For the “All Saints Days” column of April 29, Saint Catherine of Siena.
We commemorate April 29th Saint Catherine of Siena. Santa Caterina, born Caterina Benincasa, was born on 25 March 1347 in the Fontebranda district as the twenty-fourth daughter of the 25 children of Jacopo Benincasa, dyer, and Lapa di Puccio de’ Piacenti; her twin sister Giovanna died as a newborn. She was only six years old when Jesus appeared to her dressed as the Supreme Pontiff, with three crowns on his head and a red cloak, with Saints Peter, John and Paul next to her; at seven years old Caterina did vow of virginity, also starting a path of mortification of the flesh, made up of penances and fasting. From her own pen we learn that around the age of twelve, not knowing the vow she had expressed, her parents began to think of marrying her off: the girl then cut her hair and covered her head with a veil. Her father’s complaints were overcome only when he, surprising her during prayers, saw the dove hovering over her head. Holy Spirit. At the age of sixteen, Saint Catherine entered the third order of the Dominicans, called Mantellate because of the black cloak worn over the white dress, although she remained to live in her home. The young girl approached sacred readings despite being semi-illiterate, having received from the Lord the gift of knowing how to read; she only learned to write very late, so much so that most of her writings are the result of dictation to others. A new miraculous apparition occurred at the end of the Carnival of 1367: Jesus appeared to her, with the Virgin and other saints, to marry her to himself in faith, and as a seal of the mystical union, she would receive a ring, adorned with rubies, visible only to his eyes. And this is why Catherine is iconographically represented with the ring and a lily.
Although she had no scholastic or theological training, Saint Catherine never showed herself intimidated in the presence of the powerful, so much so that she exposed to the papal legate in Italy the need for a reform of the customs of the clergyas well as organizing a crusade in the Holy Land. The ecclesiastical authorities, suspicious of the extraordinary nature of her figure, called her to Florence in 1374 before the General Chapter of the Dominicans, who recognized her orthodoxy. However, her whole life will be accompanied by slander. According to devotional tradition, on 1 April 1375 she received the stigmata in the church of Santa Cristina in Pisa, where she was invited by Pope Gregory XI to prepare the crusade she had requested, stigmata which however remained invisible until her death. He played a very active role in the attempt to convince the pontiff to leave Avignon, until, after numerous letters, he decided to return to Rome on 17 January 1377. But it was a brief victory, since the following year the Schism occurred in Fondi, with the election of the antipope Clement VII.
Saint Catherine died in Rome on 29 April 1380, worn out by a life of fasting and abstinence, saddened by the schism and wars, at just 33 years old, after having refused to drink for a month. She was canonized by Pope Pius II in 1461 and declared Doctor of the Church by Paul VI on 4 October 1970. She is also the main patroness of Italy by appointment of Pope Pius XII on 18 June 1939, together with Saint Francis of Assisi and co-patron of Europe by appointment of Pope John Paul II on 1 October 1999. Her remains were buried in Rome, in the cemetery of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, but in 1384 her head was removed to take it, as a relic, to Siena, where it is still preserved in the Basilica of San Domenico, together with one of his fingers. With this relic the blessing is given to Italy and the Armed Forces on the afternoon of the Sunday when the international celebrations in honor of Saint Catherine of Siena are held.
There are numerous miracles attributed to the Saint. Tradition has it that in October 1376, returning from the papal court in Avignon, the Saint passed through Varazze eager to get to know the places that had given birth to the blessed Jacopo da Varagine, author of the Golden Legend. The town was plagued by the plague, which had decimated the population: Caterina, struck by so much pain, prayed that the disease would leave those places, prayers that were answered. In exchange for the miracle she asked the people of Varazzi to honor their illustrious fellow citizen by dedicating a chapel in her name and to the Holy Trinity.
As for his literary works, Saint Catherine, semi-illiterate and whose writings were mostly dictated, had great recognition thanks also to the testimony of her first biographer, Blessed Raymond of Capua, future Master General of the Order, her confessor and direct witness to the prodigious gift of knowledge writing and reading, therefore also a witness to his literary works. It is with the Dialogue of Divine Providence, dictated to a group of disciples who often wrote in the presence of their confessor, that Paul VI places before the Church all the opportunity to make Saint Catherine “Doctor of the Church”. The Dialogue contains profound pages of high theology that still need to be explored and disseminated today.
A distinctive note of the most ancient Catherine iconography is given by the fact that the first portraits were promoted by his direct disciples, according to sources even one of which was painted while Catherine was still alive. Certainly to the diffusion of iconographic model contributed to the initiative of Raimondo da Capua, confessor of the Saint and author of the first biography, the Legenda Maior, written between 1385 and 1395. He worked to ensure that her image was painted in various places, including perhaps also on the adjacent wall to the tomb erected in the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome. Saint Catherine of Siena is depicted with the white robe covered in black of the Dominican order, often with the white lily in her hand, which represents her purity, and with a book and a pen, which recall her writings. Sometimes there is a crown of thorns on her head or a cross, and her stigmata. She is sometimes depicted at the moment of mystical marriage with Jesus or with a heart in her hand.
