St. Catherine of Siena, by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo
Saint Catherine of Siena
Caterina di Jacopo di Benincasa (25 March 1347 – 29 April 1380), known as Catherine of Siena was an Italian mystic and pious laywoman who engaged in papal and Italian politics through extensive letter-writing and advocacy. She is considered one of the Catholic Church’s influential saints since the 14th century.
Saint Catherine of Siena was born in Siena, Italy in 1347. She was the 24th of 25 children. She was a twin and her twin sister died, so her mother gave birth to 25 children and Catherine was the youngest of the family growing up in this town of Siena.
Very early on she emerges as a mystic and a visionary and as a seven year old girl has an extraordinary vision of Jesus and a number of saints as they were hovering over one of the main churches in Siena. An odd thing was that it is Jesus and he appears in the garments and vestments of the Pope. This would be the beginning of a lifelong career of a mystic and visionary - someone that lived very close to the transcendent realm, as was described.
After that vision and some other powerful spiritual experiences, Catherine vows herself to a life of poverty and simplicity and prayer and her parents become concerned about her and hoping that she would marry and have a family. Eventually, realize this is the real thing that she is someone deeply in touch with God, She joined a group that were largely widows in Siena who were dedicated to the works of charity and prayer and joins that “mantellates” who had a kind of dominican form of spirituality.
Catherine, who only lives to be 33 years old, was considered a spiritual and charismatic woman. She gathers around her a “familia” and they start to call her mama even though she is a young woman, in some cases even priests and elders. The prayer continues, the mysticism and the visions continue, and develops a very deep devotion to the poor and to the sick- which ironically coincides with the worst years of the black plague in Europe, claiming the lives of one third of the entire population of Europe.
One of the most notable things mentioned about her was that, at least from an ecclesiological standpoint, her involvement with the Pope was extraordinary. During this time is the period of the so-called Avignon papacy, when the Pope for a variety of reasons, mainly political, decides to leave Rome and take up residence in Avignon which is in the territory of the French King. Catherine along with many others are of the belief that the key to the renewal of the church, since it was a time of great corruption and a lot of the saints were calling the church back to its original purity. She felt that the key to that, was that the successor of Peter should live in the city of Peter - so Catherine begins to summon the Pope and then she goes directly in person to Avignon and successfully convinces the Pope to return to Rome. This would have been considered one of the most extraordinary things in the Middle Ages - A woman with no letter (illiterate), with no social or collegial status convinces the Pope to leave and come back to Rome. Canonized in 1461, she is revered as a saint and as a Doctor of the Church due to her extensive theological authorship. She is also considered to have influenced Italian literature.
Catherine is said by her confessor and biographer Raymond of Capua's Life to have had her first vision of Christ when she was five or six years old: she and a brother were on the way home from visiting a married sister when she is said to have experienced a vision of Christ seated in glory with the Apostles Peter, Paul, and John. Raymond continues that at age seven, Catherine vowed to give her whole life to God.
When Catherine was 16, her older sister Bonaventura died in childbirth; already anguished by this, Catherine soon learned that her parents wanted her to marry Bonaventura's widower. She was absolutely opposed and started a strict fast. She had learned this from Bonaventura, whose husband had been far from considerate, but his wife had changed his attitude by refusing to eat until he showed better manners. Besides fasting, Catherine further disappointed her mother by cutting off her long hair in protest of being encouraged to improve her appearance to attract a husband.
According to Raymond of Capua, who was her spiritual director, confessor and biographer, wrote that at the age of twenty-one (c. 1368), Catherine experienced what she described in her letters as a "Mystical Marriage" with Jesus, later a popular subject in art as the Mystic marriage of Saint Catherine. In an explanation of a surprising and controversial aspect of this marriage that occurs was the extent to which the marriage was a fusion with Christ's physicality. Catherine received, not the ring of gold and jewels that her biographer reports in his version of events, but the ring of Christ's foreskin. "Catherine herself mentions the foreskin-as-wedding ring motif in one of her letters (#221), equating the wedding ring of a virgin with a foreskin; she typically claimed that her own wedding ring to Christ was simply invisible. She wrote in a letter (to encourage a nun who seems to have been undergoing a prolonged period of spiritual trial and torment): "Bathe in the blood of Christ crucified. See that you don't look for or want anything but the crucified, as a true bride ransomed by the blood of Christ crucified – for that is my wish. You see very well that you are a bride and that he has espoused you – you and everyone else – and not with a ring of silver but with a ring of his own flesh. Look at the tender little child who on the eighth day, when he was circumcised, gave up just so much flesh as to make a tiny circlet of a ring! "Raymond of Capua also records that she was told by Christ to leave her withdrawn life and enter the public life of the world. Catherine rejoined her family and began helping the ill and the poor, where she took care of them in hospitals or homes.
Catherine claimed to have been in direct conversation with Jesus and that he spoke to her. She dictated these conversations to secretaries as a set of spiritual treatises, The Dialogue of Divine Providence. Her Dialogue, hundreds of letters, and dozens of prayers also give her a prominent place in the history of Italian literature.
Catherine’s theology has been described as mystical and employed practices that allowed her to grow and experience this mysticism - interested in only achieving incorporeal union with God, Catherine practiced extreme fasting and self-denial, to the extent that she was only living off of the Eucharist every day. For her, it meant a way to fully realize her love for Christ in her mystical experience. She viewed Christ as a “bridge” between the soul and God. This was the basis of teaching in her book The Dialogue - a highly systematic, explanatory presentation of her mystical ideas based on her mystical experiences.
Between the years 1367 and 1374, Catherine 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 that she was living in, Catherine's acts of charity became well-known, leading her to be called santa donna, or a holy woman. This reputation of holiness eventually led to her involvement in politics and a hearing with the pope.
As social and political tensions mounted in Siena, Catherine found herself drawn to intervene in wider politics. It seems that at this time she acquired Raymond of Capua as her confessor and spiritual director.
After this visit, she began traveling with her followers throughout northern and central Italy advocating reform of the clergy and advising people that repentance and renewal could be done through "the total love for God.” In Pisa, in 1375, she used what influence she had to sway that city and Lucca away from alliance with the anti-papal league whose force was gaining momentum and strength. She also lent her enthusiasm toward promoting the launch of a new crusade - she begged for peace between the republics and principalities of Italy and for the return of the Papacy from Avignon to Rome. It was during this time in Pisa, according to Raymond of Capua's biography, that she received the stigmata (visible, at Catherine's request, only to herself).
Catherine continued her travels for advocacy of peace right up until her death, by largely appearing in person with nobles and cardinals, both meeting with individuals at court and sending letters to persuade others to do so.
For many years she had accustomed herself to a rigorous abstinence. She received the Holy Eucharist almost daily. This extreme fasting appeared unhealthy in the eyes of the clergy and her own sisterhood. Her confessor, Raymond, ordered her to eat properly. But 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. On February 26 she lost the use of her legs. She was said to have levitated while in prayer, and a priest claimed to have seen the Holy Communion's Eucharist wafer flying from his hand straight to Catherine's hand.
Catherine died in Rome on April 29, 1380 at the age of thirty-three, having eight days earlier suffered a massive stroke, which paralyzed her from the waist down. Her last words were, "Father, into Your Hands I commend my soul and my spirit."
Catherine was initially buried at the Santa Maria sopra Minerva cemetery, near the Pantheon. But after many miracles were reported to have taken place at her grave, Raymond moved her inside, where she lies today.
Because it was a time when holy relics were a thing, it is said that her head was taken or “parted” from her body and inserted into a gilt bust of bronze, where it was later taken to Siena - the people claiming that a piece of her belonged in Siena. Both her incorrupt head and they were entombed at the Basilica of San Domenico at Siena.
Pope Pius II canonized Catherine on June 29, 1461, with her feast day on April 29.