St. Catherine of Sienna Feast Day/ "Be a Manly Man"

April 29 is the Feast day of St. Catherine of Sienna (1347-1380), whom I wrote about last year here.  Although St. Catherine only lived to be 33, she accomplished a great deal in her short life, counseling two popes (Gregory and Urgan VI), restoring the papacy back to Rome from Avignon, fighting the corruption of the papal court, rebuking clergy for breaking their vows of poverty and living in luxury, negotiating to prevent bloodshed between Italian towns, caring for victims of leprosy and the Black Plague, and writing great theological works.  She performed miracles of healing, she expelled demons, she could smell mortal sin in people. Catherine of Sienna was cannonized 80 years after her death and was made a Doctor of the Church by Pope John Paul VI in 1970.  That's living large!

Painting at left: God the Father with Sts. Catherine of Sienna and Mary Magdalene, Fra Bartolommeo, 1509.  Click to enlarge, Catherine is on the right.  

I came across a quotation from St. Catherine that I found timely.  It's can be found in From the Housetops, a quarterly publication published by the Saint Benedict Center in Still River, MA.  You can get a free issue here, or buy the back issue (no. 65) about St. Catherine here ($2).  In a letter to the weak and vacillating Pope Gregory in Avignon, Catherine exhorted him to:

"be a manly man...wanting to live in peace is often the greatest cruelty.  When the boil has come to a head it must be cut with the lance and burned with fire and if that is not done, and only a plaster is put on it the corruption will spread and that is often worse than death. I wish to see you as a manly man so that you may serve the Bride of Christ (the church and its people) without fear, and work spiritually and temporally for the glory of God according to the needs of that sweet Bride in our times."

That's a message our modern day pacifists may want to ponder: wanting to live in peace is often the greatest cruelty. 

Comments

[Andrea Harris]

Wanting to "live in peace" often translates to "Leave me alone! Don't bother me!"

[Siena]

Very nice website, my compliments