Good deeds, mortal sacrifices and even inexplicable events arising from an apparent divinity, are the reasons why different individuals were beatified and canonized by the Vatican to carry with him the name of saint.
Every daymarked on the calendar, commemorates the life and death of these beings, men and women, who dedicated their existence to the same Catholic Church that earned them the appointment.
This is the saint’s day Monday April 29.
It was the day of the Annunciation of the Virgin and Palm Sunday in 1347. The Church and Siena, with songs and olive branches, welcomed the girl Katherinewho saw the light of this world in a house on Tintoreros Street, in the Fontebranda neighborhood.
Catherine and her twin sister Giovanna had already been preceded by twenty-two other siblings and followed by another, in the simple Christian home of Giacomo Benincasa and Lapa of Puccio del Piangenti.
From her father, a fur dyer, Catalina seems to have inherited goodness of heart, charity, and inexhaustible sweetness, and from her mother, a hard-working and energetic woman, firmness and determination.
Catalina, a girl, was happy, boisterous, lively; Her charm made her somewhat the center of affection of the wide circle of family and friends. At five or six years old she had her first experience of the supernatural—a vision of her in the Piatta Valley—which left a definitive mark on her life and left her oriented toward God. “From this moment on she seemed to stop being a child,” says one of her biographers. She understood the lives of those who had dedicated themselves to holiness and she felt an irresistible desire to imitate them arise within her.
In the first months of the year 1380—the last of her earthly existence—Catherine’s life seems like a small restless flame that can barely be contained by the fragility of her crumbling body. But as long as she lives she will be a holocaust for the Holy Church. She herself had written before: “If I die, know that I die of passion for the Church.” “Around nine o’clock,” she says in an emotional letter to her director, “when I leave to hear mass, you would see a dead woman walk on her way to San Pedro and go back to work in the nave of the Holy Church. I stay there until around Vespers time. “I would not like to move from there, day or night, until I see this people submissive and established in the obedience of their Father, the Pope.” There, kneeling, in an ecstasy of inner suffering and supplication, she feels crushed by the weight of the navicella, the ship of the Church, which God makes her feel gravitating over her fragile shoulders as a poor woman. “Catherine,” wrote another of her disciples, “was like a meek mule who without resistance carried the weight of the sins of the Church, as in her youth she had carried the heavy sacks of wheat from the door of the house to the barn. ”
Near the church and convent of the Dominican fathers of Santa María de la Minerva, in the Via di Papa, had his humble room during his stay in Rome. He dictates his last letters-testament, overflowing with tenderness and firmness, with his usual supernatural vision of all things. He repeatedly interrupts his dictation, with a deep sigh: “I sinned, Lord; pity me”, or with the longing cry of love for the crucified Jesus Christ that had consumed his entire existence: “Blood, blood”.
Surrounded by many of her disciples and followers, consumed to the point of exhaustion and pain by illness, she offered the supreme holocaust of a life consecrated entirely to God and the Holy Church. With the words of Jesus: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit,” radiating her face with unusual light, she gently bowed her head and gave her soul to God, in the fullness of the outbreak of the Roman spring. . It was April 29, the Sunday before the Ascension of the Lord in the year 1380.
Along with this character there is other saints and martyrs who are also celebrated this Monday April 29 as the following:
Saint Hugo Abbot
Saint Achard of Avranches
San Antonio Kim Song-u
Saint Severus of Naples
Saint Tertulia virgin and martyr
Saint Tychicus
Saint Torpetes
The saints are the set of people (women and men) who They are venerated by the Church when they are proclaimed saints or blessed. on a certain date on the calendar.
On the path to canonization there are four steps: the first is to be named as a servant of God, the second is to be venerable; The third step is to be blessed and, finally, the fourth step is to be holy.
The beatification It can only be achieved by the faithful who have died with a reputation for being saints in various places and this process can be carried out in two ways: through a cause of heroic virtues and the second is martyrdom, that is, if the person He died because of his faith.
On the other hand, the process of becoming a saint It involves adding the name of the sanctified person to the canon (list of recognized saints) and with this the believing community is allowed to worship him publicly and universally, meanwhile, a liturgical feast is assigned to him, altars, chapels and altars are dedicated to him. His power to intercede before God is recognized.
Although the Church has not given an exact figure, it is believed that there are currently up to nine thousand recognized saints. According to Roman Martyrologyupdated in 2005, the Catholic Church has at least seven thousand saintsalthough the martyrs are not counted, so many think that the number could even reach 20 thousand people.
In recent history, Pope John Paul II managed to canonize 388 saints, while Pope Francis has broken all records after today he has canonized 898 saints, 800 of them at the same time.
