Saint Catharine of Siena, Doctor of the Church
Dominican Tertiary, born at Siena, 25 March, 1347; died at Rome, 29
April, 1380.
Catharine was the youngest but one of a very large family. Her
father, Giacomo di Benincasa, was a dyer; her mother, Lapa, the daughter of
a local poet. They belonged to the lower middle-class faction of tradesmen
and petty notaries, known as "the Party of the Twelve", which between one
revolution and another ruled the Republic of Siena from 1355 to 13658. From
her earliest childhood Catharine began to see visions and to practise
extreme austerities. At the age of seven she consecrated her virginity to
Christ; in her sixteenth year she took the habit of the Dominican
Tertiaries, and renewed the life of the anchorites of the desert in a little
room in her father's house. After three years of celestial visitations and
familiar conversation with Christ, she underwent the mystical experience
known as the "spiritual espousals", probably during the carnival of 1366.
She now rejoined her family, began to tend the sick, especially those
afflicted with the most repulsive diseases, to serve the poor, and to labour
for the conversion of sinners. though always suffering terrible physical
pain, living for long intervals on practically no food save the Blessed
Sacrament, she was ever radiantly happy and full of practical wisdom no less
than the highest spiritual insight. All her contemporaries bear witness to
her extraordinary personal charm, which prevailed over the continual
persecution to which she was subjected even by the friars of her own order
and by her sisters in religion. She began to gather disciples round her,
both men and women, who formed a wonderful spiritual fellowship, united to
her by the bonds of mystical love. During the summer of 1370 she received a
series of special manifestations of Divine mysteries, which culminated in a
prolonged trance, a kind of mystical death, in which she had a vision of
Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, and heard a Divine command to leave her cell
and enter the public life of the world. She began to dispatch letters to men
and women in every condition of life, entered into correspondence with the
princes and republics of Italy, was consulted by the papal legates about the
affairs of the Church, and set herself to heal the wounds of her native land
by staying the fury of civil war and the ravages of faction. She implored
the pope, Gregory XI, to leave Avignon, to reform the clergy and the
administration of the Papal States, and ardently threw herself into his
design for a crusade, in the hopes of uniting the powers of Christendom
against the infidels, and restoring peace to Italy by delivering her from
the wandering companies of mercenary soldiers. While at Pisa, on the fourth
Sunday of Lent, 1375, she received the Stigmata, although, at her special
prayer, the marks did not appear outwardly in her body while she lived.
Mainly through the misgovernment of the papal officials, war broke out
between Florence and the Holy See, and almost the whole of the Papal States
rose in insurrection. Catharine had already been sent on a mission from the
pope to secure the neutrality of Pisa and Lucca. In June, 1376, she went to
Avignon as ambassador of the Florentines, to make their peace; but, either
through the bad faith of the republic or through a misunderstanding caused
by the frequent changes in its government, she was unsuccessful.
Nevertheless she made such a profound impression upon the mind of the pope,
that, in spite of the opposition of the French king and almost the whole of
the Sacred College, he returned to Rome (17 January, 1377). Catharine spent
the greater part of 1377 in effecting a wonderful spiritual revival in the
country districts subject to the Republic of Siena, and it was at this time
that she miraculously learned to write, though she still seems to have
chiefly relied upon her secretaries for her correspondence. Early in 1378
she was sent by Pope Gregory to Florence, to make a fresh effort for peace.
Unfortunately, through the factious conduct of her Florentine associates,
she became involved in the internal politics of the city, and during a
popular tumult (22 June) an attempt was made upon her life. She was bitterly
disappointed at her escape, declaring that her sins had deprived her of the
red rose of martyrdom. Nevertheless, during the disastrous revolution known
as "the tumult of the Ciompi", she still remained at Florence or in its
territory until, at the beginning of August, news reached the city that
peace had been signed between the republic and the new pope. Catharine then
instantly returned to Siena, where she passed a few months of comparative
quiet, dictating her "Dialogue", the book of her meditations and
revelations.
In the meanwhile the Great Schism had broken out in the Church. From the
outset Catharine enthusiastically adhered to the Roman claimant, Urban VI,
who in November, 1378, summoned her to Rome. In the Eternal City she spent
what remained of her life, working strenuously for the reformation of the
Church, serving the destitute and afflicted, and dispatching eloquent
letters in behalf of Urban to high and low in all directions. Her strength
was rapidly being consumed; she besought her Divine Bridegroom to let her
bear the punishment for all the sins of the world, and to receive the
sacrifice of her body for the unity and renovation of the Church; at last it
seemed to her that the Bark of Peter was laid upon her shoulders, and that
it was crushing her to death with its weight. After a prolonged and
mysterious agony of three months, endured by her with supreme exultation and
delight, from Sexagesima Sunday until the Sunday before the Ascension, she
died. Her last political work, accomplished practically from her death-bed,
was the reconciliation of Pope Urban VI with the Roman Republic (1380).
Among Catharine's principal followers were Fra Raimondo delle Vigne, of
Capua (d. 1399), her confessor and biographer, afterwards General of the
Dominicans, and Stefano di Corrado Maconi (d. 1424), who had been one of her
secretaries, and became Prior General of the Carthusians. Raimondo's book,
the "Legend", was finished in 1395. A second life of her, the "Supplement",
was written a few years later by another of her associates, Fra Tomaso
Caffarini (d. 1434), who also composed the "Minor Legend", which was
translated into Italian by Stefano Maconi. Between 1411 and 1413 the
depositions of the surviving witnesses of her life and work were collected
at Venice, to form the famous "Process". Catharine was canonized by Pius II
in 1461. The emblems by which she is known in Christian art are the lily and
book, the crown of thorns, or sometimes a heart--referring to the legend of
her having changed hearts with Christ. Her principal feast is on the 30th of
April, but it is popularly celebrated in Siena on the Sunday following. The
feast of her Espousals is kept on the Thursday of the carnival.
The works of St. Catharine of Siena rank among the classics of the
Italian language, written in the beautiful Tuscan vernacular of the
fourteenth century. Notwithstanding the existence of many excellent
manuscripts, the printed editions present the text in a frequently mutilated
and most unsatisfactory condition. Her writings consist of
- the "Dialogue", or "Treatise on Divine Providence";
- a collection of nearly four hundred letters; and
- a series of "Prayers".
The "Dialogue" especially, which treats
of the whole spiritual life of man in the form of a series of colloquies
between the Eternal Father and the human soul (represented by Catharine
herself), is the mystical counterpart in prose of Dante's "Divina Commedia".
A smaller work in the dialogue form, the "Treatise on Consummate
Perfection", is also ascribed to her, but is probably spurious. It is
impossible in a few words to give an adequate conception of the manifold
character and contents of the "Letters", which are the most complete
expression of Catharine's many-sided personality. While those addressed to
popes and sovereigns, rulers of republics and leaders of armies, are
documents of priceless value to students of history, many of those written
to private citizens, men and women in the cloister or in the world, are as
fresh and illuminating, as wise and practical in their advice and guidance
for the devout Catholic today as they were for those who sought her counsel
while she lived. Others, again, lead the reader to mystical heights of
contemplation, a rarefied atmosphere of sanctity in which only the few
privileged spirits can hope to dwell. The key-note to Catharine's teaching
is that man, whether in the cloister or in the world, must ever abide in the
cell of self-knowledge, which is the stable in which the traveller through
time to eternity must be born again.
Bibliography
Processus contestationum super sanctitate et doctrina beatae
Catharinae de Senis, in MARTENE AND DURAND, Veterum Scriptorum et
Monumentorum Amplissima Collectio (Paris, 1729), VI; GIGLI, L'opere
della serafica Santa Caterina da Siena (Siena and Lucca, 1707-54);
TOMMASEO, Le Lettere di S. Caterina da Siena (Florence, 1860);
Italian translations of the Legend and the Supplement are
included in the first and fifth volumes of GIGLI's Edition; important
portions of the Process are still left unpublished in manuscripts in
the Biblioteca Comunale of Siena and the Biblioteca Casanatense at Rome.
Author: Edmund G. Gardner
Transcribed by Lois Tesluk
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume III
Copyright © 1908 by Robert Appleton Company
Online Edition Copyright © 1999 by Kevin Knight
Nihil Obstat, November 1, 1908. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Note: The spelling of
Catharine, as used by the Cathedral, is an Americanized version of
Catherine.
