St. Catherine of Siena (brief biography)

Feast Day - April 29
“If you are who you are meant to be, you will set the world on fire!” 
~ St. Catherine of Siena


“My sister and my beloved, open yourself to me, you are a coheir of my kingdom and you have understood the hidden mysteries of my truth. You are enriched with the gift of my Spirit, cleansed of all sin by the shedding of my blood, alleluia! Go forth from the quiet of contemplation and courageously bear witness to my truth.” ~ Responsory for the Feast of St. Catherine of Siena



The holy virgin Catherine steadfastly begged the Lord to restore peace to his holy Church, alleluia. 
~Antiphon of the Feast of St. Catherine of Siena

:+: A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF THE SAINT :+:

Saint Catherine of Siena (March 25th 1347 – April 29th 1380), (born Caterina Benincasa) was born in Siena, Italy on the Feast of the Annunciation to a middle-class Italian family. Her father, Giacomo di Benincasa ran a cloth dyeing business, and was helped by his wife Lapa Piagenti, who was the matron of a large family. Catherine and her twin sister Giovanna were the 23rd and 24th children born to Lapa and Giacomo. They were born just as the Black Plague hit Siena, and Catherine’s twin sister died. Lapa had another daughter two years later, also named Giovanna (who eventually died several years later).

Catherine was a very lively, energetic and charismatic child. Even though she was one of the youngest in the family, she was often the leader in their games. When Catherine was about six, she and her brother Stefano were visiting one of their older married sisters. Catherine suddenly stopped in the middle of the road. Her brother kept calling back to her but she didn’t hear him. She was experiencing her first mystical vision where she saw Christ seated in glory with the apostles Peter, Paul and John. She later said that Christ smiled at her and then blessed her. Her brother finally came back and pulled her by the hand, tearing her away from the sight. This experience made a powerful impression on her, and at the age of seven she vowed her virginity to God.

She grew into a very beautiful string-willed and eloquent young woman, and her parents soon began thinking about marrying her off to some young gentleman. They urged her to start looking her best

and paying more attention to her appearance and manners. She at first complied out of obedience, but when her parents persisted in urging her to marry; she told them of her decision to remain a virgin. Her parents were furious and kept persisting, and then she finally hacked off her beautiful long brown-gold hair. Her mother Lapa was particularly angry and assigned her many of the difficult chores in their large household and Catherine was cut off for the most part from the silence and solitude she craved the most. After about a year, Catherine finally wore down the patience of her stubborn mother by being equally stubborn and serving the family by doing the menial chores with great gaiety, kindness and patience. Catherine later wrote that in those years where she was deprived of solitude, she was taught to build up a little cell in her soul where she could always find God within her.

After her parents relented, she was given a small cell beneath the staircase of their family home where she lived apart in prayer and fasting. At about 17, she desired to join the Dominican tertiaries (Third Order Dominicans who are lay people associated with the Order). She was refused at first because they only accepted widows at the time, but she persisted and after recovering from a serious illness, was accepted.

 On Shrove Tuesday in 1366 at the age of 19, St. Catherine was praying in her cell when she received a mystical vision of Christ, Our Lady and the hosts of heaven. Our Lady lifted her hand up gently and raised it up to Christ, who then placed a ring upon her finger, espousing himself to her in a mystical marriage. For the remainder of her life, the ring was visible to Catherine, but to no one else.

Two years later, her father died, so Catherine left her strict solitude and contemplation to help take care of her mother and the poor in the city of Siena. Soon, she began attracting a crowd of followers whom she affectionately termed her “family.” Her spiritual father, confessor and later biographer, the Dominican friar Raymond of Capua, was struck by her and remained devoted to her throughout his whole life. Eventually, Catherine began to widen her ministry, beyond simply helping the poor in Siena. She experienced many visions, ecstasies and mystical revelations, the crowning of which was her receiving the stigmata. She prayed, however, that the stigmata would be invisible to those around her, but after her death they appeared as wounds on her hands, feet and side. She dictated many forceful, eloquent letters addressed to dignitaries, popes, noblemen, mercenary captains, her own followers, priests and many others from all walks of life. She became a figure of peace and mediation between the warring Italian city states as her influence grew. Hundreds of her letters survive, which are filled with her great spirit, mystical and practical knowledge, all touched with an overflowing love for God. Her great work, The Dialogue of Divine Providence is one of the great Christian classics.

There is a touching story in Catherine’s life which is characteristic of her great compassion for the sick, dying, and those in sin. One young Perugian knight named Niccolò di Toldo was sentenced to be executed for his enflamed and seditious exclamations against the Sienese government. He was bitter and resentful and had no remorse for any of his actions. Catherine managed to break through his anger and she convinced him to go to confession and Mass. She wrote in a letter to her confessor Blessed Raymond of Capua, relating the incident which touched her deeply.

I went to see the person you know about, and my visit helped him so much that he went to confession and made a good preparation. He made me promise, for the love of God, to be with him at the end. I gave him my word, and I kept it…I went to him and he was much consoled. I took him to hear Mass and he received holy communion, which he had never done before. His own will was conformed and subject to God’s, but he was still fearful that he might not be strong when it came to the point…He kept saying: “Stay with me, don’t leave me; then I shall be alright and die happy.” And all the time he leaned his head on my breast…I said to him: “Courage, dearest brother. We shall soon be at the wedding feast. You will be going to it bathed in the sweet blood of God’s Son and with the sweet name of Jesus [on your lips]. Don’t let it slip from your mind for an instant. I shall be waiting for you at the place of execution.”…Then he said: “I shall go with joy and courage, and the time in between will seem like a thousand years, thinking that you will be there waiting for me.” He said such lovely things that one could almost burst at the goodness of God.

So I waited for him at the place of execution. All the time I waited I was praying and sensing the presence of Mary and Catherine, virgin and martyr…I begged, indeed forced Mary to get me the grace I wanted, which was that I might give him light and peace of heart at the moment of death, and then see him going to God. I was so absorbed in the assurance I received that my prayer would be granted that I saw no one in the crowd around me.

At last he arrived, meek as a lamb. When he saw me, he began to laugh and wanted me to make the Sign of the Cross over him. I did so, and then said: “down with you to the wedding, brother! You will soon be in the life that never ends.” He laid himself down with great meekness; then I stretched out his neck and bent over him, speaking to him of the blood of the Lamb. His lips murmured only “Jesus” and “Catherine” and he was still murmuring when I received his head into my hands, while my eyes were fixed on the divine Goodness as I said: “I will.”

Then I saw the God-Man as one sees the light of the sun. His side was open to receive into His own the blood that had just been shed…He received the soul itself and plunged it into the mercy-filled storehouse of His open side. Thus did the First Truth show that his reception was due entirely to God’s grace and mercy and to nothing else. How indescribably moving it was to see God’s goodness; to see the gentleness and love with which He waited to welcome that soul—with the eyes of His mercy fixed on it—as it left the body and was plunged into His open side…Then the Holy Spirit sealed him into that open side.

But [Niccolò] did such a lovely thing—one last gesture that would melt a thousand hearts (and no wonder, seeing that he was already experiencing the divine sweetness). He looked back, like a bride who pauses on the bridegroom’s threshold to look back and bow her thanks to her escort.

When he had gone, my own soul was serenely at peace, and so impregnated with the scent of blood that I could not bear to remove the blood itself that had splashed onto me. Alas, poor me, I can say no more. I was envious, seeing myself left behind.

(St. Catherine’s Letter to Blessed Raymond of Capua: www.drawnbylove.com/pdf/di%20T…

Catherine’s life was marked by a period known sometimes as the “Babylonian captivity” where the Pope and the whole papal court (due to the influence of the French kings) were in Avignon, France. Due to the persistent, eloquent and persuasive entreaties of St. Catherine, however, Pope Gregory XI finally returned to Rome and ended the seventy-three years of a Rome without the Pope. She was in Florence attempting to settle the riotous populace of Florence when an attempt was made on her life. The would-be assassins were about to stab her to death when she fell to her knees with joy and exclaimed, “At last! I am ready to go to Christ!” The men, greatly disturbed at this, withdrew in fear. Catherine lamented the incident bitterly, being very grieved that she was not worthy to win the martyr’s crown. The Florentines finally made peace with the new Pope Urban VI (Pope Gregory XI having died while she was there), and Catherine went home to Siena.

The peace was not to last. Soon the great western schism broke out where there were several men claiming to be Pope. For the rest of her life she remained in Rome where she worked to persuade the people of Italy of the legitimacy of Pope Urban VI’s claim. She died in Rome on April 29th, 1380 at the age of thirty-three. She was buried in Santa Maria sopra Minerva, but later her followers from Siena managed to take her head back to Siena where it was enshrined with great honor in the Church of Saint Dominic. Catherine’s mother Lapa (who lived to the ripe old age of 89) was in attendance at the installation of her daughter’s relics. St. Catherine’s well-preserved head can be seen in Siena to this day.

She was canonized by Pope Pius II in 1461 and made a Doctor of the Church along with St. Teresa of Avila in 1970 by Pope Paul VI. In 1999, Pope John Paul II declared her a patron saint of Europe along with St. Benedict. She is also one of the patron saints of Italy alongside of St. Francis of Assisi.

Saint Catherine of Siena Receiving the Stigmata by Domenico Beccafumi

A great website dedicated to the writings of St. Catherine: www.drawnbylove.com/
This site also has a good summary of her life: www.catholicculture.org/cultur…

The Feast of St. Catherine of Siena is celebrated on April 29th.

O God, who set Saint Catherine of Siena
on fire with divine love in her contemplation of the Lord’s Passion
and her service of your Church,
grant, through her intercession, that your people
—participating in the mystery of Christ—
may ever exult in the revelation of his glory.
Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Saint Catherine of Siena (short biography)

Feast Day - April 29
Catherine was the 23rd child of Jacopo and Lapa Benincasa and grew up as an intelligent, cheerful and intensely religious person.  Catherine disappointed her mother by cutting off her hair as a protest against being overly encouraged to improve her appearance in order to attract a husband.  Her father ordered her to be left in peace and she was given a room of her own for prayer and meditation. 

She entered the Dominican Third Order at 18 and spent the next three years in seclusion, prayer and austerity.  Gradually a group of followers gathered around her -- men and women, priests and religious.  An active public apostolate grew out of her contemplative life.  Her letters, mostly for spiritual instruction and encouragement of her followers, began to take more and more note of public affairs.  Opposition and slander resulted from her mixing fearlessly with the world and speaking with the candor and authority of one completely committed to Christ.  She was cleared of all charges at the Dominican General Chapter of 1374. 

Her public influence reached great heights because of her evident holiness, her

http://theophilia.deviantart.com/art/St-Catherine-of-Siena-icon-368907933

membership in the Dominican Third Order, and the deep impression she made on the pope.  She worked tirelessly for the crusade against the Turks and for peace between Florence and the pope. 

Someone has said that "God made us because he loves stories." Saints allow God’s love to flow through them.  Through their witness God shows to humanity his presence and his face.  Saints inspire us, guide us, encourage us and remind us of what God can do through human beings.  St. Catherine of Siena said that "All the way to heaven is heaven because Christ is the way." She strongly believed that we are bonded with the risen Christ in a union so deep that we form one body.  In her relationship with Jesus She lived out the words of St. Paul; "I no longer live, but Christ lives in me" (Gal.2:20). 

This mystical communion that was at the heart of St. Catherine’s spirituality inspired her to reach out to the poor and suffering of Siena.  When the Black Death swept through her city, she had no hesitation in caring for the victims.  She worked as a nurse.  She dug graves for those who died of the plague and then buried them properly herself.  She accompanied prisoners who were condemned to death to the place of execution waiting with them and praying for them to the end. 

A major church problem in the late fourteenth century was the Avignon Papacy.  In the summer of 1376, Catherine traveled to Avignon to encourage Pope Gregory XI to return to Rome.  In one of her letters she wrote; "No longer resist the will of God, for the starving sheep wait for you to return to the see of St. Peter." Fortified by Catherine’s appeals, Gregory XI returned to Rome, but he died soon after. 

In 1378, the Great Schism began, splitting the allegiance of Christendom between two, then three, popes and putting even saints on opposing sides.  Catherine spent the last two years of her life in Rome, in prayer and pleading on behalf of the cause of Urban VI and the unity of the Church.  She offered herself as a victim for the Church in its agony.  Just as the Spirit gave new life to the infant Church on Pentecost, Catherine sought to bring a spirit of reconciliation to the divisions of her time.  Exhausted by her efforts for unity, Catherine died in 1380 at the age of thirty-three.  She died surrounded by her "children." 

Saint Catherine of Siena dictating Dialogue

Catherine ranks high among the mystics and spiritual writers of the Church.  In 1970 Paul VI named her and Teresa of Avila as doctors of the Church.  In recent years, it has been suggested that she (among other possibilities) should be named patron of the Internet.  Her spiritual testament is found in The Dialogue.

 

Catherine's book Dialogue contains four treatises -- her testament of faith to the

spiritual world.  She wrote, "No one should judge that he has greater perfection because he performs great penances and gives himself in excess to the staying of the body than he who does less, inasmuch as neither virtue nor merit consists therein; for otherwise he would be an evil case, who for some legitimate reason was unable to do actual penance.  Merit consists in the virtue of love alone, flavored with the light of true discretion without which the soul is worth nothing."

St. Catherine of Siena’s passionate commitment to prayer, peace and justice and her love for the Church are important qualities that we can imitate.  Her strong faith and love is clear in this letter that she wrote to Raymond of Capua in the midst of her courageous efforts to solve the crisis in the Church during the great Schism.  "And at the hours of Terce I rise up from Mass, and if you looked you would see a woman walking to St. Peter’s where I work again in the little bark of the holy Church.  There I stay until near Vespers, and I would love never to leave that place whether by day or night until I see this people steadied and strengthened a little with their Father.".  Having a patron Saint is like having another friend.  

May St. Catherine’s prayers and friendship inspire and strengthen us in our faith journey. 

source: http://www.stcatherine-ml.org/About/Patron.htm

St. Catherine of Siena (a prayer)

Virtue is learned through what is contrary to it. Because of impatience, patience is acquired, for people who are conscious of their own impatience become patient because of what they suffer.

Feast Day - April 29

 Freed from Our Infirmity
~St. Catherine of Siena

We must not complain or run-away in time of darkness, because out of the darkness is born light.

Oh, God, tender love what sweet teaching you give us that virtue is learned through what is contrary to it. Because of impatience, patience is acquired, for people who are conscious of their own impatience become patient because of what they suffer: They are impatient with their impatience, more sad that they are sad at all than for anything else. And so out of opposites we come to learn perfection without even noticing it. We discover that we have become perfect in the mists of storms and temptations. And there is no other way one can ever arrive at the port of perfection. So reflect on this: we cannot receive or even desire virtue unless we have desires and harassment and temptation to suffer with true holy patience fro love of Christ crucified. We must, then, be happy and glad in time of struggle, temptation, and darkness, since they are the source of so much virtue and joy…

I want you to gain knowledge of yourself, without confusion, from the darkness. And from your good will I want you to gain knowledge of God's infinite goodness and boundless charity. In such knowledge may your soul live and grow fat. Realize that in his love he has permitted you and me and his other servants all these temptations and illusions from the devil, from other people, and from our own flesh, simply to rouse us from our indifference and bring us to a real sense of responsibility, true humility and blazing charity. This humility comes from self-knowledge, and this charity from knowledge of God's goodness. And there the soul becomes drunk and consumed with love.

God of Wisdom you made our sister Catherine burn with divine love in contemplating the Lord's passion and in serving your Church. With the help of her prayers may your people, united in the mystery of Christ, rejoice forever in the revelation of his glory, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.

St. Catherine of Siena pray for us!