St. Catherine of Siena and the Beggar by Giovanni di Paolo (Italian, c. 1403–1482) Saint Catherine (1347-1380) was the daughter of a prosperous Sienese cloth dyer. At the age of six, she saw a vision …More
St. Catherine of Siena and the Beggar
by Giovanni di Paolo (Italian, c. 1403–1482)
Saint Catherine (1347-1380) was the daughter of a prosperous Sienese cloth dyer. At the age of six, she saw a vision of Christ and thereafter dedicated herself to chastity, penance, and good works. She became much beloved in Siena for selflessly caring for victims of the Black Death. This panel, with 1966.2, was once part of a predella (or pedestal) of a large altarpiece painted for the Hospital Church of Siena. The main scene of this altarpiece, showing the Presentation of Christ in the Temple (now preserved in Siena) was ordered by the Pork Butchers Guild (the Pizzicaiuoli) in 1447. The predella was added later when Catherine was canonized in 1461. In the first panel, she kneels before an altar and reaches up to choose from the monastic garments offered by Saints Dominic, Augustine, and Francis, all founders of religious orders. Catherine takes the habit of Saint Dominic, which she wore as the founder of the Sisters of Penance. The second panel shows, at the right, Saint Catherine giving her cloak to a beggar. The beggar was really Christ in disguise, and at the left returns the cloak to her. For this act of charity, the cloak perpetually protected its wearer from the cold.
St. Catherine of Siena and the Beggar
by Giovanni di Paolo (Italian, c. 1403–1482)
Saint Catherine (1347-1380) was the daughter of a prosperous Sienese cloth dyer. At the age of six, she saw a vision of Christ and thereafter dedicated herself to chastity, penance, and good works. She became much beloved in Siena for selflessly caring for victims of the Black Death. This panel, with 1966.2, was once part of a predella (or pedestal) of a large altarpiece painted for the Hospital Church of Siena. The main scene of this altarpiece, showing the Presentation of Christ in the Temple (now preserved in Siena) was ordered by the Pork Butchers Guild (the Pizzicaiuoli) in 1447. The predella was added later when Catherine was canonized in 1461. In the first panel, she kneels before an altar and reaches up to choose from the monastic garments offered by Saints Dominic, Augustine, and Francis, all founders of religious orders. Catherine takes the habit of Saint Dominic, which she wore as the founder of the Sisters of Penance. The second panel shows, at the right, Saint Catherine giving her cloak to a beggar. The beggar was really Christ in disguise, and at the left returns the cloak to her. For this act of charity, the cloak perpetually protected its wearer from the cold.
St. Catherine of Siena and the Beggar
Kenjiro M. Yoshimori
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Those pictures of St. Catherine of Sienna are beautiful, but deceptive, because all modern Catholics will automatically assume she was a Dominican nun. Wrong!!. The Catholic Church was so cool back in those days, flourishing in Italy and everywhere. Not only were there like 20,000 monasteries and religious houses, and close to 1,000 Orders in Italy alone at the time, but also women who did not feel …More
Those pictures of St. Catherine of Sienna are beautiful, but deceptive, because all modern Catholics will automatically assume she was a Dominican nun. Wrong!!. The Catholic Church was so cool back in those days, flourishing in Italy and everywhere. Not only were there like 20,000 monasteries and religious houses, and close to 1,000 Orders in Italy alone at the time, but also women who did not feel the call to be cloistered Dominican nuns (and there were thousands in Italy and elsewhere at the time), could serve God as Third Order Regular Dominican tertiaries (laywomen living the religious life either at home or in communities, but not bound by solemn vows). That's what St. Catherine of Sienna was....basically a laywoman who could wear a form of the Dominican habit (alittle different than the cloistered Dominican nuns of the time), and the black mantle. They were called in some parts of Italy the "Mantellatae". Notice she is wearing a white veil, even though in 1 picture she has her mantle pulled up almost like a veil. As well as cloistered nun branches, and cloistered canonesses, male religious Orders also established Franciscan,Augustinian,Dominican etc. communities of women who lived in the world and did charitable works, as did St. Catherine.....but they were not considered nuns in the strict sense.
THey were, for all intents and purposes, the forrunner of all the active communities of apostolic sisters that were founded in Europe 500-600 years later.
White nearly ALL of the Third Order branches that St. Catherine belonged to went extinct 300-400 years after her death, their movement gave rise to active communities of sisters, which, until the disaster of Vatican II, wore the same types of habits, and contonued the legacy....althoug by then the Church requried them to profess simple (simplex) vows, not the solmen perpetual vows of enclosure that cloistered nuns still profess today,
THey were, for all intents and purposes, the forrunner of all the active communities of apostolic sisters that were founded in Europe 500-600 years later.
White nearly ALL of the Third Order branches that St. Catherine belonged to went extinct 300-400 years after her death, their movement gave rise to active communities of sisters, which, until the disaster of Vatican II, wore the same types of habits, and contonued the legacy....althoug by then the Church requried them to profess simple (simplex) vows, not the solmen perpetual vows of enclosure that cloistered nuns still profess today,