Today April 27

Today is the feast of St. Zita. She was a maid all her life; well, practically all her life. She was a domestic servant from the age of 12. She was very devout, but a no-nonsense worker as well. "A servant is not good if she is not industrious: work-shy piety in people of our position is sham piety." She rose an hour early each day to attend Mass; she fasted in order to give part of her meals to the poor, she often offered her bed to a homeless woman and herself would then sleep on the floor. Dorothy Day would have liked her, I think. She died in the saddle, so to speak, in 1278.