CATHERINE, SAINT. The Roman hagiology contains six saints of this name. I. ST. CATHERINE OF ALEXANDRIA, virgin and martyr, whose day of commemoration recurs on Nov. 25. 2. ST. CATHERINE OF SIENA, 1347-80, Dominican tertiary whose feast is observed on April 3o. 3. ST. CATHERINE OF SWEDEN, daughter of St. Bridget, who died abbess of Watzen in 1381, and is corn memorated on March 22. 4. ST. CATHERINE OF BOLOGNA, 1413— 6 3, abbess of the Poor Clares in Bologna, canonized by Pope Benedict XIII., and commemorated by Franciscans on March 9. 5. ST. CATHERINE OF GENOA who belonged to the noble family of Fieschi, devoted her life to the sick, especially during the plague at Genoa in 1497 and 15o1. She was beatified by Clement V. in 1675 and canonized by Clement XII. in 1737, her feast being on July 22. See F. von Hugel, The Mystical Ele ment in Religion as studied in St. Catherine of Genoa, 2nd ed. (1923). 6. ST. CATHERINE DE' RICCI, of Florence (1522-89), be came a Dominican nun at Prato. She was famous during her life time for the weekly ecstasy of the Passion, during which she experienced the sufferings of the Holy Virgin contemplating the Passion of her Son. She was canonized in 1746 by Benedict XIV., who fixed her festal day on Feb. 13. In Celtic and English mar tyrologies (Nov. 25) there is also commemorated St. Catherine Audley (c. 1400), a recluse of Ledbury, Hereford, who was reputed for piety and clairvoyance.
Of the first two saints something more must be said. Of St. Catherine of Alexandria, history has little to tell. According to the legend recorded in the Roman martyrology, and in Simeon Metaphrastes, Catherine upbraided the Emperor Maximinus for his cruelties, and adjured him to give up the worship of false gods. The angry tyrant, unable to refute her arguments, sent for pagan scholars to argue with her, but they were discomfited. Catherine was then scourged and imprisoned. When the empress went to reason with her, Catherine converted her as well as the Roman general and his soldiers, who had accompanied her. Maximinus now ordered her to be broken on the wheel ; but the wheel was shattered by her touch. The axe proved fatal, and the martyr's body was borne by angels to Mt. Sinai, where Justinian I. built the famous monastery in her honour. Another variation of the legend is that in which, having rejected many offers of marriage, she was taken to Heaven in vision and betrothed to Christ by the Virgin Mary.
Of these marvellous incidents very little, by the universal admission of Catholic scholars, has survived the test of modern criticism, though her actual existence is generally admitted. In the middle ages she was a most popular saint, her festival being, in certain dioceses of France, a holy day of obligation even as late as the I7th century. The wheel being her symbol, she was the patron saint of wheelwrights and mechanics, as well as the tutelary saint of nuns and maidens.
St. Catherine of Siena, the youngest daughter of a dyer, was born on March At an early age she began to practise asceticism and see visions, and when seven dedicated her virginity to Christ. In 1363 she became a Dominican tertiary, and renewed in her home the life of the anchorites in the desert. She resumed family life in 1366 when she began to tend the sick and the poor. Her peculiarities excited suspicion, and charges seem to have been brought against her by some of the Dominicans, to answer which she went to Florence in 1374, soon returning to Siena to tend the plague-stricken. At the invitation of the ruler of Pisa she visited that city in 1375 to arouse enthusiasm for the proposed crusade, and to prevent Pisa and Lucca joining the Tuscan league against the pope. While at Pisa, on April 1, she is said to have received the stigmata or impression on her hands, feet and heart, of the wounds of the crucified Christ, but by her prayer the marks were made invisible. In 1376, Catherine resolved to bring back Pope Gregory XI. from Avignon, attempting first by correspondence to reconcile Gregory and the Florentines, who had been placed under an interdict, and then going in person as the representative of the latter to Avignon. Gregory empowered her to treat for peace, but the Florentine ambassadors proved faithless. Catherine, how ever, was able to persuade the pope to return to Genoa and then to push on to Rome. There he found life very difficult, and in 1378 sent Catherine on an embassy to Florence, especially to the Guelph party. While she was urging the citizens to make peace with the pope there came the news of his death. During the troubles that ensued in Florence, Catherine nearly lost her life, and sorely regretted not winning her heart's desire, "the red rose of martyrdom." Peace was signed with the new pope, Urban VI., and Catherine, having accomplished her second great political task, went home to Siena. Thence on the outbreak of the schism Urban summoned her to Rome, where she quelled the revolt of the people and tried to win for Urban the support of Europe.
Under the great strain, she died on April 29, 138o, and was canonized by Pius II. in 1461.
Catherine lived on in her writings and disciples. Among the latter were her confessor and biographer, Fra Raimondo, later master-general of the Dominicans, William Flete, an ascetically minded Cambridge man, Stephano Maconi, who became prior general of the Carthusians, and the two secretaries, Neri di Landoccio and Francesco Malavolti. The last of her band of reformers, Tommaso Caffarini, died in 1434, but the work was taken up by Savonarola. Cathe rine's writings consist of : a dialogue entitled, The Book of Divine Doctrine, given in person by God the Father, speaking to the mind of the most glorious and holy virgin Catherine of Siena, and written down as she dictated it in the vulgar tongue, she being the while entranced, and actually hearing what God spoke in her. The book has a significant place in the history of Italian literature. "In a lan guage which is singularly poor in mystical works it stands with the Divina Commedia as one of the two supreme attempts to express the eternal in the symbolism of a day, to paint the union of the soul with the suprasensible while still imprisoned in the flesh." (2) The prayers (26 in all) which are mostly mystical outpour ings. (3) Letters, nearly 400, addressed to kings, popes, cardinals, bishops, conventual bodies, political corporations and indi viduals. By their historical importance, their spiritual fragrance, their literary value, and their beautiful Tuscan vernacular, the letters put their author almost on a level with Petrarch.