Saint Catherine of Siena Expandable Bracelet

Saint Catherine of Siena, O.P. (March 25, 1347 April 29, 1380) was a Tertiary of the Dominican Order, and a Scholastic philosopher and theologian. She also worked to bring the Papacy back to Rome from its displacement in France, and to establish peace among the Italian city-states. In about 1366, St Catherine experienced what she described in her letters as a "Mystical Marriage" with Jesus, after which she began to tend the sick and serve the poor. In 1370, she received a series of visions of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, after which she heard a command to leave her withdrawn life and enter the public life of the world. Being illiterate, she dictated several letters to men and women in authority, especially begging for peace between the republics and principalities of Italy and for the return of the Papacy from Avignon to Rome. She carried on a long correspondence with Pope Gregory XI, also asking him to reform the clergy and the administration of the Papal States. St Catherine died of a stroke in Rome, the spring of 1380, at the age of thirty-three. The people of Siena wished to have her body. There is a myth that explains how Catherine's head was able to get to Siena, where it has been entombed in the Basilica of San Domenico. The people of Siena knew they could not get her whole body past Roman guards and decided to take only her head which they placed in a bag. They were still stopped by guards and they prayed to St Catherine to help them because they knew Catherine would rather be in Siena. When they opened the bag to show the guards, it no longer held her head, but was full of rose petals. Once they got back to Siena they reopened the bag and her head reappeared. Due of this myth, St Catherine is often seen holding a rose. Saint Catherine's body is buried in the Basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome, which is near the Pantheon. She is the Patron Saint of Italy along with Saint Francis of Assisi. In 1999, Pope John Paul II made her one of Europe's patron saints.