Our Patron Saint :

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Catherine Benincasa Saint Catherine of Siena, Doctor of the Church Feast Day: April 29 Dominican Tertiary, born at Siena, 25 March, 1347; died at Rome, 29 April, 1380. Symbols: stigmata, cross, ring, lily Patron: of Fire Prevention and firefighters, nurses, and nursing services, illness, miscarriages, sick people, sexual temptation, and other temptations

Do you know about your guardian angel? Saint Catherine of Siena knew all about guardian angels, even when she was a little girl. Beginning when she was only about six years old, Catherine loved to go out to quiet places to pray and talk to God. She began to have mystical experiences when she could see guardian angels as clearly as she could see the people they were protecting.

There were great disagreements in the church at this time. The Pope had left Rome and moved to a city in France called Avignon. Saint Catherine knew that God was unhappy about the way people were arguing, so she wrote to the Pope and after awhile was able to convince him to move back to Rome. Saint Catherine wrote many letters and a book that is still read and admired today. Because of all the help she was able to give to the Church, and the great wisdom of her writing, she was named a 'Doctor of the Church.'

As she grew up, Catherine continued to love quiet prayer. She became a Third Order Dominican when she was sixteen, and kept on having visions of Christ, Mary and the saints. For three years, she only spoke to God and to her confessor. Then, one night, she had a vision of herself as a bride of Christ, and saw the Infant Jesus giving her a wedding ring. She began to tend the sick, to serve the poor and work for the conversion of sinners.

Saint Catherine was always very close to Jesus and God. She had visions, and special trials sent to her all through her life. Towards the end of her life, she was given 'the Stigmata'- the marks of Christ's crucifixion - though, at her prayerful request, they remained invisible until her death. About fifty years after she died, her body was found to be incorrupt.

Her own life confirms her teaching. Saint Catherine was an uneducated woman of the fourteenth century, child of a extremely large and only moderately prosperous family. Yet, as God's bride, she was able to influence great men, change the course of politics, and affect the entire world.

Prayer:
Eternal Trinity, Godhead, mystery deep as the sea, you could give me no greater gift than the gift of yourself.
For you are a fire ever burning and never consumed, which itself consumes all the selfish love that fills my being.
Yes, you are a fire that takes away the coldness, illuminates the mind with its light, and causes me to know your truth. And I know that you are beauty and wisdom itself. The food of angels, you gave yourself to man in the fire of your love.

from On Divine Providence by Saint Catherine of Siena.

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