150 YEARS OF THE NAZARETH SISTERS

In the footsteps of Blessed Frances Siedliska in Rome (19)

Sr. M. Beata Rudzińska, CSFN

St. Catherine of Siena

Recently, we have been reading more and more in the media about the appointment of another woman to a high position in the Roman Curia, previously reserved for clerics… It would seem that women have a little more say in the Church today than they used to. However, I do not know if there has been a woman in the history of Christianity who has had more influence than St. Catherine. And we are talking about the 14th century.

Catherine Benincasa, endowed from childhood with extraordinary spiritual gifts, Dominican tertian, mystic, stigmatist, mediator between laity and clergy, author of theological works, learned to write only as an adult. After her mystical nuptials with Christ, from whom she received a permanent sign in the form of a wedding ring, she became a messenger of her Spouse. She began to speak and write letters to the most prominent people in Europe. She was not short of enemies, by whom she faced the Inquisition tribunal in Florence. Cleared of charges, she undertook the great work of uniting the divided Church and mediating the return of the Pope from Avignon to Rome. When she failed to do so by letter, she went in person to Avignon. The return of Gregory XI is attributed to her efforts. The next pope, Urban VI, asked her personally to come to Rome to help him in his ministry to the Church, which at one point was still being attempted to be ruled by two rebellious antipopes.

In the last months of her life, she took up residence near the Basilica of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, in a building that served the Dominican Tertiaries for two centuries. St. Catherine went to St. Peter’s Basilica every day to support the Pope with a day of prayer and suffering. In 1962, a statue was unveiled at the Castle of the Angel showing scenes from her life and herself heading to the Basilica – already suffering greatly and being concerned about the divided Church. She died of exhaustion on April 29, 1380, in her 33rd year of life.

The room where she passed away was converted into a chapel (Cappella del Transito – Chapel of the Transition), which can still be visited, although the house now serves as a congress center (Palazzo St. Chiara). She was first buried in the cemetery at the Basilica of Sopra Minerva. As early as 1383, Blessed Rajmund of Capua, then general of the Dominicans, her confessor and spiritual disciple, moved her body to the Basilica of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva in Rome and built a magnificent tomb for her. To him we also owe the voluminous “Life of Saint Catherine of Siena.” Canonized in 1461, she is the first woman to be declared a Doctor of the Church. As a reward for her hardships incurred in defending the Church, Pius IX declared St. Catherine co-patroness of Rome in 1866. Subsequent popes have declared her the patron saint of Italy and Europe.

Her relics rest today in the central place of the Basilica, under the main altar. The tomb, carved in white marble and often covered with cards asking for intercession, depicts Catherine on her deathbed.

On the day of her liturgical feast, April 29, Frances Siedliska was most often in retreat. She celebrated them at the end of April to prepare for the anniversary of her First Holy Communion, which she received on May 1, 1855, and later also her perpetual vows, which she professed into the hands of Father Anthony Lechert on May 1, 1884 (the earlier vows of the Foundress and the first Nazareth Sisters were private). St. Catherine was a beautiful model for her of a notable feature of Nazareth spirituality – “love for the Church and the Holy Father.”

Pictures:
Monument to St. Catherine at the Castle of the Angel – Public Domain
Cappella del Transito – the place of St. Catherine’s death – https://www.palazzosantachiara.it
The tomb at the Basilica of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva – CSFN