Dominicans Interactive - Irish Dominicans

St Catherine of Siena is one of the most remarkable women in history. She lived six hundred years ago, in Italy, and was born the twenty-third child in her family. She was born into an immensely turbulent time. The fourteenth century saw wars between cities, famine, and the horrific Black Death. And the Church too was in a parlous state, with corruption, luxury, and bribery common among the clergy. At a young age, Catherine decided she wouldn’t marry, but would give her life to God as a Dominican ‘mantellata’ – these were laywomen who belonged to the Dominican Order and followed a rule of life. After joining the mantellate, Catherine spent three years living a life of almost complete solitude in the family home. She developed an immensely close relationship with Jesus during this time and she said she spoke with him ‘as one friend to another’. It was with great difficulty, then, that she left this life of solitude behind, but she knew that was God’s will for her. She