Catherine of Siena
Caterina di Jacopo di Benincasa, TOSD (25 March 1347 – 29 April 1380), known as Catherine of Siena, was an Italian Catholic mystic and diplomat who engaged in papal and Italian politics through extensive letter-writing and advocacy. Canonised 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.
Born and raised in Siena, Catherine wanted from an early age to devote herself to God, against the will of her parents. She joined the mantellates, a group of pious women, primarily widows, informally devoted to Dominican spirituality; later these types of urban pious groups would be formalised as the Third Order Dominicans, but not until after Catherine's death. Her influence with Pope Gregory XI played a role in his 1376 decision to leave Avignon for Rome. The Pope then sent Catherine to negotiate peace with the Florentine Republic. After Gregory XI's death (March 1378) and the conclusion of peace (July 1378), she returned to Siena.
Catherine dictated to secretaries her set of spiritual treatises, The Dialogue of Divine Providence, between 1377 and 1378. Thereafter, the Great Schism of the West led Catherine of Siena to go to Rome with the pope. She sent numerous letters to princes and cardinals to promote obedience to Pope Urban VI and to defend what she calls the "vessel of the Church". She died on 29 April 1380, exhausted by her rigorous fasting. Her funeral and burial took place in the Basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome.
Patron saint of against fire; bodily ills; people ridiculed for their piety; nurses; sick people; miscarriages; Europe; Italy; Diocese of Allentown, Pennsylvania, US; Bambang, Nueva Vizcaya, Philippines; Samal, Bataan, Philippines
In the Martyrology
- April 29 Saint Catherine of Siena, virgin of Third Order Dominicans, doctor of the Church