| Women Saints: Doctors of the Church |
This article focuses on two saints: women who made contributions to their religious heritage and who have been honored by their religious descendants for their work.
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In 1970, the Roman Catholic Church declared two women saints to be Doctors of the Church: Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) and Teresa of Avila (1515-1582). Both were of a mystical bent, and their writings are available on the web today. (A third woman was added as Doctor of the Church in 1977: Saint Térèse of Lisieux.)
Catherine of Siena was born into a large family, and many of her male relatives were public officials or went into the priesthood. She was the 25th child of her father, and was given to visions from early childhood. At 16 she became a Dominican tertiary.
She never learned to write and she had no formal education, dictating her letters and other writings to secretaries. The best known of her writings is The Dialogue, a series of theological treatises on doctrine written with a combination of logical precision and heart-felt emotion.
Her assertive and confrontational letters to bishops and popes as well as her commitment to direct service to the sick and the poor have made Catherine a role model for a more worldly and active spirituality. Dorothy Day credits reading a biography of Catherine as a major influence in her life on the way to founding the Catholic Worker Movement.
Her religious writings and good works (and perhaps her well-connected family or her tutor Raymond of Capua) brought her to the attention of Pope Gregory XI, still at Avignon, and Catherine as well as St. Bridget of Sweden are credited with persuading him to return to Rome in 1377. Later, in the Great Western Schism, she assertively supported Pope Urban VI and wrote strong and critical letters to those who supported the Anti-Pope.
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Not noted on the web (at least that I could find) was the controversy over her eating habits. Raymond of Capua wrote that she ate nothing for years except the host, and considered this a demonstration of her holiness. She died, he implies, as a result of her decision to abstain from not only all food but all water as well. An "anorexic for Jesus"? That's still a matter of considerable controversy among scholars.
Catherine was a favorite subject of several painters. To see some of these, check out the Web Gallery of Art. Note especially the Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine by Barna de Siena, the Marriage of Catherine of Siena by the Dominican Friar Fra Bartolomeo and a detail from Maesta (Madonna with Angels and Saints) by Duccio di Buoninsegna. The Pinturicchio of the Canonization of Catherine of Siena is one of better known artistic depictions of Catherine. (The black and white reproduction on this page is of this fresco.)
Catherine of Siena's feast day is April 29 and she is considered the patroness of Italy.
Some special web links related to Catherine:
- Avignon Papacy - from About.com's Guide to Medieval History
- an essay by Mary Ann Sullivan on Catherine of Siena that brings out her assertiveness and her compassion
- email postcards of artwork featuring Catherine of Siena from the Web Gallery of Art
- a short bio with a graphic of a beautiful (modern) stained glass depiction of Catherine, from the Aquinas Institute of Technology (with information about the artist, Sr. Elizabeth)
Teresa of Avila also lived in turbulent times: the West had been opened to exploration just before her birth, and the Reformation began two years after she was born in 1515 in Spain. As a child, she was pious and outgoing -- sometimes a mixture that her parents couldn't handle. Her father sent her at 16 to a convent, but when she decided to enter the convent as a vocation, he at first refused his permission.
In her 40s, Teresa began her work to reform her convent and in 1562 founded her own convent. Many of the nuns of her time lived away from the convent, and, when at the convent, followed the rules rather loosely. She re-emphasized prayer and poverty, working with others such as St. John of the Cross to establish the reform throughout the Carmelites. She also wrote, over five years, the Way of Perfection, perhaps her best-known writing.
With the support of the head of her order, she began to establish other convents that maintained the order's rule strictly. But she also met opposition, and the order separated as the Discalced Carmelites ("calced" referring to the wearing of footwear).
Most of her works, including her Autobiography, were written at the demand of authorities in her order, to demonstrate that she was doing her work of reform for holy reasons. She was under regular suspicion by the Inquisition, in part because her grandfather was a Jew. She objected to these assignments, wanting to work instead on the practical founding and managing of convents and the private work of prayer. But it is by those writings that we know her and her theological ideas.
Teresa of Avila, known also as Teresa of Jesus, died in 1582 while attending a birth. She was canonized in 1622, her feast day is October 15. She is the patron saint of headache sufferers.
Some special web links related to Teresa:
- an excellent online biography of Teresa.
- another excellent online biography (with a shorter biography as an introduction), both from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston
- The Interior Castle -- her other great work on prayer, honored as one of the great works of mysticism
- the Prayer of Spiritual Marriage from Interior Castle
- an image of Teresa of Avila
- another biographical essay and yet another: these are both on Roman Catholic sites highlighting various saints
- a lectionary selection highlighting Teresa of Avila, with prayers and readings
- web site for Avila College, formerly St. Teresa's, a Kansas City women's college that pioneered women's education in social work, nursing, women's studies, and gerontology
- Spiritual Life, a quarterly journal of spirituality that often features the writings of Teresa of Avila
Author: Jone Johnson Lewis.
Title: "Women Saints: Doctors of the Church"
This URL: http://womenshistory.about.com/library/weekly/aa021599.htm
Text copyright 1999-2001 © Jone Johnson Lewis. All rights reserved.
