THE Ricci are an ancient family, which still subsists in a flourishing
condition in Tuscany. Peter de Ricci, the father of our saint, was
married to Catharine Bonza, a lady of suitable birth. The saint was born
at Florence in 1522, and called at her baptism Alexandrina: but she took
the name of Catharine at her religious profession. Having lost her
mother in her infancy, she was formed to virtue by a very pious
godmother, and whenever she was missing, she was always to be found on
her knees in some secret part of the house. When she was between six and
seven years old, her father placed her in the convent of Monticelli,
near the gates of Florence, where her aunt, Louisa de Ricci, was a nun.
This place was to her a paradise: at a distance from the noise and
tumult of the world, she served God without impediment or distraction.
After some years her father took her home. She continued her usual
exercises in the world as much as she was able; but the interruptions
and dissipation, inseparable from her station, gave her so much
uneasiness, that, with the consent of her father, which she obtained,
though with great difficulty, in the year 1535, the fourteenth of her
age, she received the religious veil in the convent of Dominicanesses at
Prat, in Tuscany, to which her uncle, F. Timothy de Ricci, was director.
God, in the merciful design to make her the spouse of his crucified Son,
and to imprint in her soul dispositions conformable to his, was pleased
to exercise her patience by rigorous trials. For two years she suffered
inexpressible pains under a complication of violent distempers, which
remedies themselves served only to increase. These sufferings she
sanctified by the interior dispositions with which she bore them, and
which she nourished principally by assiduous meditation on the passion
of Christ, in which she found an incredible relish, and a solid comfort
and joy. After the recovery of her health, which seemed miraculous, she
studied more perfectly to die to her senses, and to advance in a
penitential life and spirit, in which God had begun to conduct her, by
practising the greatest austerities which were compatible with the
obedience she had professed: she fasted two or three days a week on
bread and water, and sometimes passed the whole day without taking any
nourishment, and chastised her body with disciplines and a sharp iron
chain which she wore next her skin. Her obedience, humility, and
meekness, were still more admirable than her spirit of penance. The
least shadow of distinction or commendation gave her inexpressible
uneasiness and confusion, and she would have rejoiced to be able to lie
hid in the centre of the earth, in order to be entirely unknown to, and
blotted out of the hearts of all mankind, such were the sentiments of
annihilation and contempt of herself in which she constantly lived. It
was by profound {407} humility and perfect interior self-denial that she
learned to vanquish in her heart the sentiments or life of the first
Adam, that is, of corruption, sin, and inordinate self-love. But this
victory over herself, and purgation of her affections, was completed by
a perfect spirit of prayer: for by the union of her soul with God, and
the establishment of the absolute reign of his love in her heart, she
was dead to, and disengaged from all earthly things. And in one act of
sublime prayer, she advanced more than by a hundred exterior practices
in the purity and ardor of her desire to do constantly what was most
agreeable to God, to lose no occasion of practising every heroic virtue,
and of vigorously resisting all that was evil. Prayer, holy meditation,
and contemplation were the means by which God imprinted in her soul
sublime ideas of his heavenly truths, the strongest and most tender
sentiments of all virtues, and the most burning desire to give all to
God, with an incredible relish and affection for suffering contempt and
poverty for Christ. What she chiefly labored to obtain, by meditating on
his life and sufferings, and what she most earnestly asked of him was,
that he would be pleased, in his mercy, to purge her affections of all
poison of the inordinate love of creatures, and engrave in her his most
holy and divine image, both exterior and interior, that is to say, both
in her conversation and affections, that so she might be animated, and
might think, speak, and act by his most holy Spirit. The saint was
chosen, very young, first, mistress of the novices, then sub-prioress,
and, in the twenty-fifth year of her age, was appointed perpetual
prioress. The reputation of her extraordinary sanctity and prudence drew
her many visits from a great number of bishops, princes, and cardinals,
among others, of Cervini, Alexander of Medicis, and Aldobrandini, who
all three were afterwards raised to St. Peter's chair, under the names
of Marcellus II., Clement VIII., and Leo XI. Something like what St.
Austin relates of St. John of Egypt, happened to St. Philip Neri and St.
Catharine of Ricci. For having some time entertained together a commerce
of letters, to satisfy their mutual desire of seeing each other, while
he was detained at Rome she appeared to him in a vision, and they
conversed together a considerable time, each doubtless being in a
rapture. This St. Philip Neri, though most circumspect in giving credit
to, or in publishing visions, declared, saying, that Catharine de Ricci,
while living, had appeared to him in vision, as his disciple Galloni
assures us in his life.[1] And the continuators of Bollandus inform us
that this was confirmed by the oaths of five witnesses.[2] Bacci, in his
life of St. Philip, mentions the same thing, and pope Gregory XV., in
his bull for the canonization of St. Philip Neri, affirms, that while
this saint lived at Rome, he conversed a considerable time with
Catharine of Ricci, a nun, who was then at Prat, in Tuscany.[3] Most
wonderful were the raptures of St. Catharine in meditating on the
passion of Christ, which was her daily exercise, but to which she
totally devoted herself every week from Thursday noon to three o'clock
in the afternoon on Friday. After a long illness, she passed from this
mortal life to everlasting bliss and the possession of the object of all
her desires, on the feast of the Purification of our Lady, on the 2d of
February, in 1589, the sixty-seventh year of her age. The ceremony of
her beatification was performed by Clement XII., in 1732, and that of
her canonization by Benedict XIV., in 1746. Her festival is deferred to
the 13th of February.
* * * * *
In the most perfect state of heavenly contemplation which this life
admits of, there must be a time allowed for action, as appears from the
most {408} eminent contemplatives among the saints, and those religious
institutes which are most devoted to this holy exercise. The mind of man
must be frequently unbent, or it will be overset. Many, by a too
constant or forced attention, have lost their senses. The body also
stands in need of exercise, and in all stations men owe several exterior
duties both to others and themselves, and to neglect any of these, upon
pretence of giving the preference to prayer, would be a false devotion
and dangerous illusion. Though a Christian be a citizen of heaven, while
he is a sojourner in this world, he is not to forget the obligations or
the necessities to which this state subjects him, or to dream of flights
which only angels and their fellow inhabitants of bliss take. As a life
altogether taken up in action and business, without frequent prayer and
pious meditation, alienates a soul from God and virtue, and weds her
totally to the world, so a life spent wholly in contemplation, without
any mixture of action, is chimerical, and the attempt dangerous. The art
of true devotion consists very much in a familiar and easy habit of
accompanying exterior actions and business with a pious attention to the
Divine Presence, frequent secret aspirations, and a constant union of
the soul with God. This St. Catharine of Ricci practised at her work, in
the exterior duties of her house and office, in her attendance on the
sick, (which was her favorite employment, and which she usually
performed on her knees,) and in the tender care of the poor over the
whole country. But this hindered not the exercises of contemplation,
which were her most assiduous employment. Hence retirement and silence
were her delight, in order to entertain herself with the Creator of all
things, and by devout meditation, kindling in her soul the fire of
heavenly love, she was never able to satiate the ardor of her desire in
adoring and praising the immense greatness and goodness of God.
Footnotes:
1. {Footnote not in text} Gallon. apud Contin. Bolland. Acta Sanctorum,
Maii, t. 6, p. 503, col. 2, n. 146.
2. Ibid. p. 504, col. 2.
3. In Bolland. Cherubini, t. 4, p. 8.