Caterina di Jacopo di Benincasa was born in Siena on 25 March 1347, the daughter of the cloth dyer Giacomo di Benincasa and Lapa Piagenti, herself the daughter of a local poet. She was one of a very large family; her twin sister Giovanna died soon after birth, and the household belonged to the lower middle class of tradesmen who shared in the turbulent politics of the Republic of Siena. As a small child she was so joyful that she was nicknamed Euphrosyne. At five or six, walking home with a brother, she beheld Christ seated in glory with the Apostles Peter, Paul, and John. At about seven she consecrated her virginity to Christ.
When she was sixteen her sister Bonaventura died in childbirth, and her parents pressed her to marry the widower. Catherine refused, cut off her hair, and began severe fasting. She built within herself an interior cell of recollection that no interruption could destroy, serving her family as if they were Christ, Mary, and the Apostles. A vision of Saint Dominic strengthened her resolve. After a serious illness her mother consented to her joining the Mantellate, devout women living Dominican spirituality in the world (later formalized as the Third Order). She learned to read, lived in near solitude in a little room of her father's house, gave away food and clothing freely, and renewed the life of the desert anchorites amid ordinary domestic life.
After three years of celestial visitations and familiar conversation with Christ, she underwent the mystical experience of spiritual espousals, traditionally placed about 1366–1368. Christ then commanded her to leave her cell and enter the public life of the world. She rejoined her family, tended the sick—especially those with the most repulsive diseases—served the poor, and labored for the conversion of sinners. Though she suffered continual physical pain and for long intervals lived on practically no food save the Blessed Sacrament, she remained radiantly happy, full of practical wisdom and spiritual insight. Her extraordinary personal charm drew disciples, men and women, into a spiritual fellowship united by mystical love, even while she endured persecution from some friars and sisters of her own order.
In the summer of 1370 she received special manifestations of divine mysteries culminating in a prolonged trance, a kind of mystical death, in which she saw Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven and heard the command to work openly for the Church and for peace. She began to dictate letters to every condition of life, corresponded with princes and republics, and was consulted by papal legates. She sought to heal the wounds of Italy by restraining civil war and faction, implored Pope Gregory XI to leave Avignon, reform the clergy and the Papal States, and supported the design of a crusade that might unite Christendom and free Italy from mercenary companies.
While at Pisa, on the fourth Sunday of Lent in 1375, she received the stigmata; at her prayer the marks remained invisible during her lifetime. She had already been sent to secure the neutrality of Pisa and Lucca. When war broke out between Florence and the Holy See, she went to Avignon in June 1376 as ambassador of the Florentines. Though the embassy failed through political bad faith or misunderstanding, she so impressed Gregory XI that, despite opposition from the French king and much of the Sacred College, he returned to Rome on 17 January 1377. Catherine spent much of 1377 in a spiritual revival in the Sienese countryside; at this time she miraculously learned to write, though she still relied chiefly on secretaries. Early in 1378 Gregory sent her again to Florence for peace. During a popular tumult on 22 June an attempt was made on her life; she was bitterly disappointed at her escape, saying her sins had deprived her of the red rose of martyrdom. She remained through the tumult of the Ciompi until peace was signed, then returned to Siena and dictated her Dialogue, the book of her meditations and revelations in the form of colloquies between the Eternal Father and the soul.
When the Great Schism broke out she adhered from the first to the Roman claimant, Urban VI, who summoned her to Rome in November 1378. There she spent her remaining strength working for the reformation of the Church, serving the destitute, and writing eloquent letters in Urban's behalf. She besought her Divine Bridegroom to let her bear the punishment for the sins of the world and to receive the sacrifice of her body for the unity and renewal of the Church. It seemed to her that the Bark of Peter was laid upon her shoulders and was crushing her to death. After a mysterious agony of some three months she died in Rome on 29 April 1380 at the age of thirty-three. Her last words were: "Father, into Your Hands I commend my soul and my spirit." Her last political work, almost from her deathbed, was the reconciliation of Urban VI with the Roman Republic. She was buried in the Basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. Among her principal followers were her confessor and biographer Blessed Raymond of Capua, later Master of the Dominicans, and Stefano Maconi, later Prior General of the Carthusians. She was canonized by Pope Pius II in 1461, declared patron of Rome, of Italy with Saint Francis of Assisi, a Doctor of the Church in 1970, and a patron of Europe. Her emblems include the lily, the book, the crown of thorns, and a heart, recalling the tradition that she exchanged hearts with Christ.
May Saint Catherine of Siena obtain for us a burning love of Christ crucified and the courage to work for the peace and unity of His Church.
