Catherine Benincasa of Siena (1347 - 1380)

I was born in Siena on the feast of the Annunciation, in the year 1347. I, and my twin sister who did not long survive, were the youngest of twenty-five children. My father, Giacomo Benincasa, was a prosperous wool dyer, and lived with my mother Lapa and our extended family, in a spacious house which the Sienese have preserved to the present day. As a child, I was so merry that the family gave me the pet name of Euphrosyne, which is Greek for Joy and also the name of an early Christian saint. At the age of six I had the remarkable experience which may be said to have determined my vocation. With my brother, I was on the way home from a visit to a married sister, when suddenly I stopped still in the road, gazing up into the sky. I did not hear the repeated calls of the boy, who had walked on ahead. Only after he had gone back and seized me by the hand did I wake as from a dream. I burst into tears. My vision of Christ seated in glory with the Apostles Peter, Paul, and John had