Saint Catherine de Ricci

Catholic Saint

st.Catherine de Ricci-Dominican mystic and stigmatist

Feast Day : February 13

Catherine de’ Ricci was born April 23, 1522, in Florence, Italy, to a patrician family. Her father, Pier Francesco de’ Ricci, came from a lineage of respected merchants and bankers. She was baptized Alexandrina. Catherine lost her mother in infancy, and she was reared by a stepmother, Fiammetta da Diacceto. As a young child, she spoke to her guardian angel and learned how to pray the rosary from the angel. She was often in prayer. Fiammetta, a pious woman, encouraged the child in her devotion. At age six Catherine was sent to the convent school of Montecelli, where her aunt, Louisa de’ Ricci, was a nun. There she developed a devotion to the Passion that played a prominent role in her mystical life to come. Her father was opposed to her becoming a nun but relented after she became ill. In 1535, when she was 14, she entered the Dominican convent of San Vicenzo in Prato, Tuscany, under the direction of her uncle, F. Timothy de’ Ricci. The order offered her a desired strict religious life. She took the name of Catherine, and was professed in 1536. Despite a series of illnesses that permanently damaged her health, Catherine strove to die to her senses and practiced severe austerities and mortifications. She fasted two or three days a week on bread and sometimes went for a day with no food at all. She wore a sharp iron chain next to her skin.

She practiced obedience, humility and meekness. Catherine advanced quickly in the convent, serving as mistress of novices, subprioress, and then by age 25 (some accounts say age 30 or 38) perpetual prioress. Her reputation for sanctity and prudence, as well as her astonishing mystical life, attracted numerous bishops, cardinals and princes who paid visits to seek her counsel. Three of them went on to become popes: Clement VIII (r. 1523–34), Marcellus II (r. 1555) and Leo XI (r. 1605). Catherine corresponded with St. Charles Borromeo and Pope Pius V (r. 1566–72) and had mystical visits with SS. Philip Neri and Mary Magdalen de’ Pazzi. Catherine’s remarkable mystical life had a dramatic opening in 1542, when she was about 20. During holy week she experienced the first of her ecstasies in which she saw the passion of Christ enacted in sequence 17 scenes. The 28-hour-long ecstasies went on for 12 years, repeating every week from Thursday midday to Friday at 4 P.M. During these raptures, Catherine’s body would move as though going through the passion herself. She exhibited all the wounds experienced by Jesus. She had bleeding stigmata in her hands, feet and side, as well as the wounds from Christ’s crown of thorns and from His scourging. By the time the raptures were finished, her shoulder was indented as though from carrying the cross. Throughout the raptures, Catherine issued a sweet perfume that lingered on everything she touched, sometimes for up to a day later. In her first such experience in 1542, Catherine meditated so intensely on the crucifixion that she became ill, and was healed by a vision of the resurrected Christ talking with St. Mary Magdalene. Catherine’s raptures attracted spectators.

Sometimes she would speak out to them. The crowds increased to the point that Catherine’s sisters prayed for her wounds to become less visible (in 1554, they did). Also in 1542, Catherine experienced the mystical marriage. On Easter Sunday, Jesus appeared to her and placed on her forefinger a gold ring with a large pointed diamond. Others glimpsed the ring. Some saw only a swelling and reddening of the flesh. The reddened appearance could not be duplicated, nor made to go away. Spectators also saw her passion wounds differently as well. Some people saw the actual wounds, while others saw only redness and swelling. Still others saw her hands actually pierced and bleeding, or the saint surrounded in a brilliant light. Catherine had a mystical relationship with St. Philip Neri in Rome, with whom she exchanged letters. The two never met in person, but did meet in mystical visits, some of which were witnessed by others. Catherine had the ability to bilocate. After a lengthy illness, Catherine died on February 2, 1590, in an odor of sanctity. Her incorrupt body can be seen in a reliquary below the major altar of the basilica of Prato.