Despite the passage of time, Catherine of Siena is an extraordinarily modern mystic. If we are about to ask ourselves: what is St. Catherine of Siena known for? The answer is that she is undoubted of all times because she lived outside of time. St Catherine of Siena is most known for her experiences on the borderline between life and death. She lived long before Raymond Moody was born. Left her in tears for many days: “I did not want to return to this dungeon that is the physical body.”
According to historians, Saint Catherine of Siena is known for asking to be received into the ranks of the Third Dominican Order and finally leaving her parental home. Saint Catherine organized aid for the needy. Entered hospitals and performed work reserved for older men and women. She bent down and kissed his disfigured legs when she came across a foul-smelling leper. To overcome the repulsion that had overcome her.
The history of humanity and the Church knows the emergence of geniuses. People endowed with extraordinary gifts, who intervened, sometimes even from childhood, in various fields of activity and brought about profound changes: St Catherine of Siena is most known for being a kind of genius in the spiritual life and history of the Church.
Who was Catherine of Siena?
She has been seen levitating on several occasions in ecstasy. St Catherine of Siena is most known for she is one of the greatest mystics in the history of the Church. Much more misogynistic in that era than today. She bequeathed us her famous dialogues with God and Jesus. Gitta Malasz’s Dialogues with the Angel is a true gem with only one equivalent.
St Catherine of Siena was a woman who dedicated herself to the Benedictine Order. She was born on March 25, 1347, the 24th child of James and Lapa Benincasa, humble boyars of Siena. Her parents gave her the name Catherine. At seven, she showed a premature knowledge of the realities. And dangers of life, she vowed to know no other love than Christ: this is called the “mystical marriage of Catherine.” That this act was not the fruit of a childish fantasy will be proven throughout her life.
Although she did not live long, 33 years, her entire existence was bathed in the supernatural: stigmata, visions, ecstasies. Levitation and encounters with angels. She explained at one point that she didn’t see the faces of people who visited her because she saw their souls. At one point, there were eight priests around her at all times. Because everyone who spoke to her shortly afterward was profoundly transformed, it is no accident that the memory of such a saint as Catherine of Siena has spanned six centuries of history.
Biography of St. Catherine of Siena
| Full name: | Caterina Benincasa |
|---|---|
| Year of birth: | 1347 AD |
| Year of death: | 1380 AD |
| Place of birth: | Sienna, Italy |
| Spouse: | Giovanni di Paolo |
| Nationality: | Italian |
| Death cause: | Massive Stroke |
What is St Catherine of Siena most known for?
Catherine, convinced that only people renewed by the Gospel could renew the Church, dedicated herself with all her efforts to reform the monks of the Order of St Dominic, to which her tertiary status bound her. In this order, she already had many spiritual sons on whom she could count. Before her death, she made them promise that, in the first chapter, they would elect Brother Raimondo da Capua as their superior general, as was to happen.
Catherine of Siena’s heroism reaches its peak, and through it, she becomes well known during the plague of 1374. When she refuses to leave the city, along with twenty-seven other women, with whom she cares for the plague victims. She carries the bodies of the dead on her back and helps to bury them. When the scourge has ceased, her fellow citizens reward her work. And her jet setting with taunts and malicious insinuations.
It was the last gem in Catherine’s crown of merit. Christ, the Saviour, appears to her in a vision and engraves the marks of His wounds on her hands, feet, and ribs; Catherine will bear these wounds until her death. Then he says to her, “From now on, you will leave your cell, town, and country. I will be with you and take you to speak to the whole world. I want to send you to the Bishops, the leaders of the Church and Christendom, so that a weak woman may shame the pride of the strong.”
Read also: Who was Dante?
