Letters of Catherine Benincasa

by Catherine of Siena

This is the most famous spiritual work of one of the Church's most famous women, St. Catherine of Siena. The 14th century saint remains one of the only women to be named a Doctor of the Church.

Genres: Catholic, Christianity, Faith, Biography, Nonfiction

216 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1905

About the author

Saint Catherine of Siena, T.O.S.D. was a tertiary of the Dominican Order, and a Scholastic philosopher and theologian. She also worked to bring the papacy of Gregory XI back to Rome from its displacement in France, and to establish peace among the Italian city-states. Since 18 June 1866 she is one of the two patron saints of Italy, together with St. Francis of Assisi. On 3 October 1970 she was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by Pope Paul VI, and on 1 October 1999 Pope John Paul II named her as a one of the six patron saints of Europe, together with Benedict of Nursia, Saints Cyril and Methodius, Bridget of Sweden and Edith Stein.

Reviews

[Hermit Sister Gema]

I like so much Saint Catarine! Change my life and my personal walking for God and my vocation of consagred life.

[Nini Bookedit]

I love reading about saints, especially women saints. This was a great read.

[Kristján Hannesson]

In her other famous work, the Dialogue, Saint Catherine paints a picture, primarily in red, of the Christianity of the Cross, i.e. salvation through suffering and death. In the letters, we see how the rubber meets the road, as she employs her immense intelligence and courage to influence politics and daily life, both locally and in Europe in general. They are a fascinating read, an R-rated film that you perhaps should not watch, but you can't help it.
Saint Catherine is at the same time a great psychologist, analyzing and helping everyone that she comes into contact with, and a great spiritual masochist. She desires nothing more than to "drown in the blood" of Christ, and she sees the love of the lord concretized in the nails of the cross as the pierce Jesus' flesh. As she notes, he might easily escape, being omnipotent, but it is love and desire for the bride (i.e. the Church) that drives him to accept those nails. There is something sublime about Catherine, an attractive enthusiasm that faces life upfront and all the way, and a frightful dedication to the death-cult aspect of Christianity that gets its nourishment from the blood of its martyrs.
Nothing gives you a stronger sense of being in the belly of the beast, the raw meat of Christianity.

[Victoria]

While not all of the letters in this collection were of interest to me, enough of them were to make it worthwhile. The ones written during the schism, especially, were absorbing and, I felt, relevant to current events. They made me understand a bit the agony that such a disaster brings upon a saint.

The introductions to each letter were very interesting and insightful as well, and I learned from them almost more than from the letters themselves! This book is worth reading, though a physical copy would be nice so that one could flip pages to where one wants to read...it's not exactly the sort of thing that needs to be read straight through.