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Hey there, Sprouts. Today is Monday, April 29th, 2019. We are in the second week of Easter, and today is the feast day of the great saint, Catherine of Siena. This week on the Catholic Spouse podcast, we are going to continue to explore what it means to be an Easter people.

And we are going to do that by looking at a couple of remarkable saints from history.

Today, we are going to start with the saint we are celebrating, and that is, of course, St. Catherine of Siena.

Now, St. Catherine lived during the 13 1300s, so a long time ago,

and she lived in the country of Italy. We call her St. Catherine of Sienna because at the time,

Italy was not necessarily a unified country. She lived in the city of Sienna, and at the time, many of the different cities in Italy and

other places in Europe were walled and almost like little countries onto themselves. Very often,

these cities went to war with other cities. It was a bloody time, but it was also a time of great faith.

St. Catherine of Siena was the youngest child in a large, large family.

Very early, she felt the call to devote herself to Jesus Christ.

She was a Dominican, and she quickly became incredible and incredibly known even during her time.

In fact, St. Catherine of Siena can put most superheroes to shame.

St. Catherine of Siena actually lived without consuming hardly any food. In fact,

she mostly just consumed Jesus in the Eucharist. He sustained her and she was unable to eat

anything else. Every time that she received the Eucharist, Jesus truly present there,

she immediately fell into an ecstasy. If we were to see her, it might appear that she was dead,

that she fainted, but she fell into such deep prayer that she oftentimes was shocking to see after she received Jesus in the Holy Eucharist.

She also hardly ever slept. St. Catherine of Siena spent all night praying. She had no need

for sleep, actually. She was powered by the supernatural in a lot of ways.

St. Catherine of Sienna also received stigmata. Now, do you know what stigmata is?

Sigmata is another mystical gift. Jesus allowed St. Catherine of Sienna to experience the pains of his crucifixion and passion

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