St. Zita

Saint Zita was born, according to long-standing hagiographical tradition, in 1212 in the village of Monsagrati in the hills near Lucca in Tuscany. She came from a poor rural family that was nonetheless devout. At about the age of twelve she left her parents' home to take a place as a domestic servant in the household of the Fatinelli, a prosperous family of wool traders in Lucca. She remained in that service for the rest of her life, a span of nearly fifty years, advancing from kitchen work to the position of housekeeper and trusted steward of the household keys. She never married and had no children; her entire adult life was spent as a laywoman in domestic employment.

From early in her service Zita combined hard manual labor with a rigorous life of prayer. She rose before the rest of the household to attend daily Mass, observed fasts, and devoted what little free time she had to prayer and to works of mercy. She gave food, clothing, and her own wages to the poor of Lucca. Fellow servants at first resented her piety and accused her of neglecting her duties or of taking from the pantry to feed beggars. Her employers likewise regarded her with suspicion. Over time, however, her diligence, honesty, and the peaceable way she bore ill-treatment changed their opinion. She was given increasing responsibility and became, in effect, the manager of the domestic staff.

Later medieval and early modern lives of the saint attribute several miracles to her years in the Fatinelli house. The best-known stories tell that when she left bread baking in order to care for the needy or to pray, angels finished the loaves; that provisions she had given away were found miraculously restored; and that a poor man to whom she gave her cloak on a cold morning was afterwards understood to have been Christ. Whether or not these episodes can be verified historically, they express the reputation she already enjoyed in Lucca as a woman of charity and of hidden holiness in ordinary work. She died in Lucca on 27 April 1272.

A popular cult formed at once around her tomb. Her body was later reported to be incorrupt and was enshrined in the Basilica of San Frediano in Lucca, where it is still exposed for veneration. In 1580 the remains were examined. Local liturgical observance was authorized in the sixteenth century. In 1696 Pope Innocent XII confirmed her cult for the universal Church by inserting her name in the Roman Martyrology. Her feast is kept on 27 April. Saint Zita is invoked as patron of maids, domestic servants, housekeepers, and homemakers, and she is traditionally asked to help in the finding of lost keys. She is also a patron of the city of Lucca. Her life has long been presented as an example of sanctity attained not in the cloister or in public office but in faithful, obscure labor and in steadfast charity toward the poor.