1859 Life of Saint Catherine of Sienna , Medieval Italian Mystic Catholic

Description: Life of Saint Catherine of Sienna By The Blessed Raymond of Capua, Her Confessor With an AppendixContaining the Testimonies of her Disciples,Recollections in Italy, and her IconographyByE. Cartier Translated from the French by the Ladies of the Sacred Heart With the Approbation ofThe Right Reverend Bishop of Philadelphia Published by Peter F. Cunningham , Catholic BooksellerPhiladelphia1859The title-page is undated; the only copyright date stated is 1859. Around 165 years old. Hardcover.Decorated cloth binding.Beveled boards.Color-coated endpapers.5" x 7.5"432 pages. Scarce mid-1800s printing of the Life of Saint Catherine of Sienna.( see biographical information below ) ------ Condition.Some light binding wear.The hinges are tight.Somewhat shaken.No writing.No markings.The pages are in good condition. Carefully packed for shipment to the buyer. ------ Biographical information : Caterina di Jacopo di Benincasa, TOSD (1347-1380), known as Catherine of Siena ( in Italian : Caterina da Siena ), was an Italian Catholic mystic and pious laywoman who engaged in papal and Italian politics through extensive letter-writing and advocacy. Canonized in 1461, she is revered as a saint and as a Doctor of the Church due to her extensive theological authorship. She is also considered to have influenced Italian literature. Born on March 25, 1347 and raised in Siena, Italy, Catherine wanted from an early age to devote herself to God, which was against the will of her parents. Catherine is said by her confessor and biographer, Raymond of Capua, to have had her first vision of Jesus Christ when she was five or six years old: she and a brother were on the way home from visiting a married sister when she 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. In her teen years, Catherine resisted the standard 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 parents gave up and permitted her to live as she pleased and stay unmarried. A vision of Dominic de Guzmán gave strength to Catherine. She joined the "mantellates", a group of pious women, primarily widows, informally devoted to Dominican spirituality; later these types of urban pious groups would be formalized as the Third Order of the Dominicans, but not until after Catherine's death.The Mantellate taught Catherine how to read, and she lived in almost total silence and solitude in the family home.She ate little and undertook lengthy fasts, which had an impact on her physical health.After an incident while tending to a woman with cancer, she said was visited by Jesus who invited her to drink the blood gushing out of his pierced side. It was after this visitation that she said her stomach "no longer had need of food and no longer could digest." According to Raymond of Capua, at the age of twenty-one (circa A.D. 1368), Catherine experienced what she described in her letters as a " Mystical Marriage " with Jesus, which was later a popular subject in art as the " Mystic marriage of Saint Catherine ." Raymond of Capua also records that Catherine 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 Siena attracted a group of followers, women and men, who gathered around her. Between the years 1367 and 1374, Catherine devoted herself to helping the sick and incarcerated of Siena.With her help in the Hospital of Santa Maria della Scala and within the neighborhood that she was living, Catherine's acts of charity became well-known. This led to her being known as santa donna, or a holy woman.This reputation of holiness eventually led to her involvement in politics and a hearing with the pope. She made her first journey to Florence in 1374, probably to be interviewed by the Dominican authorities at the General Chapter held in Florence in May 1374. It seems that at this time she acquired Raymond of Capua as her confessor and spiritual director. After this visit, she began travelling with her followers throughout northern and central Italy advocating reform of the clergy and advising people that repentance and renewal could be done through "the total love for God."She also lent her enthusiasm toward promoting the launch of a new crusade in the Holy Land.During a time in Pisa, according to Raymond of Capua's biography, Catherine received the stigmata. Her physical travels were not the only way in which Catherine made her views known. From 1375 onward, 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 Italy and for the return of the Papacy from Avignon to Rome. She carried on a long correspondence with Pope Gregory XI, asking him to reform the clergy and the administration of the Papal States.She dictated to secretaries her set of spiritual treatises, The Dialogue of Divine Providence. In June 1376 Catherine went to Avignon as ambassador of the Republic of Florence in an attempt to make peace with the Papal States, though she was unsuccessful. Catherine's influence with Pope Gregory XI played a role in his 1376 decision to leave Avignon for Rome. After Gregory XI's death (March 1378) and the conclusion of peace (July 1378), she returned to Siena. She founded a women's monastery of strict observance outside the city in the old fortress of Belcaro.She sent numerous letters to princes and cardinals to promote obedience to Pope Urban VI and to defend what she calls the "vessel of the Church". For many years she had accustomed herself to a rigorous abstinence, and received the Holy Eucharist almost daily. This extreme fasting appeared unhealthy in the eyes of the clergy and her own sisterhood. Her confessor, Raymond, ordered her to eat properly. From the beginning of 1380, Catherine could neither eat nor swallow water. On February 26, she lost the use of her legs.She was said to have levitated while in prayer, and a priest claimed to have seen the Holy Communion's Eucharist wafer flying from his hand straight to Catherine's tongue. Exhausted by her rigorous fasting, Catherine died in Rome on April 29, 1380, at the age of thirty-three. Her last words were "Father, into Your Hands I commend my soul and my spirit."Pope Urban VI celebrated her funeral and burial in the Basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome. Her major treatise is "The Dialogue of Divine Providence ," which is thought to have been begun in October 1377 and finished by November 1378. Contemporaries of Catherine are united in asserting that much of the book was dictated while Catherine was in ecstasy ; this text is described as a dialogue between God and a soul. Catherine's letters are considered one of the great works of early Tuscan literature.In her letters to the Pope, she often addressed him affectionately simply as Babbo ('Daddy'), instead of the formal form of address "Your Holiness".Other correspondents include her various confessors, among them Raymond of Capua, the kings of France and Hungary, the infamous mercenary John Hawkwood, the Queen of Naples, members of the Visconti family of Milan, and numerous religious figures. 26 prayers of Catherine of Siena also survive, mostly composed in the last 18 months of her life. Catherine's theology can be described as mystical ; she used the language of medieval scholastic philosophy to elaborate her experiential mysticism. She was interested mainly with achieving an incorporeal union with God, and practiced extreme fasting and asceticism, eventually to the extent of living solely on the Eucharist every day.She viewed Christ as a "bridge" between the soul and God and transmitted that idea, along with her other teachings, in her book The Dialogue. Devotion around Catherine of Siena developed rapidly after her death. Catherine was initially buried in the ( Roman ) cemetery of Santa Maria sopra Minerva which lies near the Pantheon.After miracles were reported to take place at her grave , Raymond moved her inside Santa Maria sopra Minerva, where she lies to this day. Pope Pius II canonized her in 1461; she was declared a patron saint of Rome in 1866 by Pope Pius IX, and of Italy (together with Francis of Assisi ) in 1939 by Pope Pius XII.She was the second woman to be declared a Doctor of the Church, on October 4, 1970 by Pope Paul VI – only days after Teresa of Avila. In 1999 Pope John Paul II proclaimed her a Patron Saint of Europe. Catherine's feast day was included in the General Roman Calendar in 1597, on the day of her death, April 29th, however, because this conflicted with the feast of Saint Peter of Verona, which also fell on April 29, Catherine's feast day was moved in 1628 to the new date of 30 April.[68] In the 1969 Catherine's feast was restored to April 29th. Catherine is remembered in the Church of England and in the Episcopal Church on 29 April.The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) also commemorates Catherine of Siena on April 29. Catherine ranks high among the mystics and spiritual writers of the Catholic Church.She remains a greatly respected figure for her spiritual writings, and political boldness to "speak truth to power", especially at a time in history when women were expected to keep silent in such matters. In his decree of April 13, 1866, Pope Pius IX declared Catherine of Siena to be a co-patroness of Rome. On June 18, 1939 Pope Pius XII named her a joint patron saint of Italy along with Francis of Assisi. On October 1, 1999, Pope John Paul II made her one of Europe's patron saints, along with Teresa Benedicta of the Cross and Bridget of Sweden.She is also the patroness of the historically Catholic American woman's fraternity, Theta Phi Alpha. The main churches in honor of Catherine of Siena are:Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome, where her body is preserved.Basilica of San Domenico in Siena, where her incorrupt head is preserved.Shrine of Saint Catherine in Siena, a complex of religious buildings built around her birthplace.

Price: 45 USD

Location: Coventry, Rhode Island

End Time: 2024-11-15T16:10:45.000Z

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