Catharineof Siena

Catharine of Siena, Saint, was born in 1347, being the daughter of a dyer. At the age of 20 she joined the Dominican sisterhood, having early displayed a tendency towards severe asceticism, and having been favoured with beatific visions, in one of which, rivalling St. Francis, she received the stigmata, or marks of the wounds of Christ. The Franciscans treated this infringement of their monopoly by the Dominicans with great indignation, and Pope Sixtus IV. forbade the propagation of Catharine's story, but it held its own the more successfully, perhaps, because of opposition. In 1376 she went to Avignon to persuade Gregory XI to return to Rome. He did actually return, and accidentally died there, a fact which greatly enhanced her reputation. In the schism between Urban VI. and Clement VII. she very actively supported the former, but worn out by self-inflicted sufferings, she died in 1380. She left some literary remains which are of interest, owing to the period in which she lived, but hardly, perhaps, deserve all the praise lavished on them by devout admirers.