Saint Catherine of Siena
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Saint Catherine of Siena, T.O.S.D, born at
Siena, 25 March, 1347; died at Rome, 29 April, 1380. She was a tertiary of the Dominican Order, and a Scholastic philosopher and
theologian.
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Her father, Giacomo di Benincasa,
was a dyer, her mother, Lapa, the daughter of a local poet
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From her earliest childhood Catherine
began to see visions and to practise extreme austerities. At the age of seven
she consecrated her virginity to Christ; in her sixteenth year she took the
habit of the Dominican Tertiaries, and renewed the life of the anchorites of
the desert in a little room in her father's house.
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She was proclaimed a Doctor of the
Church in 1970.
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In his decree of 13 April 1866, Pope
Pius IX declared Catherine of Siena to be a co-patroness of Rome. On 18 June
1939 Pope Pius XII named her a joint Patron Saint of Italy along with Saint
Francis of Assisi.
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In about 1368, age twenty-one,
Catherine experienced what she described in her letters as a "Mystical
Marriage" with Jesus, later a popular subject in art as the Mystic
marriage of Saint Catherine.
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Her other major work is The Dialogue
of Divine Providence, a dialogue between a soul who "rises up" to
God and God himself, and recorded between 1377 and 1378 by members of her
circle.
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In 1375 Our Lord give her the
Stigmata, which was visible only after her death.
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Her spiritual director was Blessed
Raymond of Capua. St, Catherine's letters, and a treatise called "a
dialogue" are considered among the most brilliant writings in the
history of the Catholic Church.
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She died when she was only 33, and
her body was found incorrupt in 1430.
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She was buried in the (Roman)
cemetery of Santa Maria sopra Minerva which lies near the Pantheon. After
miracles were reported to take place at her grave, Raymond moved her inside the
Basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, where she lies to this day.
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She is also the patroness of the
historically Catholic American woman's fraternity, Theta Phi Alpha.
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The St. Catherine of Siena Medical
Center is located in Smithtown, Long Island, New York.
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Only the church and a memorial garden
survive of St Catherine's Convent in Bow, London, whose members moved to
Stone, Staffordshire in 1926.
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Ref : Wikipedia & other Catholic Ref Books
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