St. Catherine of Siena, pray for us!

  • Thread starter Thread starter coralewisjr
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
C

coralewisjr

Guest
St. Catherine of Siena died on April 29 so today is her feast day. She is my Confirmation saint. Does anyone else have a devotion to St. Catherine of Siena? What is your favorite factoid about St. Catherine of Siena? (you can look on New Advent if you don’t know anything about her)

my Mother my Confidence,
Corinne
 
Thanks for starting this thread. She is a beautiful saint and inspiration for all of us.

A few days ago, we decided to have a prayer party for Catherine.

Hey Serendipity and DBT… prayers and food have started. DBT - you are correct that you have been assigned chips, being a man and all. Unless you have a specialty item that you like cooking.

I promised spinach artichoke dip…dig in. Now let’s get this prayer service started!

St Catherine, please intercede for us.:amen:
 
You’re welcome. St. Catherine of Siena is a great inspiration to me…she was a virgin all her life!! I read that she was given a wedding ring (married to Jesus) and nobody else saw it until she died. She must have been incredibly humble!
 
Here is a bit about her:

April 29, 2005

St. Catherine of Siena

(1347-1380)

The value Catherine makes central in her short life and which sounds clearly and consistently through her experience is complete surrender to Christ. What is most impressive about her is that she learns to view her surrender to her Lord as a goal to be reached through time.

She was the 23rd child of Jacopo and Lapa Benincasa and grew up as an intelligent, cheerful and intensely religious person. Catherine disappointed her mother by cutting off her hair as a protest against being overly encouraged to improve her appearance in order to attract a husband. Her father ordered her to be left in peace and she was given a room of her own for prayer and meditation.

She entered the Dominican Third Order at 18 and spent the next three years in seclusion, prayer and austerity. Gradually a group of followers gathered around her—men and women, priests and religious. An active public apostolate grew out of her contemplative life. Her letters, mostly for spiritual instruction and encouragement of her followers, began to take more and more note of public affairs. Opposition and slander resulted from her mixing fearlessly with the world and speaking with the candor and authority of one completely committed to Christ. She was cleared of all charges at the Dominican General Chapter of 1374.

Her public influence reached great heights because of her evident holiness, her membership in the Dominican Third Order, and the deep impression she made on the pope. She worked tirelessly for the crusade against the Turks and for peace between Florence and the pope In 1378, the Great Schism began, splitting the allegiance of Christendom between two, then three, popes and putting even saints on opposing sides. Catherine spent the last two years of her life in Rome, in prayer and pleading on behalf of the cause of Urban VI and the unity of the Church. She offered herself as a victim for the Church in its agony. She died surrounded by her “children.”

Catherine ranks high among the mystics and spiritual writers of the Church. In 1970 Paul VI named her and Teresa of Avila as doctors of the Church. In recent years, it has been suggested that she (among other possibilities) should be named patron of the Internet. Her spiritual testament is found in The Dialogue.

http://community.webtv.net/Tortorella/Trinitarian
 
40.png
jrabs:
Hey Serendipity and DBT… prayers and food have started. DBT - you are correct that you have been assigned chips, being a man and all. Unless you have a specialty item that you like cooking.
Click to expand...
Well, BBQ’ing and Sunday morning breakfasts for the family is the extent of my cooking abilities . . . so I guess my contribution will be limited to what I can pick up at the grocery store on the way to the prayer service 🙂 No wait, I am pretty good with the dishes so maybe I can help there.

One of my greatest pleasures is reading the writings of the mystics and St. Catherine certainly ranks at the top of my list. She was one of those very, very rare people who was given the ability to “see” AND, at the same time, the ability to “communicate” what she saw to others.

That, at least to me, is what differentiates a mystic from a contemplative . . . the ability to communicate what just can’t be communicated. And I find it fascinating that all the great mystics speak essentially the same language . . . the language of a very deep and abiding Love. Wouldn’t it be great to sit down with a St. Catherine, St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Avila, Bl. Elizabeth of the Trinity or any other of the mystics and ask them to tell us more about what they “see?”

It is through people like St. Catherine that we are given small glimpes of what heaven is like . . .
 
I found my kids school by seeing a note posted on the bulletin board of St. Catherine of Sienna parish when I had stopped by (on a whim) for daily Mass. I had not been praying specifically to her, though I had been praying to discern how to proceed with my kids education. She was definately looking out for me and mine. 👍
 
Thank you, jrabs. Thanks, LoneRanger, for the beautiful prayer card picture!
I recommend the book “Saint Catherine of Siena” by F.A. Forbes, published by TAN (a great Catholic press).

my Mother my Confidence,
Corinne
 
Since St. Catherine of Siena remained a virgin all her life, I would sometimes ask her for help (as in “St. Catherine of Siena, pray for us”) when I dated my ex-boyfriend and faced sexual temptations. I recommend this to others who are fighting sexual temptations, along with St. Maria Goretti and St. Maximilian Kolbe.

my Mother my Confidence,
Corinne
 
I tried posting before…but the site went down. Sorry to write so much, but I have a great devotion to Catherine of Siena.

I read Catherine of Siena’s The Dialogues this past summer and it inspired me more than any other book I have read, excpeting the Bible. Prior to her Teresa of Avila was the biggest inspiration for me, but Catherine’s work semed to ecompass advice for any situation in life.

I foudn the msot insight from her writings about love. She writes how God loved us before we knew him, and loves us still even if we refuse him and offend him. She follows that the closest we can come to repaying his love is to loves every one, especially those we do not know and those who offend us. That to love only God is not adequate, because he always loves us. That we must try our best to follow Jesus’ example and love all through our actiosn and prayers, whether we know them or not, whether they are nice to us or not.

She writes to a degree that sin exists and causes so much heart ache in the world, because people do not follow Jesus’ commandment to love as he loves. When I think of mistakes I have done in my life, and decisions I regret, usually these decisions were made when I felt a severe lack of love in my life and encmpassed by despair. Yes, God loves us all the time, but some times it is easier to realize this than others. I sincerely believe that if I had people showing God’s love to me during times of difficutly, that I would have made better decisions, and offended God much less. Reading Catherine of Siena’s writings made me burn not only more with a love for God that made me want to reach out to others, to ease their sufferings more (if possible, some tiems there is not much we can do but listen) not only for their sake, but also to help steer them on courses make them less vulnerable to temptations that offend God.

St. Catherine of Siena, pray for us!
 
40.png
coralewisjr:
Since St. Catherine of Siena remained a virgin all her life, I would sometimes ask her for help (as in “St. Catherine of Siena, pray for us”) when I dated my ex-boyfriend and faced sexual temptations. I recommend this to others who are fighting sexual temptations, along with St. Maria Goretti and St. Maximilian Kolbe.

my Mother my Confidence,
Corinne
Click to expand...
Thanks for that. I did not know that. I will ask her, along with these other Saints for intercession with my constant battle for purity and chastity.

The temptations that go along with dating are difficult and I struggle. Thanks for the added idea for heavenly help.
 
St. Catherine of Siena is my patron Saint!
She is also one of the reasons I joined the Third Order Dominicans.

I am in awe of her ability to teach others and be “in the world” yet still detach herself from it to be closer to Christ. That is such a tremendous lesson for our day and age. I find that materialism is such a burden and temptation. I meditate on her life and it encourages me.

The one thing I still find strange is that her head is seperated from her body and is available to view in Siena, Italy (along with her finger). I know this is more of a catholic culture thing, but it still seems so unnatrual. But hey, who am I to judge the traditions of the Church-it is what makes her beautiful!

Veritas!
Lynn

amomfortruth.blogspot.com/
 
Hey! Thanks for reminding me! It’s my birthday and I almost forgot to say a special prayer to brave St Catherine. What a spiritual jewel she is. May we all have her courage, humilty, and love with integrity.
Pax vobiscum,
 
serendipity, thank you for teaching me so much about St. Catherine of Siena!!

jrabs, I also recommend asking St. Maximilian Kolbe and St. Maria Goretti for help. Mary gave St. Max… two crowns: martyrdom and virginity. St. Maria Goretti died after being stabbed by her would-be rapist (who later repented and came to God). I know from experience that chastity is a hard virtue to live, but it is well worth it so keep soldiering on.

my Mother my Confidence,
Corinne
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top