The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine (~1340)
Barna da Siena
Saint Catherine’s first visceral experience between her and Christ was at the age of five. He appeared before her, smiled at her and blessed her. It was enough to leave her in a state of euphoria. Soon thereafter she devoted her life to him. Who wouldn’t? A source of jubilation that is as intangible as it is real, absolutely beyond the material world.
Striving for completeness, she sacrificed everything for him. She concentrated her virginity to Christ. She flagellated herself in an effort to repent her sin and the sin of all man. She became mute for years on end and fasted for weeks at a time. But deep within her was a sense of doubt. She once confessed that she felt possessed by evil spirits, not by the love of Christ. An imperfect belief drove a wedge between her and the feeling of inimitable, eternal love.
Catherine of Siena had the resiliency and faith within her to eventually overcame this sense of doubt. After years of devotion, she was finally ready to consummate the union between Christ and herself. Her trials had only brought them closer. In 1367, at the age of 20, she became the bride of Christ. In the small wedding ceremony, attended by select friends and family and presided by God, Jesus perfected their love by placing a ring made of his own foreskin on Catherine’s finger. This act was founded in the Christian belief that God resurrected Christ and took his body to heaven. Thus the only part of Christ’s body that remains in this world would be the result of his circumcision.
She proudly wore the ring that no one else could see and only she could feel. A symbol of her quiet, everlasting jubilation. Despite of, or because of, her intimate relationship with Jesus, she was canonized by the Catholic church in 1461. In 1940 she became a joint Patron Saint of Italy along with Saint Francis of Assisi. Then in 1970 she became the first woman to be named a Doctor of the Church. Finally, in 1999, Pope John Paul II made her a patron saint of Europe.
