Catherine of Siena
Two monumental things happened in Italy in the year 1347. First, in the port of Messina, a ship docked – likely from somewhere in the Middle East. A black rat slipped off that ship, unnoticed. On the back of that rat was a single flea, carrying a disease Epidemiologists today call Yersinia Pestis – in that day they simply called it the Black Plague. The Plague swept through the Western world in successive waves, ultimately killing more than one-third of the population between Iceland and India.
Second, a child named Catherine was born in Siena – the twenty-third of twenty-five children in a wool-dyers family. She had committed herself to a life of fasting and prayer by age seven, having claimed to receive a vision of Christ at that early age. She was intrigued by the great scholars and early church fathers of the Christian faith and studied them devoutly. At age sixteen, she was pressured by her parents to marry – but hoping to enter the Lord’s service, she cut her hair very short to ward off potential suitors.
As a teen, she joined a Dominican organization which allowed for her to live at home, while serving the Lord and adhering to the disciplines of the Order. She spent three years wrestling with God, her own flesh, and God’s call on her life. At the end of those three years, she was awakened to the needs of the world outside – a world mired in worry over the recurring Plague, corruption and uncertainty within the Church, and general malaise and despair. She and a number of her followers devoted themselves to the ministry amidst the Plague. While others would flee, they would stay and tend the sick – at great risk to themselves. She wrote of having to learn to deal with the nausea from the stench of hospitals overcrowded with the dead and dying, and forcing herself to stay in that environment until the Holy Spirit had conquered what she considered the ‘rebellion of her flesh’ in her nausea. Hers was an exemplary life of selfless and untiring service. One author wrote that Catherine was unconcerned about making a mark as a “woman in ministry” and was more concerned with Jesus’ call for her to be a “woman who ministers.”
Catherine’s intelligence and grasp of the world situation is remarkable for any person of her day – as was her moral courage. At the time, due to fears from the Plague and political machinations, the Pope had moved the Papacy from Rome to Avignon, France. The French political and moral influence had very negative impacts on the church and had even mired the Papacy itself in immorality and corruption. Catherine began an extensive letter-writing campaign calling sinners to repentance, calling for the reform of the Church, and calling for Pope Gregory XI to return to Rome. She wrote to the Pope personally:
“Be manly and not fearful. Answer God who is calling you…Restore to the Holy Church the heart of burning charity which she has lost: she is all pale because iniquitous men have drained her blood. Come, Father!”
Within a year of her writing the letter, Gregory returned the Papacy to Rome. Over 400 of Catherine’s letters and other writings exist today. She asks hard questions others would not ask, and often answers them herself. Hers was a huge voice, calling the church to reform – while at the same time fostering reconciliation and calling Christians to service. Using skills of natural diplomacy, she acted as a mediator between the Italian city-states, and even helped raise an army for one of the Crusades.
At the heart of Catherine’s teachings was a vision of Jesus, bleeding on the Cross. It wasn’t nails or the cross that held him there, it was love. She taught that from the cross, you could see the heart of God, his unqualified and unspeakable love for all mankind.
Catherine died in Rome at the young age of 33, having exhausted herself in ministry. Roman Catholicism has given her the title “Doctor of the Church” – an honor given to only 36 people in history. She shares that honor with people like Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. More than that, though, she leaves behind the incredible example of a courageous person completely devoted to her Lord in the midst of a chaotic, complicated, and distressed world.
Packer, J.I., 131 Christians Everyone Should Know, Broadman
and Holman Publishing, 2000.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Catherine-of-Siena
No comments:
Post a Comment