Feast 29 April
Doctor of the Church. Tertiary who told a pope to go home to Rome.
Sacred art
The portrait kept with St. Catherine of Siena is the image this library has of Catherine. The honour goes to the person, and through the person to God. It is not a machine, and it is not a substitute for the life written below.
Died 1380 at thirty-three. The Dialogue. Patroness of Italy and of Europe. Her head is in Siena, her body in Rome — a geography of influence.
If it belongs to Catherine, it is here, with a door back into the story.
Siena and RomeStigmata 1375; died 1380
A Dominican tertiary, mystic, and Doctor of the Church who received invisible stigmata, lived on the Eucharist for long periods, and told a pope to go home to Rome — and was obeyed.
Corpus Domini, BolognaDied 1463; enthroned 1500s
Poor Clare, painter, mystic, writer of the Seven Spiritual Weapons. Her body, found flexible and intact, has sat upright in a golden chair for five centuries. You meet her face to face.
Montevergine, MessinaDied 1485
A Poor Clare of Messina, of great austerity, whose body remains seated in the choir of her monastery — another of the sitting saints of the Italian south, intact, vested, at her place.
Rue du Bac, ParisDied 1660
Co-founder of the Daughters of Charity with Vincent. Her body, found well preserved, lies in the chapel of Rue du Bac, across from Catherine Labouré and the chair of the apparitions.
San Cristóbal de La Laguna, TenerifeDied 1731; still shown in La Laguna
A Dominican sister of the Canary Islands, famous for levitation, bilocation, and prophecy. Her body remains intact in the convent of Santa Catalina, one of the best-preserved in Spain, exposed every 15 February.
Rue du Bac, Paris1830
St. Catherine Labouré, a novice of the Daughters of Charity, is shown a medal: Mary crushing the serpent, rays from her hands, a ring of prayer. Struck in 1832, it becomes the most widespread Marian sacramental in the world.
Rue du Bac, ParisDied 1876; found intact 1933
The seer of the Miraculous Medal dies unknown. At her beatification exhumation the body is intact, the eyes still blue. She lies under the altar in the chapel where Mary came.
