7-Day Saint Rita Prayer Candle

Sinderella's note

Saint Rita is the patron of impossible causes, my child, which is exactly what your friend's love life became around 11:47pm last Tuesday. Burn it on a plate. Let the wax do what it's gonna do. The smell of warm beeswax and a glass jar sweating on the kitchen counter is older than therapy and twice as cheap. Light it. Sit with it. Saint Rita's busy but she'll get to you.

The long version

Saint Rita of Cascia is the saint Catholic women have been lighting candles for since the 1450s — the patron of *impossible causes,* abusive marriages, and lost lambs. She's the one Sicilian grandmothers reach for when nothing else has worked. The 7-day glass-jar prayer candle is the workhorse of folk Catholic candle magic — tall glass cylinder, paraffin wax, a saint card pasted on the side, burns about a week if you let it. Sinderella keeps Saint Rita on the kitchen counter year-round and lights her when somebody's lost. Burn her on a saucer or plate (the bottom of the glass gets hot). Don't blow her out — pinch the wick or use a snuffer (folk-Catholic tradition: blowing offends the spirit). Some people write the petition on a small piece of paper and slide it under the candle. You can stack other candles next to her for combo work — Saint Anthony for what's lost, Saint Jude for what's beyond hope. The Indio brand candles (or any of the standard 7-day brands — they're nearly identical) cost about eight dollars at any bodega, but Amazon delivers them in a four-pack. *Madonn',* this is the cheapest spiritual technology on earth.