Saint Catherine of Siena, a 14th-century spectacular Italian who was not only a saint but is a doctor of the Church. Saint Catherine of Siena lived and worked in Italy. She was born on March 25,l 1347, and died on April 29, 1380. She is both a co-patron saint of Italy, with Saint Francis of Assisi, and co-patron saint of Europe along with Teresa Benedicta of the Cross and Bridget of Sweden. She is also the patron saint of Rome.
The people of Siena wanted to have Saint Catherine of Siena’s body. A story is told of a miracle whereby they were partially successful and probably relates to her relic. Knowing that they could not smuggle her whole body out of Rome, they decided to take only her head. When stopped by the guards, they prayed to Catherine for help. When they opened the bag to show the guards, it appeared no longer to hold her head but to be full of rose petals. Do you know of this great Lady?
Saint Catherine of Siena Biography
Saint Catherine of Siena was born on March 25, 1347. The house where Catherine grew up still exists. Catherine was the 23rd of 25 children, but she was healthy. She had her first vision of Christ when she was five or six years old. When Catherine was 16, her older sister, Bonaventura, died in childbirth, and Catherine became very religious and joined a Dominican convent shortly thereafter.
As a young nun, and this is amazing while tending to a woman with cancerous breast sores, Saint Catherine of Siena was disgusted. She gathered the sore pus into a ladle and drank it all. That night, she was visited by Jesus, who invited her to drink the blood gushing out of his pierced side. It was with this visitation that her stomach “no longer needed food and no longer could digest.”
According to biographer Raymond of Capua, at the age of about twenty-one, in 1368, Saint Catherine of Siena experienced what she described in her letters as a “Mystical Marriage” with Jesus, she received, not the ring of gold and jewels that her biographer reports in his bowdlerized version, but the ring of Christ’s foreskin. This is depicted in a famous painting.
Between the years 1367 and 1374, she devoted herself to helping the sick and incarcerated of Siena. With her help in the Hospital of Santa Maria della Scala and within the neighborhood where she was living, Catherine’s acts of charity became well-known. From 1375 onward, she traveled about Italy preaching and convincing followers to have a “total love for God.”
Saint Catherine of Siena was a confidant of multiple Popes. In early 1378, she again traveled to Florence, at the order of Pope Gregory XI, to seek peace between Florence and Rome. Following Gregory’s death in March 1378, riots and the revolts of the Ciompi broke out in Florence on June 18, and in the ensuing violence, Catherine was nearly assassinated. In late November 1378, with the outbreak of the Western Schism, the new Pope, Urban VI, summoned her to Rome. She stayed at Pope Urban VI’s court and tried to convince nobles and cardinals of his legitimacy.
For many years, she had a rigorous abstinence. She did receive the Holy Eucharist almost daily. This extreme fasting appeared unhealthy in the eyes of her friends. However, Catherine replied that she was unable to, describing her inability to eat as an infermità (illness). From the beginning of 1380, Catherine could neither eat nor swallow water. Catherine died in Rome on April 29, 1380. She was 33 years old. Saint Catherine of Siena had suffered a massive stroke eight days earlier, which paralyzed her from the waist down. Her last words were, “Father, into Your Hands I commend my soul and my spirit.”
Conclusion
Saint Catherine of Siena was Canonized by Pope Pius II in 1861. On October 4, 1970, Pope Paul VI named Catherine a Doctor of the Church; she was declared a Doctor of the church with Saint Thesea of Avila. They were the first women to receive that honor. She was named the patron saint of Rome, Italy, and Europe, and is one of the most popular saints of all time. She is worthy of study and emulation.
