St. Catherine of Siena was born during an outbreak of the Plague in Siena in 1347. She was brought up in the faith and especially after her own sister died at the age of sixteen found herself committed to pursuits of piety. She joined the Dominican order and, at the age of twenty-one, had what she described as her "mystical marriage" to Christ. Today, we know St. Catherine mostly through the many letters she wrote to her fellow brothers and sisters in the faith and also through a collection of visions recorded largely by her fellow nuns as she grew close to death. These meditations combine her letters with several of these revelations wherein she speaks in the first person as though speaking from God himself. In her letters and meditations she speaks at great length about obedience, the centrality of Christ crucified to the faith, and how virtue should be pursued in our quest to grow in intimacy toward God.
