Saint Catherine of Siena

Saint Catherine of Siena was born in the Strada dell'Oca, by the fountain of Fontebranda, on March 25, 1347 AD. Her twin sister was born with her and did not survive. Her father, Giacomo Benincasa, dyed cloth in the rented house the city knew as the Fullonica.

The plague reached Tuscany the next year and carried off 80,000 people in Siena. Lapa Benincasa bore twenty-five children, and this was the one among her younger children she nursed herself. At six St. Catherine saw Christ enthroned in pontifical vestments above the Dominican church, and her brother had to pull her away by the hand.

At seven she promised the Blessed Virgin and her Son that she would take no other spouse. Her family knew nothing of the vow and began looking for a husband when she was twelve. Her married sister Bonaventura, who had drawn her toward finer dress, died in childbed in August 1362 AD.

On a friar's advice St. Catherine cut off her hair and covered her head with a coif. The household dismissed the kitchen-maid and set her to the servant's work. She then gathered her father, her mother and her brothers and told them she was already vowed.

The Dominican Sisters of Penance gave their habit to widows of mature age, not to young girls. Some of them came to examine her while an eruption from illness still disfigured her. They took the opinion of the friars, assembled, and received her unanimously.

St. Catherine was clothed in the black and white habit in the church of the Friar Preachers. The Mantellate took no monastic vows and lived under rule in their own homes. Her first confessor left it written that for three years afterwards she spoke only in confession.

She took a room beneath her father's house, five metres long and three wide. At fifteen she gave up wine and drank only water. She cut her sleep to half an hour in two days and nights, and told her confessor that was her hardest victory.

The assaults of the demons came for days, and she lay face down on the floor of the cell. Christ then appeared to her as he was upon the Cross. On the last day of Carnival he espoused her and put a ring on her finger that no one else ever saw.

About 1366 AD St. Catherine left the cell and went back into the life of the family. She served the sick at the hospital of Santa Maria della Scala and at the leper house of St Lazarus. She carried her alms at night and left them outside the doors of poor families.

Her father died in August 1368 AD and was buried at San Domenico. Within a month a revolution overthrew his faction and ended the family's prosperity. In May 1374 AD the Master General of the Order called her to Florence, where she was cleared of the charges against her.

In 1375 AD Pope Gregory XI sent her to Pisa to keep the city out of the anti-papal league. On April 1, 1375 AD she was deep in prayer before the crucifix in the church of Santa Cristina. Blessed Raymond of Capua records that five blood-red rays came down at her hands, feet and heart.

She asked at once that the stigmata be invisible, and the rays changed colour before they reached her. The marks stayed visible to her alone until the moment of her death. Pope Urban VIII recognised the stigmata as valid in 1623 AD.

Pope Gregory XI sent her to Florence early in 1378 AD to make peace between the city and the Holy See. He died at Rome on March 27, 1378 AD, and her commission lost the man who had given it. On June 22 the guilds rose in arms and an armed band came looking for her.

The long war ended with a peace signed on July 28, 1378 AD. She returned to Siena and dictated to her secretaries the book called the Dialogue. It was finished in October 1378 AD, and its closing lines name her as its author.

Pope Urban VI summoned her to Rome, and she reached the city on November 28, 1378 AD. He had her speak in the consistory of the cardinals about the Schism. She had learned to write only as an adult, and worked by dictating to her secretaries.

Her last illness began at the end of January 1380 AD, and she dictated a final letter to the Pope that evening. From her bed she quieted the revolt of the Romans against Pope Urban VI. St. Catherine died at Rome on Sunday, April 29, 1380 AD, at thirty-three.