When Catherine was sixteen, her older sister Bonaventura died in childbirth already anguished by this, Catherine soon learned that her parents wanted her to marry Bonaventura's widower. Raymond continues that at age seven, Catherine vowed to give her whole life to God. Ĭatherine is said by her confessor and biographer Raymond of Capua O.P.'s Life to have had her first vision of Christ when she was five or six years old: she and a brother were on the way home from visiting a married sister when she is said to have experienced a vision of Christ seated in glory with the Apostles Peter, Paul, and John. As a child Catherine was so merry that the family gave her the pet name of "Euphrosyne", which is Greek for "joy" and the name of an Euphrosyne of Alexandria. She was two years old when Lapa had her 25th child, another daughter named Giovanna. Catherine was nursed by her mother and developed into a healthy child. Giovanna was handed over to a wet-nurse and died soon after. She had already borne 22 children, but half of them had died. Lapa was about forty years old when she gave premature birth to twin daughters Catherine and Giovanna. The house where Catherine grew up still exists. Her Dialogue, hundreds of letters, and dozens of prayers, also give her a prominent place in the history of Italian literature.Ĭaterina di Jacopo di Benincasa was born on 25 March 1347 (shortly before the Black Death ravaged Europe) in Siena, Republic of Siena (today Italy), to Lapa Piagenti, the daughter of a local poet, and Jacopo di Benincasa, a cloth dyer who ran his enterprise with the help of his sons. She was behind the return of the Pope from Avignon to Rome, and then carried out many missions entrusted to her by the pope, something quite rare for a woman in the Middle Ages. In 1999 Pope John Paul II proclaimed her a (co-)patron saint of Europe.Ĭatherine of Siena is one of the outstanding figures of medieval Catholicism, by the strong influence she has had in the history of the papacy and her extensive authorship. She was the second woman to be declared a "doctor of the Church," on 4 October 1970 by Pope Paul VI – only days after Teresa of Ávila. Pope Pius II canonized her in 1461 she was declared a patron saint of Rome in 1866 by Pope Pius IX, and of Italy (together with Francis of Assisi) in 1939 by Pope Pius XII. Urban VI celebrated her funeral and burial in the Basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome.ĭevotion around Catherine of Siena developed rapidly after her death. She died on 29 April 1380, exhausted by her rigorous fasting. 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". The Great Schism of the West led Catherine of Siena to go to Rome with the pope. She dictated to secretaries her set of spiritual treatises The Dialogue of Divine Providence.
After Gregory XI's death (March 1378) and the conclusion of peace (July 1378), she returned to Siena. The Pope then sent Catherine to negotiate peace with Florence. Her influence with Pope Gregory XI played a role in his 1376 decision to leave Avignon for Rome. She joined the " mantellates", a group of pious women, primarily widows, informally devoted to Dominican spirituality. Canonized in 1461, she is also a Doctor of the Church.īorn and raised in Siena, she wanted from an early age to devote herself to God, against the will of her parents. Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Rome and Shrine of Saint Catherine, SienaĢ9 April 30 April (Roman Calendar, 1628–1969) 4 October ( in Italy)ĭominican tertiaries' habit, lily, book, crucifix, cupid, heart, crown of thorns, stigmata, ring, dove, rose, skull, miniature church, miniature ship bearing Papal coat of armsĪgainst fire bodily ills Diocese of Allentown, Pennsylvania, USA Europe illness Italy Bambang, Nueva Vizcaya, Philippines Samal, Bataan, Philippines miscarriages people ridiculed for their piety sexual temptation sick people sickness nursesĬatherine of Siena (25 March 1347 – 29 April 1380), a lay member of the Dominican Order, was a mystic, activist, and author who had a great influence on Italian literature and on the Catholic Church.
Virgin, Patron of Europe ( Patrona Europae), Stigmatist, Doctor of the Church
0 kommentar(er)
