Saint of the week: Catherine of Siena
- Aimee Boudreaux MacIver
- Apr 29
- 4 min read
When I think of Catherine of Siena, I immediately think of her famous quote that's now a standard Catholic motto, flung from graduation speeches and conference keynotes and emblazoned in pretty calligraphy on mugs and t-shirts and totes: "Become who God meant you to be, and you will set the world on fire."
She wrote these words in one of the myriad letters she sent to popes and politicians and principalities, proclaiming repentance and renewal through God's love as she simultaneously traversed the continent to evangelize, preach, found monasteries, write theological volumes, and personally tend the poor and sick. When you read even the most compact summaries of her life, even across all these centuries, Catherine feels almost dizzyingly prolific, active, urgent. Her theological treatises led to her elevation as a Doctor of the Church. Her deep mysticism included an invisible stigmata and mystical "marriage" to Jesus that we will probably never fully understand. Maybe her words about setting fire to the world are the best ones to describe Catherine herself.
Caterina di Jacopo di Benincasa was born on March 25, 1347, in Siena, Italy, as the 23rd of 25 siblings. Even as a little girl in a medieval world defined by the Black Death and political chaos, Catherine had a sunny, charistmatic personality. Her family nicknamed her "Euphrosyne," which is Greek for "joy." At age 5 or 6, she had her first mystical vision of Jesus; at age 7, she vowed to give her life to God.
Her childhood and adolescence were marked by a push-and-pull with her parents about her future. They arranged a marriage, but she didn't want to get married, so she cut off her beautiful hair to downgrade her own desiribility to suitors. They admonished her for giving away family belongings to the poor, so she began refusing food and material goods for herself and created "an inner cell" of the mind where she would retreat into deep prayer. What was happening with their spirited, joyful girl? Why was she keeping herself in almost total silence and isolation, even in the family home?
Catherine's parents eventually allowed her to become a lay Dominican, but they did not understand that deep within her interior cell, Catherine was encountering Jesus in even more profound, secret ways. Later, she would describe entering into a "mystical marrige" with Jesus. She eventually emerged from this period to begin a life of public work.
She started with fervent service to the sick and poor, then preaching to those who wanted to join her, then found herself drawn as an advisor into papal and world politics. Catherine began traveling extensively from city to city, campaigning for clergy reform and renewal of the Church. As years passed, Catherine influenced the leadership decisions of two popes, as well as countless cardinals, nobles, and politicians. She played a crucial role in mediating peace between warring Italian city-states and in restoring the papacy to Rome after the Great Schism. Her energy comes across as extraordinary and limitless, especially when you remember that she lived in a time when traveling and letter-writing and papal audiences happened only with huge amounts of time and hardship.
For all her high-level work and contributions, Catherine's true sanctity is summarized in her own fiery quote: "Be who God meant you to be." She's not a saint for her influence nor theological treatises nor even her mysticism. Catherine of Siena is the saint for the reason any of us might be: with grace and abandonment to God's love, she was unapologetically and fearlessly herself. She gave every gift she had and everything she was to God and the Church, and didn't reserve pieces and portions for herself. Sometimes she was ridiculed, rejected, refused. Sometimes people hated her. Sometimes Catherine was falsely accused, and once almost assassinated.
But she never ceased striving to be fully who God meant her to be. To burn with love of Jesus. To set the world on fire with the sparks of her own burning heart.
In January 1380, at age 33, Catherine began declining into her final illness, exacerbated by a lifetime of extreme fasting. She suffered a stroke and died a week later on April 29. Her feast is also April 29.
St Catherine of Siena, pray for us.
Pilgrimage and still-grimage with St Catherine of Siena
Catherine died in Rome, and you can visit her tomb inside the Basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. We prayed at her tomb during our family pilgrimage.
In Siena, you can visit more of Catherine's relics at the Basilica of Santa Cateriniana di San Domenico. Her childhood home, which still exists, has been made into the Shrine of the House of Saint Catherine.
In the United States, the Cathedral of St Catherine of Siena in Allentown, Pennsylvania, is a designated Jubilee pilgrimage site.
Read Catherine's works:
Title image: St Catherine of Siena, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, c 1746 (in public domain).
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