Virgin and Doctor of the Church
1347-1380
by SCTJM
"It is not the hour to seek one's self for one's self, nor to
flee pains in order to possess consolations; nay, it is the hour
to lose one's self."
Feast Day:
April 29
Other Biography...
The Dialogue of St. Catherine of Siena...
See also: General Audience by H.H. Benedict XVI
"O Eternal God, receive the sacrifice of my life in this
Mystical Body of Holy Church. I have nothing to give except what
Thou has given me."
- Prayer of St. Catherine
Early Life of Virtue
St. Catherine was born in 1347 in Siena, to virtuous and pious
parents. She was favored by God with extraordinary graces from
a very young age, and had a love for prayer and the things of
God. At the age of seven she consecrated her virginity to God
by a private vow. When St. Catherine was twelve, her mother and
sister wanted to persuade her to marriage, and thus began to
encourage her to pay more attention to her appearance. To
please them, she dressed in bright gowns and in jewelry that was
fashionable at the time. She soon repented of this vanity. Her
family regarded solitude as unsuitable to marital life, and thus
began to thwart her devotions, depriving her of her little
chamber or cell in which she spent much of her time in solitude
and prayer. They gave her many hard and distracting
employments. St. Catherine bore all this with sweetness and
patience. The Lord taught her to make herself another solitude
in her heart, where, amidst all her occupations, she considered
herself always as alone with God, and where no tribulation could
enter.
Later, her father finally approved her devotion and all of her
pious desires. At fifteen years of age, she generously assisted
the poor, served the sick, and comforted the afflicted and
prisoners. She continued on the course of humility, obedience,
and a denial of her own will. Amidst her sufferings, it was her
constant prayer that they might serve for the expiation of her
offences, and the purifying her heart.
Intimacy and Espousal with Jesus
As a more formal consecration to God, at eighteen years of age,
she received the long desired black and white habit of the third
order of St. Dominic. Being in a third order meant that one
would live the Dominican spirituality, but in the secular
world. She was the first unmarried woman to be admitted. From
that time her cell became her paradise, and she steeped herself
in prayer and mortification. For three years she lived as a
hermit, keeping silence and not speaking to anyone but God and
her confessor. During this period, at times loathsome forms and
enticing figures would present themselves to her imagination,
and the most degrading temptations assailed her. Afterwards,
the devil spread in her soul such a cloud and darkness that it
was the severest trial imaginable. She continued in a spirit of
fervent prayer, humility, and confidence in God. By these she
persevered victorious, and was at last delivered from those
trials which had only served to purify her heart. When Jesus
visited her after this time, she asked Him: "Where were thou, my
divine Spouse, while I lay in such an abandoned, frightful
condition?" She heard a voice saying, "Daughter, I was in thy
heart, fortifying thee by grace." In 1366, she experienced what
she called a ‘mystical marriage’ to Jesus. When Catherine was
praying in her room, a vision of Christ appeared, accompanied by
His mother and the heavenly host. Taking the girl's hand, Our
Lady held it up to Christ, who placed a ring upon it and
espoused her to Himself, saying she was now armed with a faith
that could overcome all temptations. To Catherine the ring was
always visible, though invisible to others.
Her Service to Others
After three years of solitary life in her home, St. Catherine
felt that the Lord was calling her to now lead a more active
life. She therefore began to associate more with her fellow men
and serve them. God recompensed her charity to the poor by many
miracles, often multiplying provisions in her hands, and
enabling her to carry necessaries to the poor, which her natural
strength could not otherwise have borne. In her ardent charity
she labored for the conversion of sinners, offering her
continual prayers and fasting. In Siena, when there was a
terrible outbreak of the plague, she worked constantly to
relieve the sufferers. "Never did she appear more admirable than
at this time," wrote a priest who had known her from childhood.
"She was always with the plague-stricken; she prepared them for
death and buried them with her own hands. I myself witnessed
the joy with which she nursed them and the wonderful efficacy of
her words, which brought about many conversions."
All her discourses, actions, and her very silence, powerfully
induced men to the love of virtue, so that no one, according to
Pope Pius II, ever approached her who did not go away better.
She was able to reconcile even the worst enemies, more by her
prayers than by her words. For instance, one man whom she was
trying to persuade to live virtuously, when she saw her words
were not having an effect, she then made a sudden pause in her
discourse, to offer up prayers for him. They were heard that
very instant, and an entire change was wrought in the man. He
then reconciled himself to his enemies, and embraced a
penitential life. The most hardened sinners could not withstand
the force of her exhortations and prayers for a change of life.
Thousands came to hear or only to see her, and were won over by
her words and example to repentance.
There gathered around the saint a band of earnest associates.
For example, an aged hermit abandoned his solitude to be near
her, because, he said, he found greater peace of mind and
progress in virtue by following her than he ever found in his
cell. Another found that when she spoke the divine love was
enkindled in him, and his contempt of all earthly things
increased. A warm affection bound her to these whom she called
her spiritual family - children given her by God that she might
help them along the way to perfection. They experienced her
spirit of prophecy, her knowledge of the consciences of others,
and her extraordinary light in spiritual things. She read their
thoughts and frequently knew their temptations when they were
away from her. At this time public opinion about Catherine was
divided; many revered her as a saint, while others called her a
fanatic or denounced her as a hypocrite. Her confessor at this
time, Father Raymond, would later become the saint’s
biographer.
The Peacemaker for the Church
One of St. Catherine’s major achievements was her work to bring
the Papacy back to Rome from its displacement in France. She
also became known as a peacemaker – she began by helping settle
various family quarrels, and then her work broadened to include
establishing peace in the Italian city states. For example, in
1375, news came to St. Catherine through Fr. Raymond that the
people of Florence had entered into a league against the holy
see. Pope Gregory XI, residing at Avignon, wrote to the city of
Florence, but without success. Internal divisions and murders
occurred among the Florentines, and soon made them sue for
pardon. St. Catherine was sent by the city magistrates to
become their mediatrix. Before she arrived at Florence, she was
met by the chiefs of the magistrates, and the city left the
management of the whole affair to her discretion, with a promise
that she should be followed to Avignon by their ambassadors, who
should sign and ratify the conditions of reconciliation and
confirm every thing she had done. His holiness, after a
conference with her, in admiration of her prudence and sanctity,
said to her: "I desire nothing but peace. I put the affair
entirely into your hands; only I recommend to you the honor of
the church." However, the Florentines were not sincere in their
search for peace, and they continued to carry on secret
intrigues to draw all of Italy from its obedience to the holy
see.
The saint had another point no less at heart in her journey to
Avignon. Pope Gregory XI, elected in 1370, had his residence at
Avignon, where the previous five popes had also resided. The
Romans complained that their bishops had for seventy-four years
past forsaken their church, and threatened a schism. Gregory XI
made a secret vow to return to Rome; but not finding this design
agreeable to his court, he consulted St. Catherine on this
subject, who answered: "Fulfill what you have promised to God."
The pope, surprised she should know by revelation what he had
never revealed to anyone, was immediately determined to do so.
The saint soon left Avignon. We have several letters written by
her to him, in order to hasten his return to Rome, in which he
finally did in 1376.
Later, St. Catherine wrote to pope Gregory XI in Rome, strongly
exhorting him to contribute by all means possible to the general
peace of Italy. His holiness commissioned her to go to
Florence, still divided and obstinate in its disobedience. She
lived some time in there amidst many dangers even against her
own life. Over time she brought the people of Florence to
submission, obedience, and peace, though not under Gregory XI,
but under Pope Urban VI. This reconciliation occurred in 1378,
after which St. Catherine returned to Siena.
Conclusion of the Saint’s Life
St. Catherine thus returned to Siena, where she continued her
life of prayer. She had a perpetual union of her soul with God.
For, although obliged to often converse with different persons
on so many different affairs, she was always occupied and
absorbed in God. In a vision, Jesus presented her with two
crowns, one gold and the other of thorns, bidding her to choose
which of the two she pleased. She answered: "I desire, O Lord,
to live here always conformed to your passion, and to find pain
and suffering my repose and delight." Then, eagerly taking the
crown of thorns, she pressed it upon her head.
In
1378, when Urban VI was chosen as Pope, his temper alienated
from him the affections of the cardinals, several of whom
withdrew. They then declared the late election null, and chose
Clement VII, with whom they retired out of Italy, and resided at
Avignon. St. Catherine wrote strong letters to the cardinals
who had first acknowledge Urban, and afterwards elected another;
pressing them to return to their lawful pastor. She wrote as
well to Urban himself, exhorting him to bear cheerfully under
the troubles he found himself in, and to abate of a temper which
had made him so many enemies. Through Father Raymond of Capua,
her confessor and ultimately her biographer, the pope asked St.
Catherine to return to Rome. He listened to her and followed
her directions. She also wrote to the kings of France and of
Hungary to exhort them to renounce the schism.
While laboring to extend obedience to the true pope, St.
Catherine’s health began to decline.
She died of a
stroke in Rome in 1380, at the age of thirty-three. The people
of Siena wanted to have her body. There was a miracle told in
which they were partially successful. Knowing that they could
not smuggle her whole body out of Rome, they decided to take
only her head, which they placed in a bag. When stopped by the
Roman guards, they prayed to St Catherine to help them. When
they opened the bag to show the guards, it appeared no longer to
hold her head but to be full of rose petals. Once they got back
to Siena they reopened the bag and her head was visible again.
Due to this story, St Catherine is often seen holding a rose.
The incorruptible head and thumb were entombed in the Basilica
of San Domenico, where they remain today. Saint Catherine's
body is buried in the Basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in
Rome, which is near the Pantheon.
St. Catherine's letters are considered one
of the great works of early Tuscan literature.
She wrote 364 of them,
more than 300 of which have survived. In her letters to the
Pope, she often referred to him affectionately as "Papa" or
"Daddy" ("Babbo" in Italian). Roughly one third of her letters
are to women. Other correspondents include her various
confessors, among them Raymond of Capua, the kings of France and
Hungary, the Queen of Naples, and numerous religious figures.
Her other major work is “The Dialogue of Divine Providence,”
a dialogue between the soul and God, recorded between 1377 and
1378 by members of her circle. Often assumed to be illiterate,
St. Catherine is acknowledged by Raymond in his biography as
capable of reading both Latin and Italian, and another
hagiographer, Tommaso Caffarini, claimed that she could write.
Pope Pius II canonized Catherine in 1461, and Pope Paul VI gave
her the title of Doctor of the Church in 1970, making her
one of the first women to receive this honor. Her feast day is
April 29.
Sources
Butler, Alban. (1864). The Lives or the Fathers, Martyrs
and Other Principal Saints, Vol. IV. D. & J. Sadlier, &
Company.
Lives of the Saints,
Saint Catherine of Siena. Online:
http://www.ewtn.com/library/MARY/CATSIENA.htm.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine of_Siena
Back to
the Main Page on the Saints
