SAINT Catherine of Siena, a scholastic philosopher and theologian, apparently saw God in all things, everywhere, and tried to serve, please and do God’s words. Although in bad health, when called to serve in Rome, she obeyed and died for the Church.
“A contemplative in action” was how Saint Ignatius of Loyola described her, for combining contemplation and activism, prayer and action. In Cedars of Lebanon, Fr. Nil Guillemette remarks: “Her holiness is so transparent that people could see God through her.”
Mystical experiences
A mystical experience is an immediate awareness of God’s presence, especially during prayer.
Daniel L. Lowery, CSSR, in Basic Catholic Dictionary explains that it is a grace “freely given by God which results in an intimate union with Him, as well as a desire to live in His love and do His will as completely as possible.”
At the age of six, Catherine started to have mystical experiences, especially after receiving Holy Communion. At seven, after a vision of Jesus, she consecrated her life to Him.
Her parents did not fully approve of her pious inclinations and wanted her to get married.
She cut off her beautiful hair and at the age of 15 entered the Third Order of Saint Dominic and led a life of prayer, penance and mortifications. She rarely left her 3-feet-by-9-feet room and experienced “ecstatic visions, spiritual dryness and the most degrading temptations.”
Feeling so desolate, one day she exclaimed, “Oh, Lord, where were You when my heart was so sorely troubled with temptations?”
The Lord replied: “Daughter, I was in your heart, fortifying you by my grace.”
In 1366, while praying, the Blessed Mother appeared, held up her hand to Christ who placed a ring on it, to signify a spiritual wedding.
In this Mystic Marriage her confessor and biographer, Fr. Raymond of Capua, OP, narrates that she did not receive a ring of gold and jewels but a “ring of Christ’s foreskin.”
Malcolm Day in A Treasury of Saints writes that the ring was only visible to Catherine.
In 1375, meditating before a crucifix after communion in Saint Cristina church in Pisa, Italy, five blood-red rays of light pierced her hands, feet and heart. The extreme pain caused her to faint. According to Fr. Raymond Capua the stigmata became visible only when she died.
The papacy returns to Rome
Capua also recorded that Catherine was told to leave her life of desolation, help the sick and the poor. She found herself drawn in the social and political tensions and made her first journey to Florence in 1374.
After this visit she travelled with followers in northern and central Italy “advocating reforms of the clergy and advising people for repentance and renewal,” according to Wikipedia. During this period, the residence of the pope is in Avignon, France, and there were mounting pressures that Pope Gregory XI returns and take his residence in Rome.
Rev. Hugo Hoover, SO CIST, in Lives of the Saints, says that through her influence, Pope Gregory XI returned his administration to Rome in January 1377, after 74 years of the papal seat’s absence in the city.
She went afterward to Siena and founded a monastery and went to Rocca d’Orcia on missions of peace-making and preaching.
On the orders of Pope Gregory XI she traveled to Florence to seek peace between the city and Rome. She was nearly assassinated in the violence on June 18, 1378.
During the outbreak of the Western Schism, the new pope, Urban VI, summoned her to Rome.
The removal of the papacy from Avignon rallied French bishops to elect their own successor to Gregory, who took the name Clement VII.
Catherine wrote cardinals and princes to recognize Pope Urban VI as the true pontiff. The rift in the Catholic Church lasted for 40 years, according to Malcolm Day.
In Rome she had a vision of a ship of the Church crushing her to earth. To compliment this mystical experience, all the mediation works required too much pressure on her bad health. She experienced a strange seizure and never recovered.
She died at the age of 33 years on April 29, 1380, and was canonized in 1461 by Pope Pius II.
Doctor of the Church
Catherine is the youngest of 25 children born to a rich family in Siena in 1347. One of the best theological minds in the Church, her Dialogue with the basic theme of God’s love for mankind is considered outstanding. Her wisdom is, likewise, reflected in her 400 letters that had been preserved. She was declared Doctor of the Church in 1970 by Pope Paul VI.
Santiago is the former regional director of DepEd NCR. She is currently a faculty member of Mater Redemptoris College, Laguna
Image credits: Wikipedia Commons