Today, April 29, the Church celebrates the feast of St. Catherine of Siena.
St. Catherine was a third-order Dominican, peacemaker and counselor to the Pope. She singlehandedly ended the Avignon exile of the successors of Peter in the 14th century.
She is the co-patron of Italy and of Europe.
She exhibited an unusually independent character as a child and an exceptionally intense prayer life. When she was seven years old she had the first of her mystical visions, in which she saw Jesus surrounded by saints and seated in glory. In the same year she vowed to consecrate her virginity to Christ.
She joined the Dominican Tertiaries and lived a deep and solitary life of prayer and meditation for the next three years in which she had constant mystical experiences, capped, by the end of the three years with an extraordinary union with God granted to only a few mystics, known as ‘mystical marriage.’
The Lord called her to a more public life while she was still in her 20s, and she established correspondences with many influential figures, advising and admonishing them and exhorting them to holiness, including the Pope himself who she never hesitated to rebuke when she saw fit.
Great political acts which are attributed to her include achieving peace between the Holy See and Florence who were at war, to convince the Pope to return from his Avignon exile, which he did in 1376, and to heal the great schism between the followers of the legitimate Pope, Urban VI, and those who opposed him in 1380. She achieved this while on her deathbed.
Her Dialogues, one of the classics of Italian literature, are the record of her mystical visions which she dictated in a state of mystical ecstasy.
In 1375, while visiting Pisa, she received the stigmata, even though they never appeared on her body during her lifetime, owing to her request to God. They appeared only on her incorruptible body after her death.
She died in Rome on April 29, 1380, at the age of 33.
St. Catherine of Siena, pray for us!
Jonathan Fabian Ginunggil,
Pelayan Atasan Tertinggi / Most High Servant,
Yesus, Maria, Yusuf Pelayanan Kasih / Jesus, Mary, Joseph Ministry of Love
(Blessed and Saints and the Nine Choirs of Angels)
My vocation is Blessed and Saints.
"I am the most humble of all the Saints in Heaven" Mary, Mother of God."
"I am the handmaid of the Lord, said Mary ‘let what you have said be done to me."
Mother Mary is the most humble Saint in Heaven and she is also the Mother of God for us all
(Luke 1:38)
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