When This Saint Prayed for Her Children to Die… and They Did

Believe it or not, the Catholic Church teaches that isn’t a sin in all cases to pray for another’s death, and there are actually certain times we should do so!

One of those times happened about 600 years ago with Saint Rita of Cascia, the patron of the impossible, abused wives and widows.

After their father was murdered, Rita’s sons were convinced by their uncle to leave their home and enact a plan of revenge.

Despite Rita publicly pardoning her husband’s murderer, she could not convince her sons to end their cycle of vendettas and feared they would lose their souls.

She prayed to God to help prevent her sons from committing murder.

A year later, her sons both died of dysentery.

Tradition holds her son’s deaths was God’s answer to her prayer. The pious belief is they were taken by a natural death rather than risk them falling into mortal sin and going to Hell.

🙏 Saint Rita of Cascia, pray for us!

Learn more about the life of Saint Rita here.

Photo credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons