By any account, Rita did not have a “happy” life in the way the word is usually meant. And yet, she appears happy, sometimes even smiling in the icons of the santeros. For the santeros did not need to show the people the reality of her earthly suffering, which they knew of too well. The artists depicted the reality of her heavenly and eternal beatitude. Her face glows with the light of Christ, transformed as she is by his grace. These images reminded the people of her eternal happiness, which was a fruit of the way she bore her suffering with love, uniting it to Christ’s.