She decided that she wanted to become a nun and consecrate her life to God, but her father didn't want to give his permission. She fasted and prayed, and her father was vouchsafed a dream in which he learned that she would become "the mother of many." He agreed to her vocation.
At the age of 16, around the year 496, she left home and went in search of her mission. Saint Declan received her as a religious, and more women joined her in her new convent, including her sister Fiona. Another bishop, Saint Erc, brought her a one-year-old boy and asked her to care for him. The little boy grew to love her so much that as an adult he would come back and ask her advice. That boy was Saint Brendan the Navigator.
St. Brendan once asked St. Ita what the three attachments were that God hated the most. She answered, "A scowling face, obstinacy in wrong-doing, and too great a confidence in the power of money."
Soon, more parents brought their young boys to St. Ita's convent to be fostered. This led to her eventually being called "the foster mother of the saints of Ireland" because of how many of those boys grew to be missionaries, bishops, scholars and yes, saints. According to her biographers, she taught the boys "faith in God with purity of heart, simplicity of life with religion, and generosity with love."
When asked the secret of her gifts, she said it was conversing in her heart with the Holy Trinity. This fifth and sixth century saint offers us inspiration even down to the present!
St. Ita, pray for us!
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