Some Franciscan saints led fairly public lives; Catharine represents the saints who served the Lord in obscurity. 🛐
March 28, 2024
Dear John,
Congratulations. Our forty days of Lent are now complete. We now begin the three days of the sacred Paschal Triduum: Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter. We celebrate the Paschal Mystery of our Lord Jesus Christ, the central mysteries of our faith, both the Passion, his suffering and death, and the Resurrection, his glorious triumph over sin and the grave.
During today’s service, Jesus, ever wanting to serve, takes off his cloak and, taking the role of a servant, washes the feet of his disciples. Let us pray for our priests, ministers, and people in positions of service to remain humble in that service.
Saint of the Day for March 28: Catharine of Bologna
(September 8, 1413 – March 9, 1463)
Saint Catharine of Bologna’s Story
Some Franciscan saints led fairly public lives; Catharine represents the saints who served the Lord in obscurity.
Born in Bologna, Catharine was related to the nobility in Ferrara, and was educated at court there. She received a liberal education at the court and developed some interest and talent in painting. In later years as a Poor Clare, Catharine sometimes did manuscript illumination and also painted miniatures.
At the age of 17, she joined a group of religious women in Ferrara. Four years later, the whole group joined the Poor Clares in that city. Jobs as convent baker and portress preceded her selection as novice mistress.
In 1456, she and 15 other sisters were sent to establish a Poor Clare monastery in Florence. As abbess, Catharine worked to preserve the peace of the new community. Her reputation for holiness drew many young women to the Poor Clare life. She was canonized in 1712. The liturgical feast of Saint Catharine of Bologna is celebrated on May 9.
Reflection
Appreciating Catharine’s life in a Poor Clare monastery may be hard for us. “It seems like such a waste,” we may be tempted to say. Through prayer, penance, and charity to her sisters, Catharine drew close to God. Our goal is the same as hers, even if our paths are different.
Saint Catharine of Bologna is a Patron Saint of:
Art Artists
Find a deeper understanding of pain and healing from Ronald Rolheiser, OMI.
Ronald Rolheiser, one of the most influential spiritual writers of our day, offers profound reflections on the central mystery of our Christian faith. His meditations on the passion and the cross invites you to a new understanding of redemption and offers insight into the meaning of your own suffering.
When Jesus invites us to be his disciples saying, “If any of you want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23), it is not necessarily the safe, comfortable, and sterile use of metaphor with which some have described this passage away in retrospect. Those who envision the cross Jesus speaks about as a figurative device likely forget the next line in the Lord’s address to us: “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it” (Luke 9:24).
Those few friends and family members who stayed behind and perhaps risked their own lives for the sake of their friend and Lord have denied themselves to follow Jesus. And where the fleeing disciples feared the loneliness of abandonment and death that Jesus faced, those who remained discovered something quite the opposite. In Jesus’ words to his mother and his friend John we see the promise of community. He brings together those who have gathered at the foot of his cross and assures them that they will have each other.
Monsignor Vincenzo Peroni, master of ceremonies for Pope Francis, takes pilgrims on an unforgettable tour of the most important sites in the Holy Land through guided meditations and prayerful reflections.
Eighteen original watercolor drawings by Alessandro Alghisi capture the beauty and sacredness of these places.
Christ taught us how to break bread. Christ taught us how to build tables that welcome all to participate in that breaking of bread. From the upper room to the road to Emmaus, to Sunday liturgies, to welcoming a stranger into our homes—Christ has taught us how to break bread. It is in breaking bread together that we encounter the liberating force of the Resurrection.
Pray
To the hands that rolled and baked and carved this bread, the hands toiled and worked on the table, the hands that welcome each of us to a seat at the table, the hands that broke the bread and said, “Eat, this is my body, broken for you,” we ask for the guidance of our own hearts. To those hands, we ask that our hearts of stone be broken and made anew. To those hands, we ask to open our fists to welcome the other. To the hands that toiled, broke bread, and brought up the lowly, may they move us on toward liberation. Amen.
Act
With friends and family, find time this week to sit together and read the Scripture passage of Jesus and the disciples at the Last Supper. Call for the Holy Spirit to illuminate your own hearts and hands, to guide you as a community to welcome newcomers and “the other” to break bread with you on Easter Sunday.
Today's Pause+Pray was written by Vanessa Zuleta Goldberg. Learn more here!
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