Today is the Memorial of Saint Catherine of Siena, Virgin and Doctor (died 1380). And today is the birthday of Richard’s sister Susan in Iowa (1946) and of my good friend Julie’s husband Gus in Louisiana (1956).
Saint Catherine of Siena, Virgin and Doctor (died 1380) was born as Caterina Benincasa in 1347 at Siena, Tuscany, the twenty-third of twenty-five children (most of her mother’s children died in infancy). At the age of six she had a vision in which Jesus appeared and blessed her. Her parents wanted her to marry, but she became a Dominican tertiary (over the objections of the Tertiaries themselves, who until up to then had all been widows). In about 1366 she experienced what she described in her letters as a “Mystical Marriage” with Jesus. At this time she was told by Christ to leave her withdrawn life and enter the public life of the world. Catherine dedicated much of her life to helping the ill and the poor, where she took care of them in hospitals or homes. Her early pious activities in Siena attracted a group of followers, both women and men, while they also brought her to the attention of the Dominican Order, which called her to Florence in 1374 to interrogate her for possible heresy. After this visit, in which she was deemed sufficiently orthodox, she began traveling with her followers throughout northern and central Italy advocating reform of the clergy, the launch of a new crusade, and advising people that repentance and renewal could be done through “the total love for God.” In the early 1370s she began writing letters to men and women of her circle, increasingly widening her audience to include figures in authority as she begged for peace between the republics and principalities of Italy and for the return of the Papacy from Avignon to Rome. Catherine’s letters are considered one of the great works of early Tuscan literature; more than three hundred letters have survived. She carried on a long correspondence with Pope Gregory XI, also asking him to reform the clergy and the administration of the Papal States. Other correspondents included her various confessors, the kings of France and Hungary, the infamous mercenary John Hawkwood, the Queen of Naples, members of the Visconti family of Milan, and numerous religious figures. Roughly one third of her letters were to women. Her major work was The Dialogue of Divine Providence, a dialogue between a soul who “rises up” to God and God Himself, and recorded between 1377 and 1378 by members of her circle. Often assumed to be illiterate, Catherine was acknowledged by her biographers to be quite literate. In June of 1376 Catherine went to Avignon herself as ambassador of Florence to make peace with the Papal States, but was unsuccessful. She also tried to convince Pope Gregory XI to return to Rome. She impressed the Pope so much that he returned his administration to Rome in January, 1377. Following Gregory’s death and during the Western Schism of 1378 she was an adherent of Pope Urban VI, who summoned her to Rome, and stayed at Pope Urban VI’s court and tried to convince nobles and cardinals of his legitimacy. She lived in Rome until her death in 1380. The problems of the Western Schism would trouble her until the end of her life. An adherent of extreme fasting and prayer, it seems possible that her extreme practices contributed to her early death at the age of thirty-three. She was named a Doctor of the Church in 1970, and is the Patron Saint of the United States, of Europe, of Italy, of the diocese of Allentown, Pennsylvania, of people ridiculed for their piety, of nurses, and of the sick, and her aid is invoked against fire and miscarriages. And today is the birthday of Richard’s sister Susan in Iowa (1946), and of my good friend Julie’s husband Gus in Louisiana (1956).
Last night I continued reading The Cat Who Brought Down the House by Lilian Jackson Braun (Ebook).
Thunderstorms arrived early in the morning at about 3:00 am. Richard fed the cats, and I woke up at 8:00 am. Richard went to drink coffee and came home. I did my Book Devotional Reading, printed out my medications sheet, and ate my breakfast toast and read the Acadiana Advocate out on the porch (still raining, with thunder). I then did my Internet Devotional Reading. The rain quit, and I left the house at 12:00 pm. I had my dental appointment in Mamou; my next appointment with them will be on August 6th. I then went to Walmart in town, where I got household items and groceries. I arrived home at 2:00 pm, and continued reading A Real Right to Vote: How a Constitutional Amendment Can Safeguard American Democracy by Richard L. Hasen (Ebook). My spice rack jar labels were delivered by Amazon, and I put the new labels on the spice rack jars, and ordered some replacement spice rack jars. I then continued reading A Real Right to Vote: How a Constitutional Amendment Can Safeguard American Democracy by Richard L. Hasen (Ebook). After I watched Jeopardy! and News, I made bacon wrapped chicken. I gathered up the trash and wheeled the trash bin out to the curb. We ate the bacon wrapped chicken, mashed potatoes, and canned asparagus for dinner, and watched The Brokenwood Mysteries 1001 “Brokenwood-o-Saurus” (2024). And I will now finish this Daily Update, do some reading, and go to bed. At the NBA Playoffs – First Round, our New Orleans Pelicans are playing a Home NBA game with the Oklahoma City Thunder, with the series at 3 and 0 in favor of the Thunder; our Pelicans need to start winning, or else they will be out of the playoffs after Monday’s game.
Tomorrow is the Optional Memorial of Saint Pius V, Pope (died 1572) and the Optional Memorial of Saint Marie of the Incarnation, Religious (died 1672). Tomorrow is also the Anniversary of Louisiana Statehood (1812) and Walpurgisnacht. I plan to leaf blow the porch tomorrow, and to shower and water the porch plants (everything else got very well watered with the rain today). Our LSU Tigers (28-17, 7-14) will be playing a Home College Baseball game with the Grambling State University Tigers (18-22, 15-6).
Our Parting Quote on this Monday evening comes to us from Joanna Barnes, American actress and writer (died 2022). Born in 1934 in Boston, Massachusetts, she grew up in the Hingham suburbs. At Smith College, she received the college’s award for poetry, the immediate successor to Sylvia Plath for this recognition. She married her first husband in 1955, but the marriage ended soon afterwards. After graduating in 1956 she opted to go into acting and moved to the West Coast. Her first television work was in Tales of the 77th Bengal Lancers in 1956, and her first movie work was in The Garment Jungle (1957). Among her most remembered roles was as the snooty Gloria Upson in the film Auntie Mame (1958), which earned her a Golden Globe Award nomination for New Star of the Year. In 1959’s Tarzan, the Ape Man, she played Jane Parker. Barnes was in eleven of the thirteen episodes of Steve Canyon in 1959. She played Claudia Marius in Spartacus (1960). In July 1960 Barnes was dropped from the Boston Social Register for having become an actress. She married her second husband, actor Lawrence Dobkin in 1961. In The Parent Trap (1961) starring Hayley Mills, Barnes played gold-digger Vicki Robinson, who temporarily comes between Maureen O’Hara and Brian Keith. Barnes was in The War Wagon in 1967, the same year she and her second husband were divorced. Her first book was Starting from Scratch – A Guide to Home Decorating (1968); she also wrote several novels, including The Deceivers (1970), Who Is Carla Hart? (1973), Pastora (1980), and Silverwood (1985). Meanwhile, on December 19th, 1972, Barnes appeared on The Merv Griffin Show with Joan Fontaine, Zsa Zsa Gabor and Dan Martino (founder of the Dan Martino School for Men). She married her third husband in 1980. She wrote a weekly book review for the Los Angeles Times, and her column “Touching Home” was carried by The Chicago Tribune and the New York News Syndicate. In the 1998 remake of The Parent Trap starring Lindsay Lohan, she played Vicki Blake, the mother of the child-hating gold-digger and fiancée Meredith Blake (Elaine Hendrix); this was Barnes’ last movie. Her third husband died in 2012 (died 2022): “With acting, if you win an Oscar or an Emmy, you have to thank everybody. If you write a book, it is completely your own.”
From The Recamier 