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This medal has been cast in bronze to commemorate Saint Catherine of Siena, a scholastic philosopher and theologian, 1347 - 1380.
This medal has been designed by the outstanding German sculptor, Egino WEINERT.
Saint Catherine of Siena, T.O.S.D. (25 March 1347 in Siena – 29 April
1380 in Rome), was a tertiary of the Dominican Order and a Scholastic philosopher and theologian. She also
worked to bring the papacy of Gregory XI back to Rome from its displacement in France and to
establish peace among the Italian city-states. Since 18 June 1866, she is one
of the two patron saints of Italy, together with St.
Francis of Assisi. On 3 October
1970, she was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by Pope Paul VI, and, on 1 October
1999, Pope John
Paul II named her as one of the six patron
saints of Europe, together
with Benedict of Nursia, Saints Cyril and Methodius, Bridget of Sweden and Edith Stein.
av. Saint Catherina of Sienna
size
– 200 x 165 mm (ca 8” x 6½“)
weight
– 1,130 kg
metal – bronze, beautiful artistic patina
Caterina di Giacomo di
Benincasa was born on 25 March 1347 in black death-ravaged Siena,
Catherine
is said by her confessor and biographer Raymond of
Capua O.P.'s Life
to have had her first vision of Christ when she was the age of five or six.
With her brother, she was on the way home from a visit to a married sister and
is said to have experienced a vision of Christ
seated in glory with the Apostles Peter, Paul, and John. Raymond continues that at age seven,
Catherine vowed to give her whole life to God.
Her
older sister Bonaventura died in childbirth. While
tormented with sorrow, sixteen-year-old Catherine was now faced with her
parents' wish that she marry Bonaventura's widower. Absolutely opposed to this,
she started a massive fast, something she had learnt from Bonaventura, whose
husband had not been considerate in the least. Bonaventura had changed his
attitude by refusing to eat until he showed better manners. This had taught
Catherine the power of fasting. She disappointed her mother by cutting off her
long hair as a protest against being overly encouraged to improve her
appearance to attract a husband.
Catherine
would later advise Raymond of Capua to do during times of trouble what she did
now as a teenager: "Build a cell inside your mind, from which you can
never flee." In this inner cell she made her father into a representation
of Christ, her mother Lapa into the Blessed Virgin Mary, and her brothers
into the apostles. Serving them humbly became an
opportunity for spiritual growth. Catherine resisted the accepted course of
marriage and motherhood, on the one hand, or a nun's veil, on
the other. She chose to live an active and prayerful life outside a convent’s
walls following the model of the Dominicans. Eventually her father gave up and
permitted her to live as she pleased.
A
vision of St. Dominic gave
strength to Catherine, but her wish to join his Order was no comfort to Lapa,
who took her daughter with her to the baths in Bagno
Vignoni to improve her health. Catherine fell seriously ill with
a violent rash, fever and pain, which conveniently made her mother accept her
wish to join the "Mantellate", the local association of Dominican tertiaries.[11] Lapa went to the Sisters of the Order and persuaded them
to take in her daughter. Within days, Catherine seemed entirely restored, rose
from bed and donned the black and white habit of the Third Order of St. Dominic. Catherine
received the habit of a Dominican tertiary from the friars of the
Order after vigorous protests from the tertiaries themselves, who up to that
point had been only widows. As a tertiary, she lived outside the convent, at
home with her family like before. The Mantellate taught Catherine how to read,
and she lived in almost total silence and solitude in the family home.
Her
custom of giving away clothing and food without asking anyone's permission cost
her family significantly, but she demanded nothing for herself. By staying in
their midst, she could live out her rejection of them more strongly. She did
not want their food, referring to the table laid for her in Heaven with her
real family.
In
about 1368, age twenty-one, Catherine experienced what she described in her
letters as a "Mystical
Marriage" with Jesus, later a
popular subject in art as the Mystic marriage of Saint Catherine.
"Underlining the extent to which the marriage was a fusion with Christ's
physicality [...] Catherine received, not the ring of gold and jewels that her
biographer reports in his bowdlerized version, but the ring of Christ's foreskin." Raymond
also records that she was told by Christ to leave her withdrawn life and enter
the public life of the world. Catherine rejoined her family and began helping
the ill and the poor, where she took care of them in hospitals or homes. Her
early pious activities in
As
social and political tensions mounted in
After
this visit, she began travelling with her followers throughout northern and
central
Physical
travel was not the only way in which Catherine made her views known. From 1375
onwards, she began dictating letters to scribes. These
letters were intended to reach men and women of her circle, increasingly
widening her audience to include figures in authority as she begged for peace
between the republics and principalities of
Towards
the end of 1375, she returned to
Catherine
returned to
Late
in 1377 or early in 1378 Catherine again travelled to
In
late November 1378, with the outbreak of the Western
Schism, the new Pope, Urban VI, summoned
her to
For
many years she had accustomed herself to a rigorous abstinence. She received
the Holy Communion almost daily. This extreme fasting appeared unhealthy in the
eyes of the clergy and her own sisterhood. Her confessor, Blessed Raymond,
ordered her to eat properly. But Catherine claimed that she was unable to,
describing her inability to eat as an infermità (illness). From the
beginning of 1380, Catherine could neither eat nor swallow water. On February
26 she lost the use of her legs.
St
Catherine died in