CATHERINE
448
CATHERINE
Church, serving the destitute and afflicted, and dis-
patching eloquent letters in behalf of Urban to high
and low in all directions. Her strength was rapidly
being consumed; she besought her Divine Bride-
groom to let her bear the punishment for all the sins
of the world, and to receive the sacrifice of her body
for the unity and renovation of the Church; at last it
seemed to her that the Bark of Peter was laid upon
her shoulders, and that it was crushing her to death
with its weight. After a prolonged and mysterious
agony of three months, endured by her with supreme
exultation and delight, from Sexagesima Sunday
until the Sunday before the Ascension, she died. Her
last political work, accomplished practically from her
death-bed, was the reconciliation of Pope Urban VI
with the Roman Republic (1380).
Among Catherine's principal followers were Fra Raimondo delle Vigne, of Capua (d. 1399), her con- fessor and biographer, afterwards General of the Dominicans, and Stefano di Corrado Maconi (d. 1424), who had been one of her secretaries, and be- came Prior General of the Carthusians. Raimondo's book, the " Legend ", was finished in 1395. A second life of her, the "Supplement", was written a few years later by another of her associates, Fra Tom- maso Caffarini (d. 1434), who also composed the "Minor Legend", which was translated into Italian by Stefano Maconi. Between 1411 and 1413 the depositions of the surviving witnesses of her life and work were collected at Venice, to form the famous "Process". Catherine was canonized by Pius II in 1461. The emblems by which she is known in Chris- tian art are the lily and book, the crown of thorns, or sometimes a heart — referring to the legend of her having changed hearts with Christ. Her principal feast is on the 30th of April, but it is popularly cele- brated in Siena on the Sunday following. The feast of her Espousals is kept on the Thursday of the carnival.
The works of St. Catherine of Siena rank among the classics of the Italian language, written in the beau- tiful Tuscan vernacular of the fourteenth century. Notwithstandingtheexistenceof many excellent man- uscripts, the printed editions present the text in a fre- quently mutilated and most unsatisfactory condition. Her writings consist of (1) the " Dialogue", or "Trea- tise on Divine Providence"; (2) a collection of nearly four hundred letters; and (3) a series of "Prayers". The "Dialogue" especially, which treats of the whole spiritual life of man in the form of a series of collo- quies between the Eternal Father and the human soul (represented by Catherine herself), is the mystical counterpart in prose of Dante's " Divina Commedia". A smaller work in the dialogue form, the "Treatise on Consummate Perfection", is also ascribed to her, but is probably spurious. It is impossible in a few words to give an adequate conception of the mani- fold character and contents of the "Letters", which are the most complete expression of Catherine's many-sided personality. While those addressed to popes and sovereigns, rulers of republics and leaders of armies, are documents of priceless value to stu- dents of history, many of those written to private citi- zens, men and women in the cloister or in the world, are as fresh and illuminating, as wise and practical in their advice and guidance for the devout Catholic to- day as they were for those who sought her counsel while she lived. Others, again, lead the reader to mystical heights of contemplation, a rarefied atmos- phere of sanctity in which only the few privileged spirits can hope to dwell. The key-note to Cath- erine's teaching is that man, whether in the cloister or in the world, must ever abide in the cell of self- knowledge, which is the stable in which the traveller through time to eternity must be born again.
Processus contestationum super sanctitate et doctrina beatxe
rus </- Senis, in Martene and Durand, Veterum
Scriptorum el Monwmentorum Impliaaima CoUectio (Paris,
1729), \ I; l -i'ii. Uopen delia aerafica Santa Caterina da Siena
(Siena and Lucca, 1707-54); Tommaseo, Le Lettere di S.
Caterina da Siena (Florence, I860); Grottanelli, Leggenda
minore di S. Caterina da Siena e lettere dei suoi THacepoti
(Bologna, 1868); Capecelatro, Storia di S. Caterina da Siena
e del papato del suo tempo (4th ed„ Siena. 1S78); Draxe, The
HuJoni of .S7. Catherine of Siena and her Companions (London,
1SS7); Thorolb, The Dialogue of St Catherine I London. 1S98);
Scudder, .S'(. Catherine as seen in her Letters (London and
New York, 1905 1; Gardner, St. Catherine of Siena (London
and New York, 1907). Italian translations of the Legend and
the Supplement are included in the first and fifth volumes of
Gigli's Edition; important portions of the Process are still left
unpublished in MSS. in the Biblioteca Comunale of Siena and
the Biblioteca Casanatense at Rome.
Edmund G. Gardner.
Catherine of Sweden, Saint, the fourth child of St. Bridget (q. v.) and her husband, Ulf Gudmarsson, b. 1331 or 1332; d. 24 March, 1381. At the time of her death St. Catherine was head of the convent of Wadstena, founded by her mother; hence the name, Catherine Vastanensis, by which she is occasionally called. At the age of seven she was sent to the ab- bess of the convent of Riseberg to be educated and soon showed, like her mother, a desire for a life of self-mortification and devotion to spiritual things. At the command of her father, when about thirteen or fourteen years old, she married a noble of German descent, Eggart von Kiirnen. She at once persuaded her husband, who was a very religious man, to join her in a vow of chastity. Both lived in a state of virginity and devoted themselves to the exercise of Christian perfection and active charity. In spite of her deep love for her husband, Catherine accompanied her mother to Rome, where St. Bridget went in 1349. Soon after her arrival in that city Catherine received news of the death of her husband in Sweden. She now lived constantly with her mother, took an active part in St. Bridget 's fruitful labours, and zealously imitated her mother's ascetic life. Although the dis- tinguished and beautiful young widow was sur- rounded by suitors, she steadily refused all offers of marriage. In 1372 St. Catherine and her brother, Birger, accompanied their mother on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land; after their return to Rome St. Cath- erine was with her mother in the latter's last illness and death.
In 1374, in obedience to St. Bridget's wish, Catherine brought back her mother's body to Sweden for burial at Wadstena, of which foundation she now became the head. It was the mother-house of the Brigittine Order, also called the Order of St. Saviour. Catherine managed the convent with great skill and made the life there one in harmony with the principles laid down by its founder. The following year she went again to Rome in order to promote the canonization of St. Bridget, and to obtain a new papal confirma- tion of the order. She secured another confirmation both from Gregory XI (1377) and from Urban VI (1379), but was unable to gain at the time the canon- ization of her mother, as the confusion caused by the Schism delayed the process. When this sorrowful division appeared she showed herself, like St. Cathe- rine of Siena, a steadfast adherent of the party of the Roman Pope, Urban VI, in whose favour she testified before a judicial commission. Catherine stayed five years in Italy and then returned home, bearing a spe- cial letter of commendation from the pope. Not long after her arrival in Sweden she was taken ill and died. In 1484 Innocent VIII gave permission for her ven- eration as a saint and her feast was assigned to 22 March in the Roman martyrology. Catherine wrote a devotional work entitled "Consolation of the Soul" (Sielinna Troest), largely composed of citations from the Scriptures and from early religious books; no copy is known to exist. Generally she is represented with a hind at her side, which is said to have come to her aid when unchaste youths sought to ensnare her.
Vila S. Catharince Surer,, 'r, auct. Ulphont monaehio [d. 1433] in camobia Wadatenensi: in Sikhs. /)<■ prcbatia Sanctor. his- toriis (Cologne. 1571), 11,346 sqq.: in Acta SS., March, III, 503
