory memorial, feast, and solemnity.)
This seems a perfect counteraction: to start referring to St. Mary Magdalene as the Apostle to the Apostles in order to help restore her due reputation and highlight her holiness; to focus on her great love and devotion to Christ; and to recognize her rich contribution of proclaiming Christ’s triumph over the cross.
Sidebar: A Retreat with the Holy Galilean Women
Perhaps you would like a two-week, at-home retreat with these special women. If so, take some time each day for 14 days to read a biblical passage on them. Take in one or two surrounding verses and read the footnotes, if desired, and ponder their impact. Try to imagine yourself at the various scenes; maybe jot down your thoughts in a journal. Note which of these women each Gospel writer chose to highlight for the death, burial, and Resurrection accounts.
COME AND ADORE We’re happy to announce Manhattan’s first-ever perpetual adoration chapel here at St. Joseph’s in Greenwich Village! The Divine Mercy Adoration Chapel will serve everyone in the Archdiocese.
Currently, we have Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament on Mondays – Fridays from 8am – 6pm. Thank you for your dedication to the Divine Mercy Adoration Chapel!
God Bless, The Church of St. Joseph 371 Sixth Avenue New York, NY 10014 (212) 741-1274
Luke’s account of the story of the Annunciation to Mary (see Luke 1:26–56) gives us a window through which to better appreciate this remarkable young woman. Through her interactions with Gabriel and Elisabeth, we see a young woman trying to grasp and understand her unique call from God. The magnitude of that call must have weighed heavily upon someone so young, and yet she readily submitted her will to that of the Father. Her story reminds us that God is aware of all of His children and that He calls ordinary men and women to participate in extraordinary ways to help build His kingdom. She became Jesus’s first disciple, and thus she is a model for all who choose to follow Him.
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