O Lord, our hope, You enriched Blessed Catherine with an abundance of heavenly gifts and filled her heart with You alone. With the help of her prayers may Christ be fastened to our hearts as He was fastened to the cross for our salvation.
As early as 5 years old Catherine had a relationship with God to the point of having profound mystical experiences. Catherine knew she was being drawn to the Lord as his spouse and who gave her His heart. The Blessed Mother gave Catherine a wedding ring which could only seen by Catherine herself as was similar to that of Saint Catherine of Siena. The Lord gave Catherine the grace (and burden) of the stigmata which was invisible and unknown to others except by her confessor.
Family opposition to Catherine's desire to enter a monastery, she instead became a tertiary (a third order Dominican); The mystical experiences were well-known to the others which the devil used to strike division among the faithful, even to the point of the Dominican friars sending her away. But sanctity won out in the end.
Born in Piedmont, Italy in 1487 and died in 1574. Catherine was beatified by Pope Pius VII in 1810.
What can we learn from Blessed Catherine? For me, Catherine demonstrates that we need to take seriously the religious experience and desires of the heart. God speaks to children as clearly and profoundly as He does to adults. This is the same insight Sofia Caveletti and Maria Montesorri had when they began the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd.
