Catherine dei Ricci

Catherine dei Ricci spent most of her life in the Dominican convent at Prato in Tuscany and became famous for the physical effects on her body of the visions she was granted of Jesus.

Once in Lent 1542, she meditated so heartrendingly on the crucifixion of Jesus that she became seriously ill, until a vision of the Risen Jesus talking with Mary Magdalene restored her to health on Holy Saturday. For twelve years she went into a kind of trance each Thursday. Then her body would re-enact the sufferings of Jesus from the time of his arrest in the garden of Gethsemane, through his scourging, his trial, his painful journey to Golgotha and his crucifixion. The following day the saint came to consciousness again.

All this would have been regarded by many people as bizarre, even foolish. But Catherine was a person of great self-control and stern, practical common sense -- so much so that the nuns of her convent readily elected her as their prioress, convinced that she was able to administer their community better than anyone else. Catherine herself never regarded her trances as something to boast about. Together with her fellow-nuns, she begged God to put an end to them. Their prayers were answered in 1554, and the sisters once again began to live in peace, untroubled by crowds of curious visitors.

From A Calendar of Saints -
The Lives of the Principal Saints of the Christian Year

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