Saint Zita

Zita was born in Monsagrati, in the municipality of Pescaglia, in 1218, to a poor family. At twelve she went into service with the Fatinelli, a noble family of Lucca, and stayed there her whole life: forty-eight years in the same house, working as a maid. That’s what makes her an unusual saint. She founded nothing, wrote nothing, went nowhere. She did the work she did, and did it well, and while doing it she gave away everything she could. The stories about her were born in that house and that neighborhood. The best known: that while carrying leftover bread to the poor, hidden in her apron, she was caught, and when she opened her apron the bread had turned into flowers. Another: that she gave a drink to a traveler who asked her for water, and the water turned into wine. And another: that on Christmas night, going to Mass at San Frediano in a coat her mistress had lent her, she gave it to a poor man shivering in front of the church — and on her way back she found it again. She died in Lucca on April 27, 1278. The family she had served held her dear: in the fifteenth century a Fatinelli descendant had a chapel built for her in San Frediano, where her body is still kept. She is the patron saint of domestic workers and of all who work in other people’s homes. If your name is Zita, today is your name day.