Feast 27 April
Servant of Lucca. Bread in the apron that became roses in the story.
Sacred art
The portrait kept with St. Zita is the image this library has of Zita. The honour goes to the person, and through the person to God. It is not a machine, and it is not a substitute for the life written below.
Died 1272. A household saint: forty-eight years in service. Her body is among the incorrupt.
If it belongs to Zita, it is here, with a door back into the story.
San Frediano, LuccaDied 1278; still shown in Lucca
A servant. That is the whole vocation. Bread for the poor from a household that was not hers; a life of kitchens and early Mass. Her body has been shown in Lucca for centuries, naturally mummified, dressed as a maid.
Pibrac, near ToulouseDied 1601; found intact 1644
A shepherd girl, scrofulous, neglected, sleeping in the barn. Forty-three years after her death, a workman opens the church floor and finds her intact, a young body in a poor dress. She is the Zita of the fields.
