Saint Catherine de' Ricci

Her charity towards God was burning, and her prayer almost continuous: she devoted to it all the time left to her by her necessary occupations and the little rest she took; she embittered her body by macerating it by means of an iron chain and flagellation. Very sober in food, she abstained from meat for forty-eight years, living most of the time on vegetables and herbs, sometimes contenting herself with bread and water. Desiring the salvation of her neighbor, she poured out before God very fervent prayers for the conversion of sinners. She was moved with such compassion for a soul that was in purgatory, that she was seen to suffer the most bitter pains which were sent to her from heaven in expiation of the pains deserved by that soul. Her prudence was rare, her zeal for the observance of the rule very ardent; she directed the nuns of her monastery for a long time, forming them in holiness by example even more than by exhortations. In this office, she practiced humility to the point of performing the most arduous and lowly tasks, even to the point of becoming the devoted servant of the sick.

Graces from above descended upon her with extraordinary profusion: it was thus that she received from the hands of the Savior the ring of betrothal and the sacred stigmata, which became externally visible more than once. For the space of several years, on Thursdays and Fridays, rapt in the most sublime ecstasy, she habitually felt all the torments of the Redeemer in His passion, one after the other, and in order. While in Prato, she saw Saint Philip Neri, wh o was Prato City where the monastery of Saint Vincent, where she lived, is located. in Rome, a nd conversed with him saint Philippe de Néri A contemporary saint with whom she experienced a mystical vision. at that distance. Illustrious for the gift of ecstasies, raptures, heavenly visions, and prophetic lights, she predicted the future and discovered hidden things. Finally, weakened by serious illnesses and fortified with the sacraments of the Church, she flew to heaven in the year of Our Lord 1590, in the sixty-ninth year of her age, on the 2nd of February. The Sovereign Pontiff Benedict XIV solemnly placed her in t he rank of Benoît XIV Pope who beatified Jerome Emiliani. holy virgins in the year of our salvation 1746.

Saint Catherine Ricci is depicted receiving the ring of virgins from the hands of Jesus Christ; wearing a crown of thorns on her head, for from her childhood her forehead was seen to be beaded with bloody wounds that recalled the crowning with thorns; praying before a crucifix that comes to life and detaches itself to embrace her; receiving into her mouth a stream of milk from the Blessed Virgin. Before entering reli gious life, Alexandrine Dominican virgin and Italian mystic of the 16th century. Catherine was called Alexandrina.

--**Lessons from the Dominican Breviary.**