Catherine of Siena

So i decided to do a little more research on this Catherine of Siena person. I personally didn't like the reading we had of her because it was all first person from Gods point of view and I thought that was kind of weird. While doing this background research I found a lot of pretty funny pictures. Most of which were about the "Mystic Marriage" of Catherine to Jesus, like the ones we saw in class. But there where other ones too, like this one ->

The big part of this picture is of the marriage to Jesus, in this one he is an adult but still putting the ring on her finger like the others. What I found interesting of this picture as opposed to the others though was the mini-pictures below the main picture. There are three smaller pictures at the bottom, one of a demon being killed by a hammer, one of an angel bringing two different soldiers together, and the third is of an angel fighting a demon. These pictures bring in the different parts of Catherine's story into one picture. This is ironic though as we also read about Hildegard who talked about demons, the Devil in particular, and these demons kind of resemble the worm-fox hybrid thing we saw in Hildegard's pictures. One difference of this picture from the others, however, is the missing of the stigmata from Catherine's hands. This could be due in part because as we read Catherine did not like to mention her stigmata to other people. 

[Picture from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_of_Siena"]

Hildegard von Bingen vs. Catherine of Sienna

I feel like during Hildegard's time she could have been viewed more as a witch rather than a saint in comparison to Catherine and her time. Hildegard does go on in great detail about the female sex and what-not and I agree that things like this was more connected to being a witch since our books always say witches have sex with the devil. So it makes sense that she got this information from the devil. During Hildegard's time it was easier to directly link her with witchcraft because if you are suppose to be holy and be like on God's side I would think that she would be more like Catherine.

 

Source: http://www.marypages.com/SienaEng.htm

In the reading for Catherine of Sienna she uses a lot of Biblical references which to me makes it seem like that is what a saint should be like. She describes the sin that people make and the process that people would have to go through to be let into heaven once they die. I feel like the way she justified her arguments would be taken better by the people of her time period. I know we said that it was absolutely strange for her to speak for God by saying I this, I that but to me the things she wrote about made sense. Also, she definitely did not talk about sex like Hildegard did.

Even though they both dedicated their life to God I thought that Hildegard was more on the humanist-biological point of view whereas Catherine was more from a religious-godly perspective point of view. Maybe Hildegard went into great detail about sex because once she read the Bible she felt like there was information needed on this topic. I mean the bible doesn't really talk about sex in great detail so that makes sense. I feel like her upbringing and her status definitely played a major role though as to why she was not tried for witchcraft. Like if a poor low class women who no one knows started saying what Hildegard said, she would have an unhappy ending.

We also talked about how it was strange for these two women to be like a saint and have a higher connection with God but I mean if God wants to send out information to humans why can't it be women that receives these messages? I mean at that time I just think they were sexist because God is suppose to be forgiving, loving, and all these great things but is God a sexist then if God only speaks to men? I just feel like its a lose-lose situation that's going on here.