St. Catherine of Siena, T.O.S.D. (1347-1380)
Feast Day - April 29th
April 29 Young Catherine was both markedly joyful and pious; by age 7 she had received her first vision of Christ and vowed her whole life to God. Thus Catherine protested familial plans to see her married by fasting and cutting off her long hair. She resolved, nonetheless, to serve her family as she would Christ and His saints, and they eventually allowed her to fulfill her desire of joining the Third Order of St. Dominic. She practiced severe self-mortification and almsgiving in seclusion until she experienced a mystical marriage to Christ, who later instructed her to go forth to promote others' salvation. This she did by nursing the sick, visiting prisoners, offering spiritual direction, ending feuds, brokering peace, and prevailing upon the pope to return from Avignon to Rome. Though some of her life, like her stigmata, remained hidden, her ministry proved the truth of her admonition: "If you are what you should be, you will set the whole world ablaze!" For sharing her mystical gifts of wisdom and understanding she was declared a Doctor of the Church. Patroness of Europe, nurses, the sick and the tempted.
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