Saint Catherine of Siena

Catherine Benincasa was born in Siena, Tuscany, on March 25, 1347, the twenty-fourth child of a dyer's family.

At seven she had her first vision of Christ; she refused marriage and entered as a Dominican tertiary, devoting herself to prayer and service to the poor.

An ardent mystic, she wrote the Dialogue of Divine Providence and corresponded with popes, cardinals, and rulers, calling for Church reform and the papacy's return to Rome.

She intervened in the Great Western Schism crisis and persuaded Gregory XI to return from Avignon to Rome in 1377.

She received invisible stigmata and died on April 29, 1380, at only thirty-three, after an intense life of penance and service.

Canonized in 1461, she was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1970 by Paul VI. Her liturgical feast is April 29.