portraitsofsaints: Happy Feast DaySaint Catherine of SienaDoctor of the Church1347-1380Feast Day: Ap
portraitsofsaints: Happy Feast DaySaint Catherine of SienaDoctor of the Church1347-1380Feast Day: April 29Patronage: against fire, bodily ills, firefighters, illness, Italy, miscarriages, people ridiculed for their piety, sexual temptation, sick people, sicknessCatherine was the youngest of 25 children. She started having mystical experiences and visions when she was only 6. She became a Dominican tertiary at 16. A brilliant theologian, although she never had any formal education, she persuaded the Pope to go back to Rome from Avignon, in 1377, and when she died she was endeavoring to heal the Great Western Schism. In 1375 she received the Stigmata, which was visible only after her death. She died when she was only 33, and her body was found incorrupt in 1430.{website} -- source link