Saint Catherine of Siena was the 23rd child of a family of 25. Her father owned a leather and dye shop underneath their home, in Siena Italy. Her parents were Jacopa and Lapa Benincasa. Catherine was always such a happy child that she got the nickname, “Euphrosyme” which is a Greek word for joy. There was one incident that happened to Catherine when she was 6 that is believed to have effected her decision in her vocation. She and her brother were coming home from visiting their married sister. All of the sudden Catherine looked up at the sky and did not move. Her brother had gone ahead and was calling her over and over again. He finally came back and grabbed her hand. Catherine then started crying. She had been looking at Jesus, Sts. Peter and Paul, and Saint John, but they had disappeared when her brother had grabbed her hand. A year later Catherine made a secret vow to give her whole life to God.

Catherine was 12. Her mother wanted her to marry. So to please her mother and her sister she dressed up if fancy dresses and jewelry. She even dyed her long hair. Later she was terribly sorry of her vanity when she realized what she was doing. She then cut off her hair and she announced that she never wanted to marry. Her mother was furious and gave her all of the tiring house work to do. But Catherine never fussed, neither did she go back on her decision to never marry. Her father then realized that it was no use and said that she could do what she wanted. For three years she lived in a little room to her self. She would pray long hours into the night. In 1366, during a Shrove Tuesday festival Catherine was inside praying. Jesus then appeared to her and gave her a ring as a symbol of her being His bride. All her life it was only her that could see that ring.

It was in 1366 that Catherine became a Third order Dominican at the age of 18. She then went out and helped the sick of the town and visited those in jail. On one occasion she was carrying a basket of eggs to bring to a poor man. She stopped by the church and went into ecstasy. She dropped her basket of eggs and landed with a thud on them. When she left her ecstasy she picked up her basket of eggs and brought them to the poor man, for none of the eggs had even the slightest crack. Catherine’s black and white attire were commonly seen in the streets of Siena. In 1370, people began to ask Catherine for advice on the public and church matters throughout all of Italy.

Catherine was once in Pisa, in the church of Saint Christina. It was after Holy Communion and she was looking at the crucifix. Then rays came down from the wounds of Christ and penetrated Catherine. She had received the stigmata. She asked Our Lord that no one would be able to see the stigmata, and her prayer was answered until she died. Catherine was given a confessor who was Raymund de Capua. Priests would hear many confessions of people who Catherine had persuaded to reform their lives. More than that, Catherine could settle fights, fix family disputes, and stop on-going feuds.

Catherine also advised many people through letters. She would write to bishops, kings, queens, archbishops, monks, priests encouraging them, scolding for their bad examples or just advising them. She even wrote to the pope himself. Because of the hard times of the church and of the secular world the pope then, Pope Gregory XI, was not living in Rome but in Avingon, France. Catherine wrote him more than once and told him to come back to Rome and to clean up the church. At last one letter did make him leave when Catherine told him to “keep his promise” a promise that he had told no one, much less Catherine. Letters were constantly flying from Catherine. Catherine had three secretaries to write her letters for her. She could dictate three different letters to each of her secretaries at the same time and not get confused. Once as she was doing this all three of the secretaries began to write the same sentence. They asked Catherine if that was what she wanted. Catherine showed them that the sentence worked for all of the letters, even though the topics were completely different.

In 1378, Pope Gregory XI died. Then Urban VI became pope. But the bishops in Avingon, France, appointed their own pope, Pope Clement VII. The Church then broke up. The people in France, Spain, Scotland, and Naples followed Clement VII as their pope. But the people in Northern Italy, England, Flanders, and Hungary followed Urban VI as their pope. Catherine believed that it was Urban VI who was truly elected, so she tried to help him. Urban VI then told her to come to Rome to help him and give him advice. This was quite a honor for Catherine, or for any woman. To be asked by the Pope himself to come and help him fight his enemies and fix the church. This was the 2nd Pope that she would counsel. She once wrote to Pope Urban VI and chided him about his bad and uncontrolled temper.

Catherine spent the next 2 years helping Pope Urban VI. Later, on April 21, 1380, while Catherine was in Rome, she was suddenly struck paralyzed, from her waist down. She suffered only eight days more and died on April 29th, at the age of 33. After her death the Stigmata was shown to all. Only 81 years after her death Saint Catherine of Siena was canonized by Pope Pius II in 1461. Saint Catherine’s body is kept by the Dominican’s in Rome. But her head is kept in the church of St. Dominic in Siena, the church that she went to as she grew up.