As we continue our series on Catherine of Siena, her life, and ministry, take note of the times in which she lived and her background.

     Catherine Benicasa was born in 1347, just four years after Julian of Norwich, the twenty-fourth of twenty five children.  Her father was a business man, a dyer of wool and the family home was next door to his business.  It is said that as early as age six, one could see the Spirit of God at work in her life.  In fact it is recorded that Catherine had a vision of Jesus wearing the papal tiara.  Further, it is recorded that she took a vow of perpetual virginity when she was seven and that she was attracted to the Dominican Order.  The church and the Cloister of St. Dominic were just up the hill from her home.  Life for her was certainly in a transition, perhaps unstable, with wars going on all around her, not just between countries, but even between neighborhoods and families.  History has recorded that the Black Plague had just come through her part of Italy, the year before her birth and it would sweep through at regular intervals.  Barbara Tuchman writes,

“In Siena, where more than half of the inhabitants died of the plague, work was abandoned on the great cathedral, planned to be the largest in the world, and never resumed, owing to loss of workers and master masons and “the melancholy and grief” of the survivors.  The cathedral’s truncated transept still stands in permanent witness to the sweep of death’s scythe. Agnolo di Tura, a chronicler of Siena, recorded the fear of catagion that froze every other instinct.  “Father abondoned child, wife husband, one brother another,” he wrote, “for this plague seemed to strike through the breath and sight. And so they died.  And no one could be found to bury the dead for money or friendship.”

     In addition to this, her parents were desperately trying to dissuade her from this sense of call on her.  As time progressed, her mother would encourage her to take care of herself, to pay attention to her hair etc., so that she would be available for marriage.  She was sorely tested by her parents.  Eventually, they gave her over to an older sister to help encourage her towards marriage versus the life she believed God was calling her to.  This older sister was “Bonaventura,to whom Catherine was deeply attached.  Catherine went through the motions of coquetry and began to slacken ever so slightly in her prayers.  Suddenly, though, and shockingly, her sister died in childbirth.  In the families bereavement over the loss of Bonaventura and therefore the loss of an alliance to his family that the marriage had ensured, they decided to procure a husband for Catherine regardless of her wishes.” Catherine of course wanted nothing to do with this, so with advice from a confessor and spiritual director, she chopped off her hair.

     This not only made her less attractive, but also was a practice of nuns and women of the street.  He parents were outraged and put her to work like a maidservant in the home.  In addition to this, she had the use of a small room in the home where she could be in solitude and pray, and the family took that from her as well.  After this event, Catherine was able to construct within herself an inner cell, which no one could take from her.  This allowed her to go throughout her daily chores and still have her time of prayer and solitude.  Eventually, her parents would relent.

     Obviously, Catherine was a women who felt the call and hand of God in her life.  She was disciplined in her faith and wanted to be faithful and obedient to the Father.  As we continue the series we will learn much from her.

Quotes: Barbara W. Tuchman, a Distant Mirror:  The Calamitous 14th Century. pg. 96

               Carol L. Flanders, Enduring Grace: Living Portraits of Seven Women Mystics. pg. 108