Saint Bonaventure

Between 1626 and 1628 Francisco de Herrera the Elder painted the four scenes of a narrative cycle on the Life of St Bonaventure for the Franciscan college San Buenaventura in Seville

Zurbarán was commissioned to complete the cycle, and executed four canvases illustrating the end of the saint's life. The cycle was dismantled and is in various collections See below

Francisco de Herrera the Elder 1576 - 1656

The Cure of Saint Bonaventure as a Child by St Francis

1628

Oil on canvas

234 x 218

Musée du Louvre département des Peintures, Paris

Francisco de Herrera the Elder 1576 - 1656

St Bonaventure Enters the Franciscan Order

1628

Oil on canvas,

231 x 215 cm

Museo del Prado, Madrid

Francisco de Herrera the Elder 1576 - 1656

St Catherine Appearing to the Family of St Bonaventure

1629

Oil on canvas

Bob Jones University Collection, Greenville

Francisco de Herrera the Elder 1576 - 1656

St Bonaventure receiving Communion from the Hands of an Angel

1628

Oil on canvas

234 x 218

Musée du Louvre département des Peintures, Paris

Francisco de Zurbarán 1598 -1664

Saint Bonaventure and St Thomas Aquinas before the Crucifix

1629 (lost in 1945)

Oil on canvas

226 x 256 cm

Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin - Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Gemäldegalerie

Francisco de Zurbarán 1598 -1664

Saint Bonaventure and an Angel

c. 1630

Oil on canvas

239 x 222

Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden

Francisco de Zurbarán 1598 -1664

Saint Bonaventure at the Council of Lyon (1274) (c.1630)

Oil on canvas

250 x 225

Musée du Louvre département des Peintures, Paris

Francisco de Zurbarán 1598 -1664

The Exposition of the Body of St Bonaventure

(c.1630)

Oil on canvas

245 x 220

Musée du Louvre département des Peintures, Paris

Born John of Fidanza, Saint Bonaventure ( 1221 – 15 July 1274), was an Italian medieval scholastic theologian and philosopher, and the eighth Minister General of the Order of Friars Minor. He was a Cardinal Bishop of Albano. He was canonized on 14 April 1482 by Pope Sixtus IV and declared a Doctor of the Church in the year 1588 by Pope Sixtus V. He is known as the "Seraphic Doctor" ( "Doctor Seraphicus")

Pope Benedict XVI as a young man wrote his thesis on the saint`s works. He described the works of St Bonaventure as being of "no small influence in my formation"

On 3rd March 2010 at the General Audience, the Pope continued his series of addresses on medieval theologians with a talk on Saint Bonaventure.

It is fully reported in Zenit

"Dear brothers and sisters,

Today I would like to speak about St. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio. I confide to you that on proposing this theme I feel a certain nostalgia because I remember the research that, as a young scholar, I carried out precisely on this author, whom I particularly esteem. His knowledge has been of no small influence in my formation. With great joy I went on pilgrimage a few months ago to his birthplace, Bagnoregio, a small Italian city, in Latium, which venerates his memory.

Born probably in 1217, he died in 1274; he lived in the 13th century, an age in which the Christian faith, profoundly permeating the culture and society of Europe, inspired immortal works in the field of literature, visual arts, philosophy and theology. Striking among the great Christian figures who contributed to the composition of this harmony between faith and culture is, precisely, Bonaventure, man of action and of contemplation, of profound piety and of prudence in governing.

He was called John of Fidanza. An incident that occurred when he was still a boy profoundly marked his life, as he himself relates. He had been affected by a serious illness and not even his father, who was a doctor, hoped to save him from death. His mother appealed then to the intercession of St. Francis of Assisi, canonized a short time earlier. And John was cured.

The figure of the Poverello of Assisi became even more familiar a year later, when he was in Paris, where he had gone for his studies. He had obtained the diploma of Master of Arts, which we could compare to that of a prestigious secondary school of our time.

At that point, as so many young people of the past and also of today, John asked himself a crucial question: "What must I do with my life?" Fascinated by the witness of fervor and evangelical radicalism of the Friars Minor, who had arrived in Paris in 1219, John knocked on the doors of the Franciscan monastery of that city, and asked to be received in the great family of the disciples of St. Francis.

Many years later, he explained the reasons for his choice: He recognized the action of Christ in St. Francis and in the movement he initiated. He wrote thus in a letter addressed to another friar:

"I confess before God that the reason that made me love more the life of Blessed Francis is that it is similar to the origin and growth of the Church. The Church began with simple fishermen, and was enriched immediately with very illustrious and wise doctors; the religion of Blessed Francis was not established by the prudence of men, but by Christ" (Epistula de tribus quaestionibus ad magistrum innominatum, in Opere di San Bonaventura. Intoduzione generale, Rome, 1990, p. 29).

Therefore, around the year 1243 John put on the Franciscan coarse woolen cloth and took the name Bonaventure. He was immediately directed to studies and frequented the faculty of theology of the University of Paris, following a program of very difficult courses. He obtained the different titles required by the academic career, those of "biblical bachelor's" and "bachelor's in sentences."

Thus Bonaventure studied in depth sacred Scripture, the Sentences of Peter Lombard, the manual of theology of that time, and the most important authors of theology and, in contact with the teachers and students that arrived in Paris from the whole of Europe, he matured his own personal reflection and a spiritual sensitivity of great value that, in the course of the following years, showed in his works and sermons, thus making him one of the most important theologians of the history of the Church.

It is significant to recall the title of the thesis he defended to be able to qualify in the teaching of theology, the licentia ubique docendi, as it was then called. His dissertation was titled "Questions on Knowledge of Christ." This argument shows the central role that Christ always had in the life and teaching of Bonaventure. We can say, in fact, that all his thought was profoundly Christocentric.

In those years in Paris, Bonaventure's adopted city, a violent dispute broke out against the Friars Minor of St. Francis of Assisi and the Friars Preachers of St. Dominic Guzmán. Debated was their right to teach in the university and doubts were even cast on the authenticity of their consecrated life. Certainly the changes introduced by the Mendicant Orders in the way of understanding religious life, of which I spoke in preceding catecheses, were so innovative that not everyone understood them. Also added, as happens sometimes among sincerely religious persons, were motives of human weakness, such as envy and jealousy.

Bonaventure, although surrounded by the opposition of the rest of the university teachers, had already started to teach in the chair of theology of the Franciscans and, to respond to those who were criticizing the Mendicant Orders, he composed a writing titled "Evangelical Perfection." In this writing he showed how the Mendicant Orders, especially the Friars Minor, practicing the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, were following the counsels of the Gospel itself.

Beyond these historical circumstances, the teaching offered by Bonaventure in this work of his and in his life is always timely: The Church becomes luminous and beautiful by fidelity to the vocation of those sons and daughters of hers who not only put into practice the evangelical precepts, but who, by the grace of God, are called to observe their advice and thus give witness, with their poor, chaste and obedient lifestyle, that the Gospel is source of joy and perfection.

The conflict died down, at least for a certain period, and, by the personal intervention of Pope Alexander IV, in 1257 Bonaventure was officially recognized as doctor and teacher of the Parisian University. Despite all this, he had to resign from this prestigious post, because that same year the General Chapter of the order elected him minister-general.

He carried out this task for 17 years with wisdom and dedication, visiting the provinces, writing to brothers, intervening at times with a certain severity to eliminate abuses. When Bonaventure began this service, the Order of Friars Minor had developed in a prodigious way: There were more than 30,000 friars spread over the whole of the West, with a missionary presence in North Africa, the Middle East and also Peking.

It was necessary to consolidate this expansion and above all to confer on it, in full fidelity to Francis' charism, unity of action and spirit. In fact, among the followers of the Saint of Assisi there were different forms of interpreting his message and the risk really existed of an internal split.

To avoid this danger, in 1260 the General Chapter of the order in Narbonne accepted and ratified a text proposed by Bonaventure, which unified the norms that regulated the daily life of the Friars Minor.

Bonaventure intuited, however, that the legislative dispositions, though inspired in wisdom and moderation, were not sufficient to ensure communion of spirit and hearts. It was necessary to share the same ideals and the same motivations. For this reason, Bonaventure wished to present the authentic charism of Francis, his life and his teaching. Hence he gathered with great zeal documents related to the Poverello and listened attentively to the memories of those who had known Francis directly.

From this was born a biography, historically well founded, of the Saint of Assisi, titled Legenda Maior, written also in a very succinct manner and called because of this the Legend. The Latin word, as opposed to the Italian [and English, legend], does not indicate a fruit of imagination but, on the contrary, Legenda means an authoritative text, "to be read" officially. In fact, the General Chapter of the Friars Minor of 1263, which met in Pisa, recognized in St. Bonaventure's biography the most faithful portrait of the founder and it thus became the official biography of the saint.

What is the image of St. Francis that arises from the heart and pen of his devoted son and successor, St. Bonaventure?

The essential point: Francis is an alter Christus, a man who passionately sought Christ. In the love that drives to imitation, he was entirely conformed to Him.

Bonaventure pointed out this living ideal to all of Francis' followers. This ideal, valid for every Christian, yesterday, today and always, was indicated as a program also for the Church of the Third Millennium by my predecessor, the Venerable John Paul II. This program, he wrote in the letter "Tertio Millennio Ineunte," is centered "on Christ himself, who must be known, loved and imitated to live in Him the Trinitarian life, and, with Him, to transform history to its fulfillment in the heavenly Jerusalem" (No. 29).

In 1273 St. Bonaventure's life met with another change. Pope Gregory X wished to consecrate him bishop and name him cardinal. He also asked him to prepare a very important ecclesial event: the Second Ecumenical Council of Lyon, whose objective was the re-establishment of communion between the Latin and the Greek Churches. He dedicated himself to this task with diligence, but was unable to see the conclusion of that ecumenical summit, as he died while it was being held.

An anonymous papal notary composed a eulogy of Bonaventure, which offers us a conclusive portrait of this great saint and excellent theologian: "Good, affable, pious and merciful man, full of virtues, loved by God and by men ... God, in fact, had given him such grace, that all those who saw him were invaded by a love that the heart could not conceal" (cf. J.G. Bougerol, Bonaventura, in A. Vauchez (vv.aa), Storia dei Santi e della santita cristiana. Vol. VI. L'epoca del rinnovamento evangelico, Milan, 1991, p. 91).

Let us take up the legacy of this saint, doctor of the Church, who reminds us of the meaning of our life with these words: "On earth ... we can contemplate the divine immensity through reasoning and admiration; in the heavenly homeland, instead, through vision, when we will be made like to God, and through ecstasy --- we will enter into the joy of God" (La conoscenza di Cristo, q. 6, conclusione, in Opere di San Bonaventura. Opuscoli Teologici /1, Rome, 1993, p. 187)."

The Navicella

Francesco Berretta and Guido Ubaldo Abbatini

Baroque copy of Giotto di Bondone (1267 -1337)

Navicella (1628 and 1649),

Oil on canvas, 740 x 990 cm

Fabbrica di San Pietro, Rome

Parri Spinelli`s (ca. 1387-1453) drawing of Giotto's mosaic Navicella and verso

c. 1412-19

Pen on paper, 274 x 388 mm

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Parri Spinelli`s (ca. 1387-1453) drawing of Giotto's mosaic Navicella

c. 1412-19

Pen on paper 26.9 x 39.7cm

Musée Condé, Chantilly

Parri Spinelli`s (ca. 1387-1453) drawing of Giotto's mosaic Navicella entitled "La pêche miraculeuse"

c. 1412-19

Pen on paper 24.2 x 19 cm

Musée Bonnat de Bayonne

Giotto di Bondone (1267 -1337)

Tondo with Angel

c. 1310

Mosaic, diameter 65,5 cm

S. Pietro Ispano, Boville Ernica, Rome

Although heavily restored, this fragment of the Navicella conveys an impression of the splendour of the original mosaic.

"Weak, exhausted by fasting and illness, [St Catherine of Siena] came every day to St. Peter's, the former basilica. In the porch there was a garden, on the facade a famous mosaic, painted by Giotto for the 1300 jubilee, and called The Barque [The Navicella] (now a copy of it appears inside the porch of the new basilica).

It reproduced the scene of Peter's boat, tossed by the night storm, and it represented the apostle daring to move towards Christ who has appeared walking on the waves; a symbol of life that is always in danger and always miraculously saved by the divine mysterious Master.

One day, it was 29th January 1380, about Vesper time, Sexagesima Sunday, and it was Catherine's last visit to St. Peter's; it seemed to Catherine, caught up in ecstasy, that Jesus stepped out of the mosaic and came up to her, placing the barque on her weak shoulders; the heavy, storm-tossed barque of the Church; and Catherine, collapsing under the weight, fell to the ground unconscious.

Historically, Catherine's sacrifice seemed to fail.

But who can say that burning love of hers disappeared in vain if myriads of virgin souls and hosts of priestly spirits and of faithful and industrious laymen, made it their own; and it still blazes in Catherine's words: "Sweet Jesus, darling Jesus"?

And may that fire be ours, too, may it give us the strength to repeat Catherine's words and gift. "I have given my life for Holy Church" (Raimondo da Capua, Vita, III, 4). "

(Pope Paul VI, General Audience on Wednesday April 30th, 1969)

"The mosaic of Navicella in the atrium of the Old St. Peter's in Rome, now almost totally lost, is attributed to Giotto. It was commissioned by Cardinal Jacopo Stefaneschi, without a doubt the leading artistic patron in the papal court of the first half of the fourteenth century. Originally in Rome under Boniface VIII, then in Avignon after the move there of the papacy, he was responsible for some of the most important artistic undertakings of the day.

The giant mosaic was originally situated on the eastern porch of the old St. Peter's basilica and occupied the whole of the wall above the entrance arcade facing the courtyard. It measured approximately 13,5 x 9.5 m, and depicted on its uninterrupted surface St. Peter walking on the waters. Unfortunately, this extraordinary work has been destroyed in the course of its history.

During the construction of the new St. Peter's in the 17th century it was moved several times to a different location, resulting in smaller and greater losses. First, the inscription disappeared, and only two fragments of the framework survived - an angel in the Vatican Grottos, restored almost beyond recognition, and another equally heavily restored angel in the church of St. Peter at Boville Ernica. Even greater losses among the figures followed - especially that of Peter - until the mosaic was finally installed inside the church in 1628 to protect it from the effects of the weather.

Prior to this, Francesco Berretta was commissioned to make an exact copy in paint. But the mosaic did not stay for long even on the interior facade of St. Peter's. Another change of location, its ultimate loss and a Baroque reproduction mark the further fate of the work up till 1674.

Today it is the Baroque version of the Navicella that we see in the entrance area of St. Peter's. The mosaic was already called the Navicella, or "little ship" when a copy appeared in the church of St. Peter in Strasbourg in 1320, or when it was drawn by Parri Spinelli about 80 years later.

From the 14th century on, many pilgrim guides mentioned it by this name. People were impressed by the large boat, which dominated the scene, and whose sail, filled by the storm, loomed over the horizon. Such a natural representation of a seascape and of a ship in trouble was known only from ancient works of art, if at all. Together with the mosaic's brightness, the effect must have been overwhelming - enthusiastic reports of the Navicella by worshippers testify that this was so.

From "The Web Gallery of Art "

The Bridge

Fabio Borbottoni (1820-1901)

L' antica fortificazione di Ponte Vecchio circa 15 secolo The Ancient fortification of the Ponte Vecchio about the 15th century

Oil on canvas

Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze Collection

Print made by Jacques Callot

Capricci di varie figure di Iacopo Callot - The Florence set c.1617

Print on paper 53mm x 80mm

The British Museum, London

Side view of the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, with men bathing in the river; reclining nude figure in the foreground, on the left c.1617

Albumen print of The Ponte Vecchio (exterior view along bridge) in 19th Century

The Ponte Vecchio spans the Arno at its narrowest point

After being destroyed by a flood in 1117 it was reconstructed in stone but swept away again in 1333 except for two of its central piers

It was rebuilt in 1345. It is this new built bridge which St Catherine of Siena would have known

There have been many changes since then: in 1565 Cosimo I de Medici had Giorgio Vasari build the Vasari Corridor above it

The central image of St Catherine of Siena`s The Dialogue, is Jesus as “The Bridge.”

In The Dialogue, God exhorts the Soul to admire his Son, whom he has sent as a bridge that “stretches from heaven to earth, joining the earth of your humanity with the Greatness of the Godhead. This is what I mean when I say it stretches from heaven to earth – through my union with humanity.”(Catherine of Siena. Dialogue: 22. The Dialogue. Trans. Noffke, 59.)

In The Dialogue the bridge is Christ crucified, built to reach “from heaven to earth” so that we will not have to travel by way of a river which has become a way of death. There the river is sin, and the bridge the way to eternal salvation.

This bridge, says Catherine, “cannot be destroyed or stolen from anyone who wants to follow it, because it is solid and immovable and comes from ... the unchangeable one."

"When a person has experienced my consolation and my visitation within her in one way,” says God in The Dialogue, “and then that way ceases, she goes back along the road by which she had come, hoping to find the same thing again. But I do not always give in the same way, lest it seem as if I had nothing else to give. No, I give in many ways, as it pleases my goodness and according to the soul’s need. But in her foolishness she looks for my gift only in that one way, trying as it were to impose rules on the Holy Spirit. That is not the way to act. Instead, she should cross courageously along the bridge of the teaching of Christ crucified and there receive my gifts when, where, and as my goodness pleases to give them."

She envisages the individual’s Soul mounting and traversing this “Bridge,” as she describes the structure as horizontal and vertical. You climb up the Cross, like a ladder, yet you also cross over it, like a walkway, it because it has a “roof of mercy” and stone-sided walls of virtue. Before the advent of the Son, these walls did not exist to protect the spiritual traveller.

Noffke, in Catherine of Siena: Vision through a Distant Eye, 219. suggests that Catherine modelled her “Bridge” on Florence’s Ponte Vecchio, which she must have seen and crossed during her numerous sojourns from 1374 to 1378.

It is likely that she wrote this particular section of the book in Florence during her stay. While she begins to develop her Bridge theme in an earlier letter to Raimondo, it is only in the Dialogue “that the bridge is embellished with the roof, walls, and shops that ease the pilgrim’s way to God.”

There are, she reflected, two possible ways to get from one bank of the Arno to the other. One could attempt to cross through the water or one could go the way of the bridge. Either one held its difficulties

Catherine crossed the Ponte Vecchio for the last time in late July of 1378. She left Florence the moment she learned that what she had come to do was in fact being accomplished by others. In her own and others’ short-sighted perception she had failed.

A year and half later she was finishing her personal journey over the bridge of dying-into-life, still enveloped in a sense of inadequacy and failure but enveloped also in the truest knowledge she had ever had of who she was.

“Don’t be pained by what I tell you,” she wrote in her final letter to Raymond of Capua; “I don’t know what divine Goodness will do with me.”

She knew that somehow what she had done was worth preserving and propagating, and she entrusted others with that task.

But she was not, nor had she ever been, concerned about perpetuating her own existence.

She had no idea that the seeds of reform she had sown would bear fruit for decades, or that for centuries her vision would inspire others to the same passionate contemplation and contemplative passion she had lived and preached

A Present from Passignano

The original Badia (Abbey) at Passignano (see below) was built in central Chianti near Panzano by Sichelmo in 890, in the shadow of the powerful Lombard castle of Passignano (whose central tower is still there).

Abbazia di San Michele Arcangelo a Passignano, Tavernelle Val di Pesa

The Abbey, reformed in 1049 as a consequence of the Vallombrosan monastic reforms, takes the form of a quadrangular fortified monastic complex with corner towers.

Towards the middle of the 15th Century the convent was augmented by the addition of cloisters and a wall.

Saint John Gualbert, also known as Giovanni Gualberto or John Gualberto (985 or 995 - 12 July 1073) was the founder of the Vallumbrosan Order.

One Good Friday he was entering Florence accompanied by armed followers, when in a narrow lane he came upon a man who had killed his brother.

He was about to kill the man in revenge, when the other fell upon his knees with arms outstretched in the form of a cross and begged for mercy in the name of Christ, who had been crucified on that day. John forgave him.

Giovanni Butteri (ca. 1540- ca. 1606)

San Giovanni Gualberto e l'uccisore di suo fratello davanti al crocifisso di San Miniato/ St John Galberto and the killer of his brother before the Crucifix of San Miniato

1581

Oil on canvas

The Badia at Passignano

He entered the Benedictine Church at San Miniato to pray, and the figure on the crucifix bowed its head to him in recognition of his generosity

He settled at Vallombrosa, where he founded his monastery. He reformed the abbey at Passignano.

He died at the abbey in Passignano. He was canonised in 1193

Abbot Martino, a native of Siena, came to his office at San Michele in Passignano in 1366

In April 1376 the abbot left Florentine territory because of the interdict imposed by Gregory XI and took refuge for a time in Siena. When the Florentines ceased their observance of the interdict in October of that year he left Siena.

He sent a gift of a crucifix to St Catherine of Siena. In the following letter of February or March 1376 she thanks him for the crucifix. This prompts a meditation on the Cross which may have had particular resonance because of the conversion experience of Saint John Gualbert.

Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez ((b. 1599, - d. 1660)

Cristo en la Cruz 1631

Oil on canvas

100 cm x 57 cm

Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

"In the name of Jesus Christ crucified and of gentle Mary.

Reverend and very dear father in Christ gentle Jesus,

I Caterina, servant and slave of the servants of Jesus Christ, am writing to you in his precious blood.

I long to see your heart's love engrafted onto the sweet venerable cross, reflecting that we cannot have or share in the fruit of grace unless our heart's love is engrafted into the crucified love of God's Son. For without this engrafting it would be worth nothing to us that the divine nature is joined with and engrafted into human nature and human nature into the divine, even though we see that the God-man ran to the shameful death of the cross.

This Word made an engrafting on the wood of the holy cross and bathed us in his precious blood, making the true solid virtues sprout as flowers and fruits. The bonding of love accomplished all this.

This warm, shining, engaging love ripened the fruits of virtue, drawing all the bitterness out of them—all because of the engrafting of the divine Word into human nature and of the Word on the wood of the most holy cross. You know that before this the virtues were so sour that none of them could lead us to the port of life, because the pus of Adam's disobedience hadn't been drained by the obedience of the Word, God's only-begotten Son.

But I tell you, even with all this exquisitely sweet bonding, we do not and cannot share in grace unless we clothe ourselves, through the movement of love, in the crucified love of God's Son, by following in the footsteps of Christ crucified. For we sterile and completely fruitless trees have to be joined with Christ gentle Jesus, the fruitful tree, as I've said.

Oh dearest reverend father, what heart could be so hard that it could contemplate our Creator's indescribable love for us and keep itself from binding and engrafting itself with him in the bonding of charity? I certainly don't see how anyone could! Yet I believe those [could] who are bound and engrafted onto the dead tree of the devil, onto selfish love of themselves, onto worldly pleasures and wealth and status. [I believe those could] whose grounding is in their own perverse pride and vanity.

Oime! These are the people who are bereft of life and have become not only sterile trees but dead trees. And eating their fruit leads to eternal death because their fruits are the sins and vices. They run* away from the way and teaching of this gentle loving incarnate Word. They walk in the dark and fall into a lot of misery and into death.

This is not how people act who are following the way of truth with energetic love. No, they have opened the eye of their understanding and know their own non-being, and they know God's goodness within themselves. They give God the credit for their existence and for every gift they have received over and above existence, acknowledging that they have received it all from God—gratuitously and not because it is their due. Then a fire and a movement of love grows [within them], and a hatred and contempt for sin and for selfish sensuality. With this love and hatred and with true humility they are engrafted into the crucified and consumed love of God's Son. And then they produce solid virtues as their fruits, and these virtues nourish their own as well as their neighbors' souls, for they become people who eat and savor God's honor and the salvation of souls.

How very necessary for us, then, to have this perfect union! Without it we cannot reach the end for which we were created. And this is why I said that I long to see you engrafted onto the tree of the most holy cross.

So I beg you, for love of Christ crucified, be diligent, not careless. Sleep no more in the slumber of indifference, for time is short and the road is long."

You sent me the cross, venerable father, and I have treasured it as I have never treasured anything else, because I received also the affection and desire with which you sent it to me. You set before my bodily eyes what I ought to have before my spiritual eyes. Wretch that I am, I have never held it there! With very affectionate love I ask you to beg our dear Savior to give me this. I am sending you a cross in return, inviting you to the cross of holy desire—as well as to the physical cross-—by bearing every burden you may receive with good true patience for God's honor and the salvation of souls.

You wrote me that I should complete what I had begun. I assure you I shall complete it to the extent that I can and to the extent that God gives me the grace to do so. I am referring to my praying for you to divine Goodness.

If you respond with true and perfect diligence to the one who is so lovingly calling you, his will (who seeks and wishes only that we be made holy will be realized in you, as will your own desire and mine. This accomplished, I trust that we shall find ourselves bound in the sweet bond of charity.

Do, do be conscientious about using true and holy teaching to correct vice and plant virtue in those in your charge. And you yourself be a mirror of virtue for them. I`ll say no more.

Keep living in God's holy and tender love.

Gentle Jesus! Jesus love!"

To Frate Ranieri of the Dominican Church of Santa Caterina in Pisa Near Holy Week (6 to 11 April) 1376

Anonymous

St Catherine of Siena surrounded by a host of angels adoring the Cross 17th cent

Oil on canvas

75 x 125

Musée des beaux-arts de Nante, Nantes

Anonymous

Ex Voto to St Catherine of Siena c.1520 (also Ex voto de Jean-Baptiste Pusterula, Soldat)

Oil on wood

61 x 45

Musée de Tessé, Le Mans

Girolamo Di Benvenuto

The Death of St Catherine of Siena c.1480

Oil on canvas 32 x 25

Musée du Petit Palais, Avignon

The Church of Santa Cristina, Pisa

Giovanni di Paolo ca.1403-1483

St. Catherine of Siena Receiving the Stigmata

Circa 1461

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Raymond of Capua's Life of St. Catherine of Siena describes the event thus:

"Arriving in Pisa with a number of other people, of whom I was one, Catherine was put up by a citizen who had a house near the Santa Cristina chapel.

On the Sunday, at the virgin’s request I said Mass in this church, and, to use the official expression, I “communicated” her. When she had received Communion she went as usual into ecstasy, her spirit, thirsting for its Creator—that is to say, the supreme Spirit—absenting itself as far as it could from the senses. We were waiting for her to come back to herself, so as to receive some kind of spiritual encouragement from her, as we often did on these occasions, when to our surprise we saw her little body, which had been lying prostrate, gradually rise up until it was up­right on its knees, her arms and hands stretched themselves out, and light beamed from her face; she remained in this position for a long time, perfectly stiff, with her eyes closed, and then we saw her suddenly fall, as though mortally wounded.

A little later, her soul recovered its senses.

Then the virgin sent for me and said quietly, “You must know, Father, that by the mercy of the Lord Jesus I now bear in my body His stigmata.”

I replied that while I had been watching the move­ments of her body when she was in ecstasy I had suspected some­thing of the sort; I asked her how the Lord had done all this.

She said, “I saw the Lord fixed to the cross coming towards me in a great light, and such was the impulse of my soul to go and meet its Creator that it forced the body to rise up. Then from the scars of His most sacred wounds I saw five rays of blood coming down towards me, to my hands, my feet and my heart.

Realizing what was to happen, I exclaimed, ‘O Lord God, I beg you—do not let these scars show on the outside of my body!’

As I said this, before the rays reached me their colour changed from blood red to the colour of light, and in the form of pure light they arrived at the five points of my body, hands, feet and heart.” “So then,” I said, no ray reached your right side?”

“No,” she replied, “it came straight to my left side, over my heart; because that line of light from Jesus’s right side struck me directly, not aslant.”

“Do you feel any pain at these points now?” I asked.

She heaved a great sigh, and answered, “I feel such pain at those five points, especially in my heart, that if the Lord does not perform another miracle I do not see how I can possibly go on, and within a few days I shall be dead.”

From Lamb’s translation, pp. 175-6

Frate Ranieri had recently entered the Dominican Order at the priory associated with the church of Santa Caterina (St. Catherine of Alexandria) in Pisa. Catherine may have become acquainted with him while she was in Pisa.

It is thought that Ranieri had been Rector of the Church of Santa Cristina in Pisa (founded AD 842; present appearance from 1816) before joining the Dominicans.

Catherine, who during her 1375 stay in Pisa had lived just behind Santa Cristina and had prayed in the church often (and where she received the stigmata), would certainly have gotten to know its rector well. She had perhaps confronted him about his uninhibited lifestyle because in the present letter she expresses obvious delight at the news that he has become a Dominican and sees the step as a kind of reparation for his earlier liberties.

Ranieri entered the order on the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas (then celebrated on 7 March) at the age of thirty-six, and that he died in Pisa on the same feast at the age of fifty six

Letter To Frate Ranieri of the Dominican Church of Santa Caterina in Pisa Near Holy Week (6 to 11 April) 1376

In the name of Jesus Christ crucified and of gentle Mary.

Reverend father—out of reverence for that sweetest of sacraments— in Christ Jesus,

I Caterina, servant and slave of the servants of God, am writing to you in the precious blood of God's Son.

I long to see you a real knight, fighting against every vice and temptation for Christ crucified with a true holy perseverance. For it is perseverance that is crowned. You know that victory is achieved by fighting and by perseverance.

In this life we are set as on a battlefield and we must fight courageously, not dodging the blows or retreating, but keeping our eyes on our captain, Christ crucified, who always persevered.

He didn't give up when the Jews said, "Come down from the cross!" Nor did the devil or our ingratitude make him give up fulfilling the Father's command and our salvation. No, he persevered right up to the end, when he returned to the eternal Father with the victory he had achieved, the victory of having rescued humankind from darkness and given us the light of grace once again by conquering the devil and the world with all its pleasures.

And it killed him: this Lamb took death for himself in order to give us life; by his dying he destroyed our death.

This captain's blood and his perseverance ought to inspire us for every battle—for enduring pain, slander, reproach and abuse for love of him. It should inspire us to voluntary poverty, humility of heart, and total and perfect obedience.

In this way, when the cloud of our body is destroyed, we will return victorious to the city of eternal life. We will have conquered the devil, the world, and the flesh, our three wicked enemies—and especially the flesh, which is always pricking at us and fighting against the spirit.' We must subdue it and discipline it with fasting and vigils and prayer.

And the evil thoughts that come we must constantly chase out with holy images—pondering and imagining how great is the fire of blazing charity; how much it has done for us freely and not because it was our due.

For the Father gave us the Word, his only-begotten Son. And the Son gave his life—for it was out of love that he tore open his body so that blood poured out from every part. He washed away the stains of our sin with blood. When we contemplate such love we are consumed by love,and it seems to us we cannot do as much; nor could we. Even if we were to give our body up to every sort of pain and torment, we could not pay for the great love and all the blessings we receive from our Creator. He is our dear God, who loved us without being loved. Yes, this is the way you will chase out the devil's evil thoughts.

But you might say to me, father, "Since you want me to be a courageous knight, and since I am on the battlefield being attacked by many enemies, I need armor. Tell me what sort of armor to use." I answer that I don't want you to be unarmed. I want you to be armed as was dear Paul, that man in love, who was as human as you are. I mean armed with the cuirass of true and deep humility and the breastplate of blazing charity.

For just as the cuirass is joined to the breastplate and the breastplate to the cuirass, so is humility the nurse of charity, and charity the nourisher of humility. This is the armor I am giving you, since it can withstand all the poisoned arrows the devil, the world, and the flesh can shoot, without being penetrated by a single one. For when we are in love with Christ crucified no arrow of deadly sin will penetrate us—I mean through the consent of our will. We are so strong that neither the devil nor anyone else can force us to do more than we want.

You must also have a knife in your hand to defend yourself against your enemies, and it must be a double-edged knife. One edge is hatred and contempt for yourself, for the time you've often spent with scant concern for virtue and in great wretchedness and sin and frequent offenses against our Savior. We must hate this sin, and we must hate ourselves in so far as we have sinned. For once we have conceived such a hatred we want to make up for our past life and endure every sort of suffering for love of Christ and in payment for our sins. [We want to] make up for pride with humility, for avarice and greed with charity and generosity, for the liberties of selfishness with obedience. This is the holy reparation we must make when we carry this knife of hatred and of love.

But I am exultantly happy over the glorious news I've heard about you, since you've apparently made reparation for your liberties by taking on the yoke of holy obedience. You cannot have done better than to have renounced your own will and the world with its pleasures and enjoyment.

I urge you for love of Christ crucified to stay on this battlefield with courage and with a holy perseverance. Never retreat in order to evade any blow of trouble or temptation. No, unwavering and armed as I've described, use those arms to withstand and deflect whatever blows may come, and the double-edged knife of hatred and of love to defend yourself against your enemies.

I want the tree of the cross to be planted in your heart and soul.

Conform yourself with Christ crucified. Hide yourself in the wounds of Christ crucified. Bathe in the blood of Christ crucified. Get drunk on Christ crucified and clothe yourself in him. As Paul says, glory in the cross of Christ crucified. Eat your fill of disgrace and shame and dishonor by suffering for love of Christ crucified. Fasten your heart and affection to the cross with Christ, for the cross has been made a ship for you and a port that will lead you to the [ultimate] port, salvation.

And the nails have been made keys for you to open the kingdom of heaven.

So up, dearest father and brother! No more sleeping in the bed of indifference! No, fight as a courageous and fearless knight against every adversary. For God will give you the fullness of grace, so that when your life is finished you will after your labors come to rest and see the supreme eternal beauty and vision that is God, where your soul is quieted and stilled Every suffering and evil ended, you will receive every good, satiety without boredom and hunger without pain.

Finish your life on the cross.

Keep living in God's holy and tender love.

Gentle Jesus! Jesus love!

Some personal glimpses

Maestro di San Miniato

c. 1470

St Catherine intercedes for the soul of sister Palmerina

Museo Amedeo Lia, La Spezia

Giovanni di Paolo ca.1403-1483
Saint Catherine of Siena Dictating Her Dialogues

c. 1447/1449

Tempera on wood panel

14 x 14 1/8 x 1 3/4 in. 11 3/8 x 11 3/8 in. 28.9 x 28.9 cm

Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit

St Catherine`s Letters perhaps depict a very zealous woman. Totally immersed in religion, prayer and the public affairs of the day. In her letters she does not neglect the personal.

However the Letters give glimpses of a woman with a hinterland and a very important hinterland. Her family, friends and disciples. Cecca (Francesca) di Clemente Gori, Catherine's sister-in-law Lisa, Alessa dei Saracini and Simone da Cortone were close disciples of St Catherine and often served as her scribes when she dictated letters.

She obviousy inspired great devotion, affection and loyalty. Which was returned. And like very else she did, there was no half measure. She was enthusiastic about everything.

She crammed more into her thirty three years than most people could achieve if they lived four times as long.

Laughter was present in the circle. They teased each other and did not take themselves seriously. For each other they used derogatory but affectionate epithets. Alessa dei Saracini was "Fat Alessa" ( "Alessa grassotta" ). Francesca di Clemente Gori was called "Cecca" and usually "the time waster".

What they did however take seriously was their faith which was not to be laughed at. It was too important.

After great passages of spirituality are always a number of less weighty comments:

"Concerning the affairs of Benincasa, I cannot reply unless I am at Siena. Thank Messer Nicolao for the charity which he has shown for them. Alessa and I and Cecca, poor women, commend ourselves to you a thousand thousand times. May God be ever in your soul, amen. Jesus, Jesus.

Catherine, servant of the servants of God."

(To Frate Bartolomeo Dominici, in Florence Summer 1375)

"And the sign that we have received it is that we at once become lovers of what God loves and haters of what God hates.

This is why my soul longs to see you so truly united with and transformed in the fire of God's charity. Strive for that with all your might, my dearest son, so that you may fulfill God's will as well as your poor sad mother's. Keep living in God's holy and tender love.'

Tell Nanni and Papo to shout so loudly that I will pay attention to their voices. Tell Gherardo my son to respond to the voice of his mother, who is calling him, and to hurry, because I'm waiting for him. Give Vanni a hug for me, and also Missere Francesco, Monna Nella, and Caterina— all of them. Bless them by setting the most holy cross in your midst. And the same to babbo for me.

Jesus! Gentle Jesus!

Francesco says he is not obligated, and bad, lazy Francesco also says you should commend him to Frate Raimondo a thousand times in Christ Jesus and tell him to pray to God for him."

(To Neri di Landoccio Pagliaresi About 25 to 28 February 1376)

"So get rid of all petty resentment, and trust more in others than in yourself.

And if the devil should still try to trouble your conscience, tell him to deal with me—about this and about everything else—for a mother is accountable for her child! So that is how zealous I want you to be! For nothing, no situation, is so hard that charity cannot break through it, even as it makes you stronger.

Bless my son Frate Simone for me, and tell him to run on with holy desire—I mean the holy cross—as his staff.

Let me know how you are and how God's honor is faring.

Fat Alessa says that you are praying for her and asks you please to keep praying for her. Pray for me too, Cecca the time-waster. And pray for Lisa.

Keep living in God's holy peace and love."

(To Frate Bartolomeo Dominici, in Asciano Lent (26 February to 12 April) 1376)

Saint Catherine of Siena and Her Mission of Love

Domenico Beccafumi (Domenico di Giovanni di Pace). 1486 - 1551

The Miraculous Communion of Saint Catherine of Siena about 1513 - 1515

Oil and gold on wood

11 1/4 x 16 1/4 in.

The Getty Centre, Los Angeles

Domenico Beccafumi (Domenico di Giovanni di Pace). 1486 - 1551

Saint Catherine of Siena Receiving the Stigmata 1513-5

Oil and gold on wood

11 1/4 x 16 1/4 in.

The Getty Centre, Los Angeles

Domenico Beccafumi (Domenico di Giovanni di Pace). 1486 - 1551

Stigmatization of St Catherine of Siena between St Benedict and St Jerome

c. 1515

Oil on wood, 208 x 156 cm

Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena

Domenico Beccafumi (Domenico di Giovanni di Pace). 1486 - 1551

Mystical Marriage of St Catherine , Circa 1521

Oil on canvas. 220x205 cm

State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg

Domenico Beccafumi (Domenico di Giovanni di Pace). 1486 - 1551

A Vision of St. Catherine of Siena 1528

Oil on panel

Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, Oklahoma

Domenico Beccafumi (Domenico di Giovanni di Pace). 1486 - 1551

The Mystic Marriage of St Catherine amongst the Saints c. 1528

Oil on panel 310 x 230 cm.

Collection Chigi-Saracini. Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena

Saint Catherine of Siena, T.O.S.D, (25 March 1347 – 29 April 1380) was a tertiary of the Dominican Order, and a Scholastic philosopher and theologian.

She also worked to bring the Papacy back to Rome from its displacement in France, and to establish peace among the Italian city-states. She was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church in 1970.

She is one of the two patron saints of Italy, together with Francis of Assisi.

She is one of the most extraordinary women who ever lived. In her time her great stature was acknowledged by all.

She was not a formal religious. She was a tertiary. She was part of the movements amongst the laity in medieval times which had such great effect.

In the following passages, from Currents of religious thought and expression (Chapter 3) in The New Cambridge Medieval History Volume VI c, 1300 - c. 1415 (2008) Jeremy Catto (Fellow of Oriel College, University of Oxford) describes the times in which St Catherine lived:

"Both within and outside the established orders, however, the variety of spiritual experience and the informality of the groups in which a religious life was developed is striking. One such informal group was the famiglia of the Dominican tertiary Catherine Benincasa, later canonised as St Catherine of Siena, which she formed about herself, and extended in her correspondence, between 1367 and 1380.

It included her spiritual director Raymond of Capua OP, later a reforming master-general of his order, the English hermit of Leccato, William Flete OESA, and the Vallombrosan monk Giovanni dalle Celle, all of whom, in spite of Catherine’s somewhat imperious tone in her correspondence, were highly individual figures and spiritual advisers in their own right.

They respected her personal experience of God, which arose from introspection: `my cell’, wrote Catherine, ‘will not be one of stone or wood, but that of self-knowledge’.

Her influence was all the greater for not flowing through established channels. ...

It was certainly open to non-religious who did not wish to live in organised communities with a rule: to Catherine of Siena, for instance, who about 1367 chose to live in the world as a Dominican tertiary among a various body of disciples and associates, though she evidently had the services of Raymond of Capua OP as her spiritual director. Both his account of her, the Leggenda Maiora, and some of her own writings survive; among the latter, which includes a large collection of her letters and some prayers, her Dialogo of 1377–8 was particularly widely read and often translated.

The absence of speculative language in her works may not especially distinguish her from her German and Dutch contemporaries, since the works of nuns such as Margaret Ebner and Suso’s biographer Elizabeth Stägel are equally free from it: speculative mysticism was the province of their mentors, theologians like Suso himself and Eckhart.

In fact Catherine’s theme of the soul’s ascent from sin through various grades of discernment and love to eventual union with God, and the identification of God with what is and the sinner with nothingness are stressed in the Dialogo, the fruit perhaps of her Dominican instruction. What was more particularly her own was her assertiveness and confident association of her individual vision of God with the need to reform the evils of the world: like John Wyclif, her contemporary, she identified these evils with the failure of the clergy to give a moral lead, and more specifically with the absence of the papal court from Rome.

Interior spirituality or ‘self-knowledge’ must be associated with the apostolate of the Church, and with a reformed and ordered public religion, a theme taken up in the fifteenth century. For Catherine, the recall of lost sheep to conformity with God’s will was a work of charity, by which the genuine life of contemplation would be known.

Catherine of Siena combined humility with the authority of holiness, an authority which seems to have been respected even by Gregory XI when she admonished him for residing at Avignon. It was one sign of the diffusion of spiritual leadership in the course of the century; in parallel with and in some ways as the result of the proliferation of theological learning, the spread of knowledge of the art of contemplation at the hands of the friars allowed local spiritual counsellors to emerge, to influence a restricted clientele or even, in time and through their disciples or writings, a larger body of devotees."

Here is one of St Catherine`s letters to Pope Gregory XI, in Avignon in February 1376. In it she again implores the Pope then resident in Avignon to return to Rome and there to reform the Church. She calls him "Babbo" - Daddy. She tells him to forget his fears and return to the place where he knows that his duty lies. She is genuinely courteous, respectful and direct. Her communication is private. She does not wish to scorn or humiliate the reader in public and into submission. He had had enough of that from other sources. Her motivation is love and she wishes to inspire, encourage and persuade by, with and through love.

"In the name of Jesus Christ crucified and of gentle Mary.

My most reverend and holy father in Christ gentle Jesus,

I Caterina, your poor unworthy daughter, servant and slave of the servants of Jesus Christ, am writing to you in his precious blood. I long to see you a good shepherd, my dear babbo, for I see the infernal* wolf carrying off your little sheep, and there is no one to rescue them. So I am turning to you, our father and shepherd, begging you in the name of Christ crucified to learn from him who with such blazing love gave himself up to the shameful death of the most holy cross to save this little lost sheep, the human race, from the devils' hands.

Because of its rebellion against God, here are the devils, holding this sheep as their own possession. Then along comes God's infinite goodness and sees the sheep's sorry state, its ruin and damnation. He knows he cannot use wrath or war to entice it away from them. Supreme eternal wisdom doesn't want to do it that way, even though the sheep has wronged him (for humankind, by its rebellion in disobedience, was deserving of infinite punishment). No, he finds a delightful way—the most sweet and loving way possible; for he sees that the human heart is drawn by love as by nothing else, since it is made of love.

This seems to be why human beings love so much, because they are made of nothing but love, body and soul. In love God created them in his own image and likeness, and in love father and mother conceive and bring forth their children, giving them a share in their own substance.

So God, seeing that humankind is so quick to love, throws out to us right away the hook of love, giving us the Word, his only-begotten Son. He takes on our humanity to make a great peace. But justice wants vengeance for the wrong done to God. So along comes divine mercy and ineffable charity and, to satisfy justice as well as mercy, condemns his Son to death once he has clothed him in our humanity, in the clay of Adam who had sinned.

So by his death the Father's anger is appeased and justice is satisfied by the sentence passed on the person of his Son. And mercy is satisfied because he has snatched humankind from the devils' hands!

This Word played life against death and death against life in tournament on the wood of the most holy cross, so that by his death he destroyed our death, and to give us life he spent his own bodily life.'With love, then, he has so drawn us and with his kindness so conquered our malice that every heart should be won over. For a person can show no greater love (he said so himself) than to give his or her life for a friend.

And if he praises the love that gives one's life for a friend, what shall we say of the consummate blazing love that gave his life for his enemy?

For through sin we had become God's enemies. Oh gentle loving Word, with love you recovered your little sheep, and with love gave them life. You brought them back to the fold by restoring to them the grace they had lost.

Oh my dear most holy babbol I see no other way, no other help for getting back your little sheep who have left the fold of holy Church as rebels disobedient and unsubmissive to you their father. So I am begging you in the name of Christ crucified, and I want you to do me this favor: use your kindness to conquer their malice. We are yours, father, and I know for certain that all of them realize they have done wrong. And even though there is no excuse for wrongdoing, still, because of all the suffering and injustice and unfairness they were enduring from bad pastors and administrators, it didn't seem to them they had any alternative.

They smelled the stinking lives of these bad administrators (who you know are devils incarnate) and they became so terribly fearful that, like Pilate, who killed Christ so as not to lose his authority, they attacked you rather than lose their position.

So I am asking your mercy for them, father. Don't look at your children's pride and foolishness. No, with the bait of love and of your own kindness give peace to us poor children who have sinned, adding whatever sweet discipline and kind rebuke may please your holiness. I tell you, dear Christ on earth, in the name of Christ in heaven, if you do this without creating a storm or tempest, they will all come and lay their heads in your lap in sorrow for what they've done. Then you will be happy and so will we, because by love you will have put your little lost sheep back in the fold of holy Church.

And then, my dear babbo, you can carry out your desire and God's will—I mean the holy crusade. I invite you in his name to do it soon, without putting it off. These same people have been ready and will be ready to give their lives eagerly for Christ.

Oime! God sweet love! Do raise the standard of the most holy cross soon, babbo, and you will see the wolves become lambs. Peace! Peace! Peace!—so that war may not delay this sweet time! But if you want vengeance and strict justice, take it out on this poor wretch; give me any pain and torment you please, even death. I believe the stench of my sins has been the cause of much evil, discord, and great misfortune. So take as much vengeance on me your miserable daughter as you like.

Oime! Father, I am dying of grief and cannot die! Come, come; don't resist any longer the will of God who is calling you! The starving little sheep are waiting for you to come and take possession of the place of your predecessor and model, the apostle Peter. You, as Christ's vicar, ought to be residing in your proper place. Come! Come! Come! Don't put it off any longer! Take heart, and don't be afraid of anything that might happen, for God will be with you. I humbly ask your blessing for myself and for all my children. And I beg you to pardon my presumption.

I'll say no more.

Keep living in God's holy and tender love.

Gentle Jesus! Jesus love!"

For the letters of St Catherine see:

The letters of Catherine of Siena 1347-1380; trans and edited by Noffke, Suzanne (2000) Volume 1 and

The letters of Catherine of Siena 1347-1380; trans and edited by Noffke, Suzanne (2000) Volume 2