Learning from St. Catherine of Siena

What can we learn from St. Catherine of Siena?

God calls unexpected people to do His will. He raises the lowly to reveal his glory to those who are first and mighty as perceived by society.

One day when Catherine was around the age of twenty-one, she experienced a life-changing encounter–this time with Jesus’ wounds and he was preparing to shift her from a life of contemplation (which she had been doing for the past 2 years in her family home) to a new lifestyle of evangelization and ministry.

"Today I have chosen unschooled women, fearful and weak…but trained by Me in the knowledge of the divine, so that they may put vanity and pride to shame. If men will humbly receive the teachings I send them through [women] I will show them great mercy, but if they despise these women they shall fall into even worse confusion and even greater agony" (Sigrid Undset, Catherine of Siena, p. 52).

This kind of call to ministry for a woman during the 14th century is quite shocking. Especially given how introverted St. Catherine was at the time. Jesus had called her out of her room, out of her comfort zone as a textbook introvert, and join her family for dinner as one of her first steps to start living a more active life. As she rose to join her family for supper, imagine the expression of her parents, seeing their introverted daughter come to join for supper with the whole family, it must have been quite something.

Catherine’s entrance into deliverance ministry is quite inspiring. And one thing we can learn from it is that fear can make deliverance ministry more difficult. Jesus promised that if we believe in Him, we will do what He did and even greater things (John 14:12). Of all the works and ministries of Jesus, the one Catherine became most famous for was deliverance ministry. It started with the Monaldo family of Siena, who had a daughter named Lorenza who was experiencing debilitating cramps in her body. The family found out that on occasion, their young daughter was able to speak fluent Latin, without any training. Her parents first took Lorenza to the relic of a saint who was known to free people from demonic influence, although that did not help their daughter. Then they brought her to the Church, and she received the rite of exorcism, but this did not set her free either.

The parents then decided to take her to Catherine and ask her to pray for her. The Monaldos insisted that Catherine pray for their daughter’s deliverance, even though Catherine refused many times initially; they eventually changed Catherine’s mind. Once Catherine agreed, the girl was brought to Catherine’s room. And then Catherine stayed up all night in a spiritual battle with the demon that was afflicting Lorenza.  It wasn’t until four o'clock in the morning that she was able to free Lorenza from that affliction. Afterwards, Lorenza returned to her family, and she never showed any more signs of demonization.

“As Catherine continued to step out in faith in Jesus’s ministry of bringing freedom to those oppressed by demons, her faith in Christ increased which helped reduce the amount of time it took her to free people from demonic possession. In the deliverance of Lorenza Monaldo, it took Catherine hours, some mistakes, and multiple prayer sessions before the girl was set free from her demonic oppression. Later in her deliverance ministry we see that people were set free much faster and more easily. This is because Catherine went into the first deliverance with some degree of fear, and that accounted for the mess and difficulties. Once she dealt with her fear, her deliverance ministry bore great fruit and she was able to set people free from demonic influence” (Supernatural Saints, A school of Ministry from the Saints, Patrick Reis, p. 89).

One thing we can learn from St. Catherine is that lay people can do deliverance ministry, not just for family members, but for others too. How else could St. Catherine, who is not a priest or bishop, be able to do so for Lorenza? Catherine had no natural or ecclessial authority over any of the people from whom she cast out evil spirits, but she did have the baptismal authority Jesus gave her. Jesus said, “These signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will drive out demons” (Mark 16:17). Her intimacy with God gave her the faith necessary to cast out demons. It’s important to know that there is a formal difference between simple deliverance prayers made in faith and the rite of exorcism. Catherine was not engaging in a solemn exorcism; rather, she was ministering from her faith in Jesus using simple deliverance prayers of command. Blessed Raymond of Capua noted that the rite of exorcism had been previously employed and had not brought Lorenza freedom. Let us follow the example of St. Catherine and fearlessly pray for those who need to be set free through the promises of Jesus Christ.