by Wyatt North
“Frequently men lose time in longing for time to suit themselves, for they do not employ what they have otherwise than in suffering and gloominess.”
– St. Catherine of Siena
Once Catherine of Siena ventured out into the world on her mission to serve the needy, she started to travel and became more and more politically active. She encouraged Church reform, but she also spoke to the hearts of her followers and listeners, helping them learn to love God without reservation. At a time when the Italian city-states were questioning papal authority, she spoke out to help maintain their loyalty. She wrote letters advocating for peace among the city-states and played a key role in getting the pope to return from Avignon to Rome.
“Proclaim the truth and do not be silent through fear.”
– St. Catherine of Siena
Throughout her life, Catherine of Siena practiced extreme fasting and other mortifications of the flesh as penance to bring herself closer to God. She scourged herself three times a day to atone for her own sins, the sins of the living, and those of souls in purgatory. She cinched an iron chain around her body so tightly that it bit into her flesh. She deprived herself not only of food but also of sleep, allowing herself to rest for only half an hour each night, and toward the end of her life she denied herself any sleep at all.
“There is no sin nor wrong that gives a man such a foretaste of hell in this life as anger and impatience. It is hated by God, it holds its neighbor in aversion, and has neither knowledge nor desire to bear and forbear with its faults. And whatever is said or done to it, it at once empoisons, and its impulses blow about like a leaf in the wind.”
– St. Catherine of Siena
During her lifetime, Catherine was known as a mystic. Witnesses reported seeing her float up the stairs in her home as a young child, without putting a foot on a step, and she is said to have experienced her first vision at age 6. She said that when she looked up to the sky that day, she saw Christ sitting on a heavenly throne flanked by Saints Peter, Paul, and John. He was wearing a bishop’s robes and blessed her with the Sign of the Cross. When she had her vision of her mystical marriage to Christ, she claimed to have been given a wedding ring that was apparently visible only to her. Similarly, she reportedly bore the stigmata, though only she could see them.
“Prayer is a pasturage, a field, wherein all the virtues find their nourishment, growth, and strength.”
– St. Catherine of Siena
In 1377, St. Catherine founded a women’s monastery on the outskirts of Siena. As a writer, her major work was her “Dialogue,” consisting of more than 400 letters. Many of them were dictated to scribes. Her prayers were also highly regarded. It is largely because of her writing that St. Catherine was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1970 by Pope Paul VI. She was only the second woman to receive this honor, St. Theresa of Avila receiving it only a week earlier.
“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.”
– St. Catherine of Siena
Catherine became ill at the beginning of 1380, but she continued to refuse food even when her confessor urged her to eat. Her condition deteriorated rapidly, her decline most likely hastened by her lifelong habit of extreme fasting and sleep deprivation. She soon lost the use of her legs, suffered a stroke in April, and died a week later at the same age as Christ when he went to the Cross. She was canonized in 1461 by Pope Pius II, also from Siena.
“We must meditate before, during, and after everything we do. The prophet says: ‘I will pray, and then I will understand.’ This is the way we can easily overcome the countless difficulties we have to face day after day, which, after all, are part of our work. In meditation we find the strength to bring Christ to birth in ourselves and in others.”
– St. Charles Borromeo
When Charles Borromeo declared his intention at age 12 to serve the Church, he was given an income by his maternal uncle, Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Medici, but Charles insisted that all but the amount needed to fund his education was to be given to the poor. His uncle became Pope Pius IV in 1559, which determined the trajectory of Charles Borromeo’s life. Barely out of his teens at the time, Charles had already earned a doctorate in canon and civil law and had been supporting his family since the death of his father, the Count of Arona. With such proof of Charles’s integrity as the charitable disposal of his income, his uncle brought him to Rome and made him a cardinal-deacon and elevated him to cardinal only a month later.
“If we wish to make any progress in the service of God we must begin every day of our life with new eagerness. We must keep ourselves in the presence of God as much as possible and have no other view or end in all our actions but the divine honor.”
– St. Charles Borromeo
Among Charles’s responsibilities as cardinal were advising his uncle, Pope Pius IV, governing the Papal States, and supervising the Knights of Malta, the Franciscans, and the Carmelites. Still in his early twenties, he became administrator of the Archdiocese of Milan, which prompted him to seek ordination. Even as he prepared for the priesthood, he promoted learning and founded a college at Pavia. Within a span of less than two years, Charles was ordained as a deacon, then as a priest, and three months later as a bishop, becoming Archbishop of Milan in 1564. His rapid rise in the Church might be described today as meteoric.
“Behold Jesus Christ crucified, who is the only foundation of our hope; he is our mediator and advocate; the victim and sacrifice for our sins. He is goodness and patience itself; his mercy is moved by the tears of sinners, and he never refuses pardon and grace to those who ask it with a truly contrite and humbled heart.”
– St. Charles Borromeo
Archbishop Borromeo’s mission in Milan, the largest diocese in the Church in his day, was to root out corruption and stem the tide of the Protestant Reformation that was sweeping across Europe. He firmly believed that the answer lie in reforming the Catholic Church, largely through the education of clergy, many of whom were ill-informed on Church doctrine. In addition to establishing seminaries and religious colleges, Archbishop Borromeo curtailed some of the practices that Protestants found most objectionable, such as selling indulgences. He ordered churches to remove excessive decorative elements, which Protestants viewed as distractions from worship, and simplify their interiors. His zeal in rooting out corruption, however, was not universally appreciated within the Church.
“He who serves God with a pure heart, laying aside all human interests and seeking only the divine honor, may hope to succeed in his affairs even when to others they seem desperate, since the operations of God are beyond the ken of mortal vision, and depend on a loftier than human policy.”
– St. Charles Borromeo
Archbishop Borromeo ignored the complaints of those who opposed his efforts to eliminate corruption in the Church and survived a failed assassination attempt. In fact, opposition only strengthened his resolve. In the last two years of his life, he extended his focus to heresy in Switzerland and travelled there in response to reports of witchcraft. Ever a believer in the power of education to bring about meaningful reform, he established a college for the education of Swiss Catholics. When he became ill in 1584, Archbishop Borromeo returned to Milan, where he died at only 46 years of age. Pope Paul V beatified him in 1602 and canonized him in 1610. St. Charles Borromeo is the patron of bishops, catechists, cardinals, seminarians, and spiritual leaders.
“The prayer of the sick person is his patience and his acceptance of the sickness for the love of Jesus Christ. This has great worth when it is motivated by the imitation of how much Our Lord suffered for us, and by penance for our sins.�
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– St. Charles of Sezze
The young John Charles Marchioni was not a person anyone would have thought would one day be canonized. Born in Sezze, Italy in 1630, he was a shepherd who wanted nothing more than to serve God as a priest. His lack of education prevented him from becoming a priest, but he served as a lay brother for most of his adult life. The positions he held in every monastery he served in were menial, and his life was simple. Despite his lack of formal education, he wrote about his mystical experiences and was highly regarded for his holiness and charity. Though Charles died in Rome, he is known as Charles of Sezze, the place of his birth. He died in 1670 and was canonized by Pope John XXIII in 1959.
“Despise temptations against the faith and remember that you believe what so many saints and doctors have believed.”
– St. Claude de la Colombiere
Claude de la Colombiere was born in 1641 and died 41 years later. Two months after his ordination in 1675, Claude was appointed superior of a small Jesuit residence in Burgundy, France. In that position, he met Margaret Mary Alacoque, who would eventually be canonized herself. She became Claude’s spiritual companion, and he served as her confessor for many years. Claude was known for his preaching skills and for his success in converting Protestants to Catholicism. Throughout his life he preached about and exemplified God’s love for all. He was sent to England to be confessor to the Duchess of York during a period of rising anti-Catholic sentiments. Claude was imprisoned on suspicion of being part of a conspiracy against the king and was in ill health by the time he was banished from England. St. Claude de la Colombiere was canonized in 1992 by Pope John Paul II.
“We should let God be the One to praise us and not praise ourselves. For God detests those who commend themselves. Let others applaud our good deeds.”
– Pope St. Clement I
The life and acts of St. Clement I are largely shrouded in the mists of history. Among the few facts that can be confirmed is his status as a disciple of St. Peter. There is some confusion as to whether Clement was the immediate successor of St. Peter, as some sources place him as the fourth bishop of Rome rather than the second. One likely explanation is that there were initially two lines of succession, one from St. Peter and the other from St. Paul, with the Petrine line governing Jewish converts and the Pauline line the Gentile converts. It’s believed that Clement may have succeeded St. Peter while Linus and Cletus were the next Pauline bishops. With the merger of the two lines, the enumeration of the bishops of Rome would depend on whether the Pauline bishops were counted. The only reliable information about the life and works of St. Clement I comes from one surviving letter he wrote that speaks of a schism in the Church at Corinth. Though some Church historians refer to Pope St. Clement I as a martyr, others do not. There are no reliable accounts of the manner of his death, though it is believed to have occurred around the year 100 A.D.
“This world and the world to come are two enemies. We cannot therefore be friends to both; but we must decide which we will forsake and which we will enjoy.”
– Pope St. Clement I
Though few facts are known about Pope St. Clement I, he has been the subject of much speculation and storytelling over the centuries. Legend has it that there was a popular uprising among the lower classes of Rome against the Christians during Clement’s reign as Bishop of Rome. The prefect of the city quelled the rioting and had Clement arrested and sent to the emperor, Trajan, who sentenced him to labor in the marble quarries. Thus, Clement is known as the patron saint of marble workers.
“Charity unites us to God... There is nothing mean in charity, nothing arrogant. Charity knows no schism, does not rebel, does all things in concord. In charity all the elect of God have been made perfect.”
– Pope St. Clement I
While the actual circumstances of Clement’s death are unknown, legend has it that he was condemned to die by drowning because of his success in converting pagans to Christianity. He was reportedly thrown into the sea with an anchor tied around his neck, and one of his disciples retrieved his body. Paintings of St. Clement show him dressed in papal robes standing beside an anchor.
“If there be a true way that leads to the Everlasting Kingdom, it is most certainly that of suffering, patiently endured.”
– St. Colette
After being orphaned at 17, Nicolette de Boilet gave her inheritance to the poor and entered religious life as a Franciscan tertiary. For four years beginning at age 21, she lived as an anchoress, or solitary, walled into a room with only one opening: a window into a church sanctuary. She left her cell only after having a dream in which she was told to reform the Poor Clares. The church was still divided by the Great Schism, and there was much concern that those in religious life had strayed from their rule. The Avignon pope, Benedictine XIII, supported Colette’s mission to establish new monasteries following the primitive Rule of St. Clare. Because of two miracles that occurred during her lifetime—one that resulted in a safe delivery and the other through which a newborn was restored to life, St. Colette is the patron saint of expectant mothers and sick children, as well as of women seeking to conceive. She was canonized in 1807.
“Nothing is sweeter than the calm of conscience, nothing safer than purity of soul - yet no one can bestow this on himself because it is properly the gift of God's grace.”
– St. Columban
St. Columban was an Irish missionary who, with a small group of fellow missionaries from Ireland, established several monasteries in different parts of Europe. He is credited for several miracles during his lifetime (543-615), including: being left untouched by a pack of wolves; producing a spring of water; multiplying food and drink; restoring a blind man’s sight; taming a bear and getting it to pull a plow; replenishing a village’s empty granary, and more. When in Bregrenz during a famine, the Irish missionary prayed for food after three days with nothing to eat, and the ground was suddenly covered by birds that did not fly away but rather allowed themselves to be scooped up for food. The “manna” of birds remained until a supply of grain arrived on the fourth day, sent by a priest in a nearby city who had been told in a vision to send relief to St. Columban. When the birds were no longer needed, they flew away en masse.
“I am innocent, and I die innocent. I forgive with all my heart those responsible for my death, and I ask God that the shedding of my blood serves toward the peace of our divided Mexico.”
– St. Cristobal, just before his executioners fired
St. Cristobal, son of a farmer, became a parish priest in Totatiche, Mexico during a time of growing anti-Church sentiment in the government. He worked tirelessly on behalf of the people, helping establish schools, catechism centers, and a newspaper to educate and inform them. He also helped establish carpentry shops and a power plant to provide employment and spur economic development. He brought together indigenous people from the countryside with the townspeople in agricultural cooperatives that benefited both. The closure of seminaries by the government propelled Father Cristobal into actions that would be interpreted by those in power as support of the Cristero guerilla revolt, though his goal was to dissuade the people from taking up arms against the government. He was arrested in May 1927, and he was sentenced to death without a trial. While in prison, he absolved his executioners before being martyred by firing squad, along with St. Agustin Caloca.
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Nothing seems tiresome or painful when you are working for a Master who pays well; who rewards even a cup of cold water given for love of Him.