Saint Catherine of Bologna

After about three years spent at the court of Princess Margaret, Catherine felt an increasingly irresistible inclination to dedicate herself exclusively to the Lord; she did not take long to find a favorable opportunity to free herself from the ties that still held her attached to the world. Margaret married the Count of Rimini; Catherine, who had conceived a great distaste for the luxury and amusements of the court, did not want to follow her; the princess then saw herself obliged to send her back to her mother. Catherine, who was to be the sole heiress of her parents' great wealth, was sought in marriage by several great lords; but her mother, who had become a widow and occupied herself only with God, left her daughter absolutely free to follow her vocation. There was then in Ferrara a pious girl of a great family, Lucia Mascaroni, who lived with her aunt and with some young ladies whom she instructed in serving God, and who never went out except to attend services in the church of the Friars Minor, located very close by. Catherine was admitted into their association, where she made herself loved and admired for her affability, her gentleness, and her obedience. One day, while she was praying in the church, God revealed to her that He had forgiven her all her sins and remitted all the punishments she had deserved. She was then sixteen years old. Around the same time, she had another vision: she found herself, on the day of the Last Judgment, at the right of the throne of God, whom she invoked with confidence. These heavenly favors did not make her lose any of her humility, and she considered herself, on the contrary, as the most unworthy of creatures.

The pious association of which she was a part consisted of fifty girls under the direction of Lucia, who maintained the house at the expense of her aunt. The latter, who was a widow and very wealthy, had made her niece her sole heiress, on the condition of having her house converted into a convent of Augustinians. When this aunt died, Lucia would have immediately fulfilled the prescribed condition, had not some of the pious girls felt more inclination for the Franciscan order, under whose direction they had lived until then. One of the congregants, named Alise, brought most of the others to her side and brought a lawsuit against Lucia, accusing her of disregarding the last will of her aunt and of wanting to found a convent of Franciscans. The case was brought before a secular court and turned in favor of Alise: Lucia was deprived of her inheritance. But the latter appealed to the bishop, who judged the case quite differently. Alise and those of her party were excluded from the community, and the others were sent home until the convent was built. All these disputes and this last setback deeply afflicted Catherine, who desired only solitude and calm. Thus, as soon as there was a suitable dwelling in the monastery, she went there with five of her first companions. The number of holy girls increased rapidly; but they did not all follow the same rule. Lucia and some others still leaned toward that of Saint Augustine; Catherine and the rest had adopted that of Saint Clare. Finally, Catherine brought everyone to her way of thinking, and, with the permission of the bishop, they all placed themselves under the direction of the Friars Minor; the provincial solemnly gave them the habit of the Poor Clares in 1432. Catherine was then twenty years old.

The demon, seeing the great perfection to which Catherine had attained, launched cruel assaults against her. In the beginning, she always emerged triumphant. But one day, seeing herself the object of one of these harsh attacks, she replied to the demon with boldness: "Know that you cannot send me any temptation that I do not recognize instantly." God, wishing to correct this excessive confidence and to show her that the enemy was much more skillful than she, permitted him to trouble her for a long time in a way well suited to discourage her. The evil spirit used the very virtue she cherished most, obedience, to fight her. He appeared to her, sometimes in the figure of Our Lord, and sometimes in that of His most holy Mother, reproaching her for not being sufficiently detached from her own will. Then he suggested to her a thousand thoughts against submission, which she took for effects of her own character; she believed she felt continually disposed to criticize and to suffer with impatience all the orders of the superior. The affliction she felt from this made her shed so many tears that her sight was weakened; and her intelligence, overwhelmed by this incessant idea, became obscured and exhausted. She could no longer pray or read her hours without experiencing sharp pains; she was obliged to no longer keep vigil as long as before. But she was so accustomed to prayer that in the middle of her sleep she would rise, stretch out her arms, and begin to pray. She would have infallibly succumbed to these persecutions of the enemy if she had not known that despair was the gravest of all faults. By an evident grace of God, she always preserved, in the midst of these terrible struggles, the firm will to do nothing that could displease God. Thus, the Lord later made her know that all this was only a deception of the evil spirit. God had permitted it thus to give the holy girl a deeper knowledge of herself, and a greater prudence against the artifices of the demon.

But the enemy, seeing himself frustrated in his expectation, wanted to trouble her in another way. He then filled her mind with impious thoughts that besieged her during her confessions, her prayers, and her penances. At other times, it was thoughts of vanity that obsessed her, especially when she was in the choir occupied with singing the praises of God. But, for her heart inflamed with heavenly love, there was no trial more painful than the temptations of disbelief regarding the Blessed Sacrament. Thus the Lord, who unknown to her stood beside His servant during her struggles, finally ensured her a complete triumph, and taught her that he who feels no devotion while receiving the Blessed Sacrament does not, however, lose the fruit of communion, provided that he has a pure conscience and does not consent to the temptations of disbelief; she understood that a soul is more deserving in the midst of such a trial, when it bears it with patience, than if it approached the holy table with the sentiments of the most tender piety.

Having thus acquired through her own experience a great knowledge of spiritual struggles, Catherine wrote a work in which she recounted her long temptations and the numerous graces with which God had filled her; in it, she exposed, for the instruction of her neighbor, the dangers of this fierce war that the demon wages against us, and the means to emerge victorious from it.

LIVES OF THE SAINTS. — DAY 11.

Having noticed that this work had become known, she burned it out of humility; but, by the order of God, she wrote another which she titled: *The Seven Spiritual Weapons*. Les sept Armes spirituelles A major work by Catherine on spiritual combat. As long as she lived, this book was known to no one; but it was published immediately after her death. Everyone can derive much fruit from reading it. Although she speaks of herself as another person, it is easy to see that the noble heroine is at the same time the author. Moreover, according to her own testimony, all this was only put into writing in order to warn souls against too much self-confidence, and against the artifices of the demon: One must, she says, distrust oneself, even when one is the object of great heavenly favors. We must never imagine that we know or understand anything, except by the light and strength that we receive from God. On the other hand, we must not, in temptations, let ourselves go too much into sadness, as if all these thoughts came from ourselves; let us be assured that they are only the effect of the jealousy of the demon, for he cannot suffer that we taste interior peace while serving God with a humble and submissive heart. We must, she says further, resist the inspirations of the enemy with courage and patience, and by that we will merit the crown of a kind of spiritual martyrdom.

In the advice she gave orally, she often repeated that one must make one's temptations known in time to those who have care of our soul, given that it is impossible to heal a hidden wound. She maintained that, the more revelations and other favors from heaven appear to us to be brilliant, the more we must instruct the physicians of our souls about them, so as not to be deceived by the appearance of good, as she herself had been.

Catherine's virtues having brought her to notice early in the cloister, she was first appointed mistress of novices. Although she considered herself unworthy of these duties, upon which the prosperity of a monastery largely depends, she was not long in helping the young nuns placed under her direction make great progress. She preached by example even more than by her instructions; furthermore, she loved to be warned of her slightest faults, and prayed in a very special way for the sisters who rendered her this service. She taught them that the foundation of all virtues is a firm will to please God and to seek His glory in all things. Her students wrote down several of her recommendations, which are still possessed today.

The city of Ferrara, finding great advantages in free communication with the pious daughters of the convent, long opposed its enclosure; but Catherine did not cease to pray to God and Saint Clare that the Pope might grant the necessary bull. She finally obtained it; indeed, the abbess who had directed the convent for twenty years having died, Catherine gave the following advice to the foundress, Lucia Mascaroni: "Since they had all become Poor Clares, and at the same time were not sufficiently familiar with the obligations of the rule, it was appropriate to ask for some nuns from a convent where the strict rule was in force, and to choose from among them an abbess who would establish the cloistered life." This advice pleased Lucia greatly, but the Fathers of the Order already had their eyes on Catherine to appoint her abbess, and Lucia, who knew her holiness, was also very disposed to it. When the holy girl became aware of these intentions, she could not hide her astonishment and displeasure, and one could not resolve to torment this holy soul whose humility dreaded such a burden.

Thus, some nuns from the convent of Mantua were brought to Ferrara, and, with the Pope's authorization, an abbess was chosen from among them who enforced the observance of the enclosure. But her joy was not of long duration. The convent of Ferrara and those of the neighboring cities having become too small to contain all the nuns who came to ask for the habit of Saint Clare, two new monasteries were founded, one in Cremona, the other in Bologna, and Catherine was elected abbess of the latter.

She testified to God in her prayers how much she desired not to be invested with this dignity, and to finish her pilgrimage here below in the place where she had embraced religious life; but the Savior revealed to her that, according to the will of her heavenly Father, she must accept the duties of superior in Bologna, and that it was in Bologna also that she would end her days. At the same time, she saw in heaven two resplendent seats, one of which was a little larger and richer than the other; and as she contemplated them with admiration, wondering who could occupy them, a heavenly voice answered her that the more beautiful of the two was for Catherine of Bologna.

It was in 1456 that this installation took place. Four Bolognese gentlemen and three distinguished Fathers from the same city had come to bring the abbess of Ferrara the Pope's bulls and the request of the great council of Bologna. The abbess, who was then Sister Leonarda, of the illustrious Ordelaffi family, told them that she wanted to see them return to Bologna perfectly provided for, and that she was giving their monastery as abbess a second Clare, a true daughter of Saint Francis, a holy nun who had deserved to hold the Child Jesus in her arms. As for the sisters she was sending under her direction, they were worthy of having such a holy mother and they were almost all from Bologna. Catherine wanted once again for them to choose another, but the vicar general and the provincial ordered her to obey. The eve of her departure for Ferrara, she kissed the feet of all the nuns while flooding them with her tears, and asked for forgiveness for all her faults; she promised never to forget the monastery where she had served God for so long, and to leave it a lasting memory after her death. God kept the promise of His bride by sending a heavenly perfume that was felt each year in the monastery around the time of her feast. Catherine left with fifteen nuns and a novice; she was also accompanied by her old mother Benvenuta, who, a widow of her second husband, had entered the Third Order. With the Pope's permission, she was received into the convent of Bologna, and died there holily, blind and very old, a few months after the death of her illustrious daughter.

Upon Catherine's arrival in Bologna, the city was divided into several parties, which drove each other out in turn, depending on which one had the upper hand; they agreed, however, in an edifying manner to re ceive t Bologne City of birth and return after the Blessed's conversion. hese poor nuns within their walls, and to give them all sorts of testimonies of honor, as if they had foreseen that they were bringing with them calm and concord to their homeland. Two cardinals went to meet them: Bessarion, the Pope's legate, and Philippe Calandrini, Bishop of Bologna. They were escorted by a large number of persons of distinction and accompanied by a considerable crowd to the hospital of Saint Anthony of Padua, which was assigned to them as a dwelling while waiting for the new cloister to be finished, which took place four months later.

During the octave of the Nativity of the most holy Virgin, the new superior had the happiness of receiving into the Order the first six sisters with whom the monastery grew. They all distinguished themselves by their holiness, and all also became abbesses. Catherine soon counted sixty nuns in her convent, and after a few months it had become insufficient to receive those who continued to present themselves. Then, by means of the alms that flowed in, the municipal council bought some neighboring houses to enlarge it.

Catherine had only recently resumed her duties as superior when she fell dangerously ill. She then had a vision, in which Our Lord appeared to her seated on the throne of his majesty, surrounded by a crowd of Angels and Saints, who sang these words of Isaiah: "And his glory shall be seen in you". The Savior took Catherine by the hand, led her near his throne and said to her: "My daughter, listen to this song, and understand well the meaning of these words: And his glory shall be seen in you". Then he explained to her the meaning of this word, and at the same time assured her that she would not die from her current illness.

Indeed, Catherine recovered little by little, and continued for one more year her life of active charity and ardent devotion. More than ever she sought solitude, and was entirely given to prayer and meditation. As happened to all the saints, she believed she had only taken the first step toward perfection, when she had already almost reached its final limit. On the Holy Thursday that followed her recovery, she had washed the feet of all the nuns, according to the habit she had adopted before falling ill. But the following year, on the first Friday of Lent, she gathered them all in the chapter and announced to them that her death was near. She gave them her final instructions, and insisted, in finishing, on the charity they owed one another. The sisters were heartbroken with grief; however, they could not imagine that her premonition would be justified, for neither that day, nor the two following days, did they discover in her any precursor sign of death. But on Sunday evening, while returning to her cell, she suddenly exclaimed with a sigh: "My good Jesus, you could have granted me the grace not to die before having resigned my duties, and having seen a new superior in my place; then, according to my desire, I could have died a subject; but, if it pleases you so, may your will be done!" Sister Illuminata Bembi, who heard these words, asked her if she was not feeling well: "How could I not feel well, since my race is finished?" — "God forbid", exclaimed the sister; "if you were to die, what would become of us?" — "Be united", replied the holy abbess, "practice penance; God will assist you better than if I remained among you. Observe only the rule as it should be, and after death, I will be of greater help to you. God be praised for granting me after my exile the rest so desired!" Then, almost instantly, all the illnesses she had had to suffer for twenty-eight years seized her at once: cruel pains in the head and chest were complicated by a terrible flow of blood, then by an ardent fever. She remained in this state all week, enduring her pains with unalterable patience. On the Wednesday of the following week, she had the vice-superior, the blessed Jeanne Lambertini, come and recommended the monastery to her. Doubtless, she foresaw what was to happen after her death, for Jeanne Lambertini directed the convent for two years without the nuns wanting to choose a new abbess. Catherine, after having confessed several times, turned to the sisters and said to them: "My children, I am going to leave you; but after my death, I will be more useful to you than during my life, provided that you live in mutual concord and charity. This virtue is the inheritance that Jesus Christ left, not only to his Apostles, but also to all Christians, and I bequeath it to you as my testament". She then ordered them to take great care of the novices, to obey with respect the one who would represent her, and to serve with the most tender charity their blind superior. "Honor, fear and love God", she said in finishing, "preserve your good reputation and that of your convent, and you will experience that I will never abandon you".

The nuns burst into tears; then Catherine represented to them that they should much rather congratulate her for passing from the prison of this life to the abode of eternal joy. After a final confession, she humbly asked the sisters for forgiveness for all the faults she might have committed against them in words and actions. She then received the most holy Sacrament, and her face appeared animated with a celestial joy; she turned her gaze for the last time toward her beloved sisters, closed her eyes, and, sighing gently, she exhaled her blessed soul into the hands of the Spouse of virgins. It was eight o'clock in the morning, March 9, 1463. Catherine had lived fifty years on earth, and had given thirty-nine to God in the convents of Ferrara and Bologna.

## CULT AND RELICS. — HER WRITINGS.

It would be difficult to express what the desolation of the sisters was at the death of their holy superior.

However, the face of the deceased became all radiant with a celestial light, and her body exhaled a sweet odor that strengthened the sisters and softened their sadness. When it was placed before the tabernacle, the features of the face were further beautified with a greater expression of joy. At this sight the nuns, in the enthusiasm of their admiration, kissed her face, pressed her hands and feet, and could not get enough of contemplating the precious remains of their mother.

The funeral took place with great solemnity: the body was buried and held between two boards, so as not to be damaged. The sisters often went to visit her tomb, to pray and weep there. A very sweet perfume escaped from it, and it was sometimes seen crowned with a brilliant light. Several nuns were cured there of various illnesses or delivered from temptations, sadness, troubles of conscience; thus the holy abbess appeared from then on to keep the promise she had made to be of great help to them after her death.

At the sight of so many wonders attesting to the favor of heaven, the nuns deeply regretted that the body of their holy mother was buried so humbly in the common cemetery. They obtained permission from the confessor to put it in a coffin. The nineteenth day after her death, she was exhumed; she was still perfectly preserved; they were to, after having placed her in the coffin, put her back in the ground; but, by a supernatural impulse, the sisters who were carrying her led her into the church, before the tabernacle. The lid was opened, and her face appeared as if flooded with joy. A large number of people came to visit her and were witnesses to this radiant and living expression of her face. It is even said that she spoke to call a young girl, Leonora Poggi, who, in the great desire to see her, had run to the monastery without her parents' knowledge. As this young girl was parting the crowd to reach the grate, Catherine opened her eyes, and gesturing with her hand, said in a very distinct voice: "Leonora Poggi, come then". When Leonora was near the grate, Catherine added: "Be ready, for I want you to be a nun in this convent, where you will become the most beloved of my daughters, and the guardian of my body". Leonora was then only eleven years old. Eight years later, she refused a rich match that her family proposed to her, became a Poor Clare, and was indeed charged with taking care of the body of Saint Catherine. She lived holily in the monastery for fifty-five years.

The body having been exposed for seven days to public veneration, the cardinal archbishop of Bologna had it placed in a double coffin and enclosed in a tomb in the form of an altar, which had been built on purpose. The nuns often went to visit her there, and several were cured of various illnesses by the simple touch of her precious rem ains. A child near death corps de sainte Catherine Major relic preserved in a seated position in a chapel in Bologna. recovered his health, and a dead person was resurrected by means of some relics of the holy abbess. Other miraculous healings were also experienced by invoking her intercession, by coming to visit her tomb or by using some object that had touched her mortal remains.

About a year later, it was noticed that the parts of the body that were not covered by her clothes were blackening because of the humidity of the tomb, which had been built too hastily. The body was then carried into a room adjacent to the Church, which the Saint had occupied in the past; and it was transported to the choir every time they wanted to expose it to the eyes of visitors. But, as it had to be carried by hand while going down and up a staircase, a rolling seat was then made, in which she was seated; this seat was placed in the choir, and it was made to approach the grate at will.

Blessed Catherine composed several spiritual treatises for the instruction of devout and religious souls. She wrote in Latin and Italian. In her book of the Seven Spiritual Weapons, she teaches us how to fight the enemies of our soul. In that of Her Revolutions, she shows that one must always be wary and on guard in the combat we have with the demon. She confesses that she was deceived in it, and that, trusting too much in the great graces she had received from God, she had imagined herself to be above the artifices of the demon, who had nevertheless abused her, appearing to her in the figure of Jesus attached to the cross, and in that of the Blessed Virgin. From this, she draws the consequence that only God can make us discover the malice of the demon: for, as for her, her excessive credulity put her in states where she did not know if she was loved by God or abandoned by Him. After her death, this book was found sealed, because she did not want it to appear during her lifetime. She had made another on the temptations that the demon had stirred up in her, and the help she had received from God to overcome them. But, having noticed that this work had become known, she threw it into the fire to avoid vainglory. Finally, one finds a hymn of hers, on the origin of the intellectual creature, and on the five joyful mysteries of the Rosary.

Here is a short analysis of the Treatise on Spiritual Weapons:

"Every person," she says, "who wants to take upon herself the cross of the Remembrance of the One who died first on the battlefield to give us life, must first seize the weapons necessary for this kind of combat. The first is diligence or application to doing well: therefore no lukewarmness; it is a hindrance; no negligence, and great care to avoid the too much as the too little: in a word, to have discretion. The second weapon is distrust of oneself and trust in God; for without God we can do nothing. The third is the remembrance of the Passion and the instructive pilgrimage of Jesus Christ on earth. The fourth weapon is the remembrance of death: therefore let us do good while there is time. The fifth is the remembrance of the goods of paradise: it is impossible, said Saint Augustine, to enjoy present goods and future goods. Let us repeat with Saint Francis of Assisi: 'Lord, the just wait for me until you give me the reward.' The sixth weapon is the authority of the Holy Scriptures: it is with this weapon that Jesus Christ defeated the demon in the desert, it is this weapon that the blessed virgin Cecilia always carried hidden in her breast."

We still have, from Saint Catherine of Bologna, two mystical ladders: the first, which is the ladder of virtues, has ten degrees; the second, which is the ladder of humility, has twelve. The ten degrees of the first ladder are 1° enclosure or separation of body and spirit from all things of the world; 2° hearing or promptness to hear the word of God, following this word of the prophet: "I will listen to all that the Lord my God will deign to say to my heart"; 3° restraint, which is the guardian of the virtues of the religious; 4° silence; 5° graciousness, that is to say, kindness, honesty, courtesy towards all kinds of persons; 6° vigilance; 7° purity of spirit, which consists particularly in always thinking well of others; 8° obedience: to obey is the surest way not to be mistaken; 9° humility, which is so odious to the demon and so conformable to the examples of Jesus Christ; 10° love of God and neighbor, which is the end of the life of every Christian and the perfection of religious life.

The twelve degrees of the ladder of humility consist 1° in having a benevolent exterior and cordial manners; 2° in speaking, in few words, with discretion and softly; 3° in not being easy, nor quick to laugh; 4° in keeping silence until one is questioned; 5° in observing the rule exactly; 6° in believing oneself the most miserable of persons in the world; 7° in confessing that one is useless and unskilled at the slightest thing; 8° in frequenting the sacrament of penance often; 9° in embracing obedience promptly, without murmuring either internally or externally; 10° in submitting perfectly to those who are above us; 11° in never doing one's own will; 12° in fearing God with a filial fear.

One day, one of her companions said to her: "If I could do as you do, I would be very happy." Catherine replied: "My dear sister, if you claim to have what others have, you must also put a little of your own into it." — "And in what does what I must put of my own consist?" The Saint replied: "In acquiring the following things: the first is to despise the things of the earth, even to the point of forgetting your parents and your friends; the second is to endure without murmuring the suffering of all your pains; the third is the extirpation of internal vices and external worldly airs; the fourth is the mortification of body and spirit, fidelity to listening to the dictates of our conscience; the fifth is compassion towards one's neighbor.

"And when your soul has acquired these five things, it will still be necessary to give all your care to acquiring the following five: 1° the continual occupation of body and spirit, for idleness breeds many sins; 2° the serenity of soul and face; 3° trust in God; 4° humility of heart; 5° the fear of God. And when your soul has crossed these degrees, it will have to climb five others, after which it will be admitted from this world to the participation of the beatitude which the true servants of the good God enjoy from here below. Now, here are these five degrees: The first is the knowledge of the way of perfection, which consists in knowing particularly Jesus Christ, the Eternal Truth, and imitating Him; the second is liquefaction, that is to say, one must love God so much that, by the effect of this love, one feels as if melting; the third is union with God, whether by works or by words; the fourth is joy in God with God and for God; the fifth and last degree is perpetual praise, that is to say, a continuous desire to glorify God from whom all goods proceed."

Regarding the effectiveness of prayer, one often heard her repeat these beautiful words: "When you see a religious person who does not devote herself to prayer, do not place much foundation on her and do not have great confidence in her works, because, although she wears on the outside the habit of a person consecrated to God, lacking the spirit of prayer, she will not be able to persist for long in this kind of life. Whoever does not practice prayer assiduously and who does not taste it, does not have in herself those bonds that keep one tied, attached, and as if embraced by God; therefore it will not be a surprising thing that the world and the demon, finding her thus alone, lead her to bind herself with them?"

Her life was written in Italian about fifty years after her death, by Denis Palvetti, of the Order of Saint Francis, and translated into Latin by Jean-Antoine Flamini; from there Barcelona drew it to include it in the seventeenth volume of the *Ecclesiastical Annals*. The Bishop of Poitiers also makes mention of it in the supplement to the *Annals of Barcelona*, and Indulgentius reports her life, composed by various authors. — The one we give here is extracted from the *Seraphic Palm*.