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SUMMARY:Saturday 25th April Eucharist for St Catherine of Siena
DTSTART:20260425T103000Z
DTEND:20260425T113000Z
DTSTAMP:20260411T172233Z
UID:13227452026-04-25 10:30:00+00:00achurchnearyou
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DESCRIPTION:April 29th is the feast of St Catherine of Siena\, an Italian 
 mystic and pious laywoman\, and one of the outstanding figures of the medi
 eval church.  Born in 1347 and raised in Siena\, Catherine wanted from an 
 early age to devote herself to God\, against the will of her parents\, and
  firmly opposed their wish for her to marry. She began fasting and praying
  and even went so far as to cut her hair short so that she would be less a
 ttractive to young men. Eventually\, her parents accepted her vocation.\n\
 nIn 1363\, just three days after her sixteenth birthday\, Catherine joined
  the Third Order of Saint Dominic\, an order of lay people who wore a reli
 gious habit but lived at home and worked in the world rather than in a clo
 ister. They served the poor and sick and performed charitable works. For t
 he first several years as a Third Order Dominican\, Catherine lived mostly
  a life of seclusion and prayer. \n\nAt around the age of 21\, she entered
  into what would later be described as “mystical marriage” with our Lo
 rd. While praying\, Jesus appeared to her\, along with the Virgin Mary and
  King David as a harpist. Jesus placed a ring on her finger and departed. 
 The ring remained for the rest of her life\, although Catherine was the on
 ly one who could see it. She then began a more active ministry to the poor
 \, sick and imprisoned of Siena. When the black death struck Siena\, she a
 nd her companions remained hard at work\, caring for those affected. \n\nA
 s time went on Catherine started to get involved in controversies that wer
 e plaguing the wider Church and State\, writing hundreds of letters to kin
 gs\, queens\, nobility\, religious\, priests\, and even to the pope himsel
 f. A dominant focus of her letters to the Pope was to urge him to leave Av
 ignon in France and return to Rome – where anti-popes were elected and c
 onfusion was widespread. Eventually he listened and returned to Rome in 13
 77. \n\nCatherine died on 29 April 1380\, exhausted not only by her rigoro
 us fasting\, but by extensive travel to towns that were warring against th
 e papacy. Here she rallied the people\, gained many followers\, addressed 
 political\, cultural\, and moral abuses\, as well as making an ongoing wit
 ness to Christ crucified through her penitential life. \n\nPope Urban VI l
 ed her funeral and she was buried in the Basilica of Santa Maria sopra Min
 erva in Rome. She was canonised by Pope Pius II 1461 and declared patron s
 aint of Rome in 1866 by Pope Pius IX\, and of Italy (together with Francis
  of Assisi) in 1939 by Pope Pius XII. In 1970 she was the second woman to 
 be declared a Doctor of the Church\, by Pope Paul VI\, only days after Ter
 esa of Ávila. In 1999 Pope John Paul II proclaimed her a patron saint of 
 Europe. She is also venerated as patron saint of nurses\, the sick\, and t
 hose ridiculed for their piety and is invoked against fires\, miscarriages
 \, temptations!\n\nPicture above: Extract from St Catherine of Siena by Gi
 ovanni Battista Tiepolo\, dated around 1746. This work is in the public do
 main in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copy
 right term is the author's life plus 100 years or fewer.
GEO:-4.298266529747012;37.12525560245366
LOCATION:Salinas Anglican Congregation
URL:https://www.achurchnearyou.com/church/8488/service-and-events/events/1
 322745/
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