Florida Council of Catholic Women/Province of Miami at P. O. Box 1811, Labelle, FL 33975 US - St. Catherine of Siena

   A saint is someone who has acquired a taste for the holiness of God. Maybe even someone whose heart has become attuned to the rhythm of love. Today in our daily lives, it is very difficult to hear that “rhythm” in the midst of the noise and commotion. Do we have that certain silence, space, and time devoted to listening for the rhythm of love?

   Saint Catherine at a very early age was attuned to listen for this rhythm of love. Being one of twenty five children, Catherine was the youngest of the Benincasa family. The family had a very successful wool dyer business. At the age of six, when walking home one day with her brother, suddenly she stopped and stared up into the sky. She could not hear her brother calling for her as he walked ahead. Only after he walked back and took Catherine by her hand did she wake from a dream. Catherine started to cry. The dream/vision was of Christ seated in glory with the Apostles Peter, Paul and John was gone.

   One year later, at the age of seven, Catherine made a secret vow to give her whole life to God. In prayer and solitude was how she lives life each day but would take only a small amount of time to mingle with other children.

   Twelve was the year her mother began to urge Catherine to pay more attention to her appearance.   Catherine was a beautiful young girl with long golden-brown hair. Catherine’s mother tried to explain the importance of marriage and young girls must the fashionable so they may find a husband to marry. This only upset Catherine so much that she cut off her beautiful long golden-brown hair. As punishment, she was made to do menial work in the house and the family knowing Catherine loved to be in total solitude, never allowed her to be alone. With love, sweetness, patience and grace, Catherine completed her chores day in and day out.

   Catherine’s father realized that this was no punishment so he permitted Catherine to do as she pleased. In a small cell, nine feet by three feet, Catherine gave herself up to prayers and fasting. She would scourge herself three times a day with an iron chain and sleep on a board. Catherine dressed in a black habit and wore an iron-spiked girdle on her head.

   Catherine at the age of sixteen took the habit of the Dominican Tertiaries. For three years she spoke only to her confessor and never went out except to church.

   Catherine did not know how to read. With many nights of praying, she asked God to help her learn the alphabet. Christ would come and sit with her as she would study, pray and try to disregard the temptations that presented them to her in prayer. There were times when she felt God had abandoned her because of the enticing figures that would present themselves to her. She would pray, “O Lord, where wert Thou when my heart was so sorely vexed with foul and hateful temptations?” Christ would reply, “Daughter, I was in thy heart, fortifying thee by grace,” and the voice then said that God would now be with her openly, for the period of probation was nearing an end.

   In 1366, Our Lady, Mary Mother of God, took Catherine’s hand and held it up to Christ, who placed a ring upon it and took her to Himself; bidding her to be of good courage, for now she was warmed with a faith that could overcome all temptations. This “ring” was always visible to Catherine but to no one else. The years of solitude and preparation were ended and Catherine began to mix with her neighbors.

   She began to tend to the sick, especially those afflicted with the most repulsive diseases like leprosy. Catherine wanted to serve the poor and to labor for the conversion of sinners. Even though Catherine was always suffering from terrible physical pain and was living only on the Blessed Sacrament as food, Catherine always smiled, was very happy and full of wisdom.

   In 1370 Catherine received a series of special manifestations of Divine mysteries which put her into a type of prolonged trance, a kind of mystical death, where she had a vision of hell, purgatory and heaven. While in this “trance” she heard a Divine command telling her to leave her cell and enter the public life of the world. With help, Catherine wrote many letters to the princes and republics of Italy and the pope, Gregory XI asking him to leave Avignon and return to Rome.

   In 1375, on the fourth Sunday of Lent, while at Pisa, Catherine received the Stigmata that only appeared outwardly at her time of death.

   In 1378, Pope Gregory died. On Catherine’s way back to Siena, she dictated the book “The Dialogue” for which she was declared a Doctor of the Church. This book was a mystical work which consisted of four treatises. The basic theme in the book is God’s incredible love for humanity expressed by his first creating the world and then redeeming it through the passion and death of Christ. It was Catherine belief that this love symbolizes the blood of Christ.

   After many years of punishing her body, Catherine suffered a stroke that paralyzed her from the waist down. Eight days later on April 29, 1380 Catherine died.

If Saint Catherine lived today, what would you think of her?

• She is anorexic – she starved herself to death

• She had mental problems because she cut herself and wore a iron-spike griddle on her head

• She cut off all her hair – this would mean that she is a troubled child

• Freak – She wore black and never came out of the house except to go to Church

 • Illiterate – She could not read

• She should be “baker acted” because anyone that for three years stays in a little room and prays must be crazy.

Do we see saints in our lives daily? How do we treat them? Think about this.

Quote from “The Dialogue”:

Let us pray,

With a look of mercy that revealed his indescribable kindness, God the Father spoke to Catherine:

 “Beloved daughter, everything I give to man come from the love and care I have for him. I desire to show my mercy to the whole world and my protective love to all those who want it.” “But in ignorance man treats himself very cruelly. My care is constant, but he turns my life-giving gifts into a source of death. Yes, I created him from loving care and formed him in my image and likeness. I pondered, and I was moved by the beauty of my creation. I gave him a memory to recall my goodness, for I wanted him to share in my own power.”