Santa Caterina da Siena, from a woman of the people to an advisor to Popes and princes. Courageous, wise, and completely devoted to Christ. Let’s get to know better the patroness of Italy.

Thinking of Caterina da Siena, the first reflection that arises is how faith can truly lift us from our condition, make us better day after day, until allowing us to achieve truly surprising feats in our lives. But what is so incredible about the story of this saint, who lived in the mid-14th century in Tuscany, in a land torn apart by fratricidal conflicts and profound political and religious upheavals, yet also traversed by a spiritual, cultural, and artistic impulse that has no equal? We remember her symbols, the book and the lily: doctrine on one side, and purity on the other. A dichotomy that is perhaps also the key to understanding the greatness of this woman, who offered her life to God and His neediest children, who divided her time between caring for the sick—those afflicted by illnesses so unpleasant and dangerous that no one else wanted to treat—and writing theological texts that earned her the title of Doctor of the Church in 1970, never before conferred on a woman. A model of life that still resonates today with extraordinary relevance. It’s no wonder we mentioned her in our article dedicated to Saints who changed the world.

Author of the Dialogue of Divine Providence, one of the masterpieces of medieval mystical literature, Santa Caterina was a religious, theologian, and philosopher.

‘Married’ in mystical union to Jesus, she trusted in the salvation represented by the Pope (whom she called the “sweet Christ on earth“) and the Church for all Christians.

Her Letters of comfort, advice, and exhortation, addressed to sovereigns, leaders, and literati, had an incredible effect on many events and controversies. They were later compiled by her disciples into a precious Epistolary still considered a reference for all religious.

We can confidently say that her writings and fervor gave a great impetus to the Church’s reform.

Among the saints and blessed, Caterina is also among those considered healing saints and those to turn to in case of illness. Not only because she is, among other things, the patroness of nurses, but precisely because she cared for the sick and seriously ill, especially victims of terrible epidemics.

Her absolute and total love for Jesus, capable of plunging her into mystical ecstasies of rare spiritual power, is considered a bridge between heaven and earth, an example of devotion and complete trust in God that has few equals.

But who was Santa Caterina da Siena?

Her Story

When Caterina was born, the twenty-fourth of twenty-five children of Jacopo Benincasa, a dyer, and his wife Donna Lapa Piacenti, no one could imagine what her extraordinary destiny would be. It was the mid-14th century, and for a girl like her, born in the Fontebranda district, in the Oca contrada, from a humble family, there were no other prospects than marriage and creating her own family. But Caterina was not an ordinary girl. Since childhood, she claimed to ‘see’ things, like when at six, she recounted that Jesus appeared to her dressed like the Pope, accompanied by Saint Peter, Saint John, and Saint Paul.

Christ himself would appear to her at twenty, accompanied by the Virgin Mary, His mother, to make her His bride with a ring symbolizing the mystical marriage.

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Saint Peter and Saint Paul

Hand-painted Greek icon on an aged wood plate decorated with golden leaf

But even as a child, Caterina seems to foreshadow her own destiny because at seven, she made a vow of chastity, and at twelve, she rejected the marriage her parents wanted for her, expressing the intention of taking vows. Too poor to afford the substantial dowry that women had to present to enter a monastery and opposed by her family for her ideas, she shut herself in, dedicating her life to prayer, penance, and fasting. She renounced meat, ate very little, only bitter herbs and fruit, and used the cilice. In the end, impressed by her determination, her father changed his mind and decided to help her fulfill her dream. Legend has it that the sight of a dove hovering over his daughter praying convinced him. But to be admitted to the Mantellate, the lay Dominican Tertiaries known as Sisters of Penance of St. Dominic, Caterina had to face new obstacles. Because she was denied entry to the order due to her youth and beauty, she fell victim to a fever that disfigured her face and made her appear older than her age.

At just sixteen, she entered the order, but for three years, she lived profoundly isolated from the other sisters. The reason is simple: not knowing Latin, she could not participate in common prayer. However, the Mantellate, who usually accepted only widows and older women, allowed her to live in the world while maintaining the vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience. And so, in the world, Caterina lived, dedicating herself entirely to the neediest, the sick, those abandoned by their own relatives for the severity of their condition.

At the end of the Carnival of 1367, her mystical marriage to Jesus took place, a marriage lived in a sweet ecstasy in which her deep and enduring bond with Christ was sealed.

Meanwhile, she also committed to learning to read and write, although a good part of her letters and works were written for her by the so-called “Bella brigade,” a kind of spiritual family of disciples who loved and followed her everywhere.

Thus, her extraordinary texts were born, such as the Dialogue of Divine Providence, her Prayers, and above all, the Letters, addressed to common people, military personnel, religious, women, and even prisoners, but also to eminent personalities of the politics and religious world of the time. To the latter, in particular, she submitted civil and political issues, from the pacification of Italy to the need for a new crusade, to the return of the papal seat from Avignon to Rome, to the reform of the Church. High, complicated topics that this woman of the people managed to face with truly miraculous mastery and impressive fervor, validating the voices that claim she was directly inspired by God.

On April 1, 1375, Palm Sunday, while praying in front of the crucifix in the church of Santa Cristina, she received the stigmata, but they remained visible only to her at first. She continued her political and social activity, attempting to stop the anti-papal league that arose around Florence and making a trip to Avignon to persuade Pope Gregory XI to return to Rome. The pontiff was persuaded and returned, but upon his death, a schism occurred, and the Church found itself with two Popes, Urban VI and Clement VII, who returned to Avignon.

Caterina died on April 29, 1380, commending herself to God: “Father, into Your hands I commend my spirit and soul.”

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the life of the Saint

Patroness of Italy

Therefore, Santa Caterina da Siena is celebrated on April 29, the day of her death. She is often depicted in the typical attire of the order to which she belonged, that of the Mantellate: a white dress with a black mantle. Her emblems are the white lily, a symbol of her purity and chastity, the ring symbolizing the mystical marriage with Jesus, a book and a pen, recalling her wisdom and her activity as a writer and theologian, and also the stigmata, the crown of thorns, the cross, the heart.

Since 1939, she has been the patroness of Italy, along with Saint Francis of Assisi. In 1999, Pope John Paul II also proclaimed her co-patroness of Europe.

Novena to Santa Caterina da Siena

The Novena to Santa Caterina can be recited in preparation for her feast on April 29, for nine days starting from April 20 to April 28, or whenever the need is felt, to seek support and comfort in difficult times.

First Day

For that spirit of prayer that you had since childhood, in which you placed all your delights, and with the angelic salutation repeatedly uttered by you as many times as the steps of the stairs you climbed, continuously paid homage to the holy Virgin Mary, obtain for us, we pray, the grace to love, like you, the exercise of prayer and to always perform it in such a way that it is worthy of being heard.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Second Day

For that particular affection that you, great Saint, had for the virtue of purity, by consecrating yourself to the Lord with an irrevocable vow at the age of eight and, by shaving your head, sighing, and moaning, you rejected the most honorable offers of highly advantageous marriage. Obtain for us, we pray, the grace to always be firm in mind, heart, and conduct or to abhor with the utmost hatred everything that even slightly offends such a sublime virtue that elevates men to the level of angels and makes them dearer objects of divine pleasure.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Third Day

For that spirit of seclusion that you had, great Saint, by never desiring to be seen by others except by your Jesus, and being distracted by continuous occupations in your family, you knew how to build such solitude in your heart as to always have the mountain occupied by thoughts of paradise. Obtain for us, we pray, the grace to love solitude and withdrawal like you, despite all the invitations that the world will make to participate in its spectacles, in its pomp, and to always direct our thoughts to God amid all the most distracting occupations of our state.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Fourth Day

For that spirit of penance that you had, great Saint, from your childhood, when you punished your indulgence of a single time with the most ingenious or afflictive mortifications. Therefore, associated with the Third Order of Saint Dominic, you edified the whole world by abstaining perpetually from wine and meat, and almost even from sleep, nourishing yourself only with raw herbs, sleeping very little and on bare boards, spending all hours in prayer, always carrying around your body a painful cilice, mortifying your flesh with three disciplines every day. Obtain for us, we pray, the grace to faithfully observe those abstinences and fasts commanded by the Church, to bear with patience everything that God will deign to ordain for our good or to mortify spontaneously all the perverse inclinations of our heart and the excessive desires of our senses so that we may also have the necessary resemblance to our exemplary crucified one.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Fifth Day

For that heroic charity that moved you, great Saint, to serve spontaneously and personally heal the poor sick abandoned by all for the loathsomeness and then the stench of their gangrenous wounds, and from whom you were not relieved except with the most dishonorable insults, slanders, and calumnies. Obtain from the Lord the grace for us to always be equally ready to help our neighbour in every need and to generously forgive, rather to reciprocate with benefits, all the insults that may be done to us, so that we may deserve in this life and the next the beatitude promised to the true meek and merciful.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Sixth Day

For that admirable fortitude that, with the doubling of prayers, austerities, and fervour, you demonstrated, great Saint, against all the powers of the interior that unleashed against you persecuted you for so long with the most unworthy images in the most violent temptations. For this, you received as a reward from your divine Spouse, beyond the familiarity of speaking and dealing with His Saints and His mother Mary, the raptures, ecstasies, revelations, and the most intimate communications with Him, until being declared His spouse with the sensible gift of a rich ring. Obtain for us, we pray, the grace to be equally strong against the assaults of our spiritual enemies so that the reward of our fidelity may always increase every day in divine love until we deserve with certainty the inseparable union with the supreme Good.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Seventh Day

For that supernatural light with which you were miraculously endowed, great Saint, by which you could serve as a counsellor to the Roman Pontiffs with many letters, being personally consulted by them, and reveal to them what they had resolved in their own hearts, and obtain from them the long-awaited restoration of the Holy See in Rome, which had been deprived of it for seventy years. Obtain for us from the Lord the grace to always know in our doubts what is most in conformity with God’s will and most suitable for the salvation of our souls so that from our resolutions may derive the increase both of our fervour before God and our edification concerning our neighbour.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Eighth Day

For that singular devotion that you had, great Saint, to Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, by which you were more than once communicated by His hand and refreshed at His side with His divine Blood. Then, having lost the taste for food, you endured for eight years from the beginning of Lent until the day of the Ascension without nourishing yourself with anything other than the most holy Eucharist. Obtain for us, we pray, the grace to bring to the Most Holy Sacrament a love like yours, so that we make it our delight to linger long in His presence, to frequently receive Him into our hearts, and to give Him the greatest possible glorification in every circumstance.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Ninth Day

For that extraordinary love, you had for suffering, by which you ascribed to great fortune the suffering of all the pains of a crucified body in the invisible stigmata. Surprised by the last illness, you became a spectacle of admiration to the whole world for the serenity and glory with which you endured the most terrifying torments. Obtain from the Lord the grace for us to receive with Christian resignation, indeed with holy joy, all the crosses with which God will deign to visit us, so that after having borne the mortification of Christ in our members, we may, with you, participate in the fullness of His beatitude in the house of eternity.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

The opening of the Holy Door marks the beginning of the Jubilee, but it also represents a spiritually evocative symbol for Christians. Here’s what it entails.

The door has always held fundamental importance throughout human history. As a protective and defensive element for villages, cities, and palaces, it also assumed strong spiritual symbolism in the Greek and Roman worlds as a passage between worlds, a point of transition, and a boundary between life and death. This strong spiritual significance is confirmed in the Christian context with the so-called Holy Door.

What is it, and what does it signify? And why is it called the Holy Door?

From a strictly material point of view, we can define the Holy Door as the door of a Christian church or basilica that the Pope has proclaimed as such. This door is kept walled up and is only opened on the occasion of a Jubilee when it can be crossed to obtain plenary indulgence from all sins. Indeed, the Jubilee is a period lasting a year during which the Church grants special indulgences to those who undertake pilgrimages, engage in acts of charity, devote themselves to prayer and penance, or, in this case, pass through one of the Holy Doors proclaimed by the Pope.

Regarding the symbolic meaning of the Holy Door, we find the door mentioned in Ezekiel as the gateway through which the glory of God enters the house but also the soul: “Then he led me to the gate, the gate facing east. And behold, the glory of the God of Israel was coming from the east. His voice was like the sound of many glasses of water, and the earth shone with his glory. And the vision I saw was just like the vision that I had seen when he came to destroy the city, and the visions were like the vision that I had seen by the Chebar canal, and I fell on my face. And the glory of the Lord entered the house by the gate facing east.” (Ezekiel 43:1-4).

However, we can better understand the significance of the Holy Door in the Gospel of John, where it is written: “So Jesus said to them again, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture” (John 10:7). Thus, Jesus speaks of Himself as a door, and so the Holy Door becomes the necessary passage for those who want to follow Him, finding in Him redemption from every sin and salvation.

The tradition of the Holy Door is ancient. The first to proclaim one was Pope Celestine V, who in 1294 declared the door of the Basilica of Santa Maria di Collemaggio in L’Aquila as such, still today the site of the annual Jubilee wanted by Celestine himself through the Bull of Pardon of September 29, 1294, known as the Celestinian Pardon and classified by UNESCO as an oral and intangible heritage of humanity.

Today, there are many Jubilee doors, among which, in addition to that of St. Peter and the Holy Door in St. John Lateran in Rome, we can remember those of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, the Cathedral of Atri, and the Basilica-Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Québec. The Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in New Delhi, India, opened its Holy Door on December 12, 2015, on the occasion of the beginning of the Jubilee of Mercy.

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The Holy Door of St. Peter

The earliest references to the Holy Door in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome date back to the pontificate of Pope Alexander VI Borgia.

It is one of the five doors of St. Peter‘s Basilica and is located at the far right of the atrium. It remained closed until 1950 and is surrounded by a carved marble frame made at the behest of Pope Gregory XIII on the occasion of the Jubilee of 1575. The original bronze shutters were donated in 1949 by the Swiss bishop Francesco Von Streng as an ex-voto for preserving Switzerland from war. The current door was made for the Jubilee of 1950 by Vico Consorti, the “master of doors.” The Holy Door of St. Peter is made up of 16 rectangular tiles that tell the human story from dawn to the present day, placed in 4 orders, among which are 36 coats of arms. At the base of the two leaves, among the various inscriptions, it reads: “From here let the sources of divine Grace flow abundantly, and let them purify the souls of all those who enter, restore them with holy peace, adorn them with Christian virtues. Jubilee Year 1950.”

Opening of the Holy Door

The Jubilee begins with the opening of the Holy Door of St. Peter and concludes with its closure.

The rite of opening the Holy Door recalls the symbolism we have already discussed, of the door as a necessary passage for salvation. The opening of the Holy Door of St. Peter, in particular, marks the beginning of the Jubilee. In the following days, the doors of the other Jubilee basilicas will be opened worldwide.

Traditionally, the Holy Door was started to be unblocked in preparation for the Jubilee. It was the Pope’s task to symbolically break the last barrier with a hammer, and then let the masons complete the work. The tradition of walling up the Holy Door of St. Peter and opening it only on the occasion of the Jubilee remained in force until 1975. Subsequently, in 2000, Pope John Paul II, who risked being hit by falling debris while performing the rite, decided to change the custom, and since then, the Holy Door has simply been closed at the end of the Jubilee and reopened for the next Jubilee.

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John Paul II

Department dedicated to John Paul II

How many Holy Doors are there

The Pope has the authority to proclaim any door of any church in the world as a Holy Door. In Rome, in addition to St. Peter‘s, there is a Holy Door in the basilicas of St. John Lateran, St. Paul Outside the Walls, and St. Mary Major. On the occasion of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy (December 8, 2015, to November 20, 2016), Pope Francis asked for the collaboration of bishops to identify the most significant places for the faithful and granted the opening of the Holy Door also in the cathedral churches, in addition to the basilicas. Thus, many churches that are habitual pilgrimage destinations have had their Holy Door granted by the Pope and have been able to grant plenary indulgence to their faithful.

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Pope Francis

Department entirely dedicated to Pope Jorge Mario Bergoglio

What became of Our Lady after the Resurrection of Jesus? Let’s investigate Mary’s life through the Gospels, up to the day of her Assumption into Heaven

What happened to Mary the mother of Jesus after the death and Resurrection of Her Son? The Gospels do not tell us much about this, only a few hints that allow us to partially reconstruct Mary’s life after the tragic events in Jerusalem. Subsequent tradition has tried to reconstruct her movements in more or less imaginative ways. If we stick to the Holy Scriptures, we must infer that Our Lady remained in Jerusalem with the Apostles, and in particular with St. John the Apostle, to whom Jesus had entrusted her before dying. In the Gospel of John we read, “Jesus then, seeing his mother beside the disciple whom he loved, said to his mother, “Woman, behold your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold your mother!” And from that time the disciple took her into his house.” (Jn. 19:26-27).

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From this passage we have two indications: Mary stayed with Jesus’ favorite disciple, that apostle John, brother of the apostles Simon Peter and Andrew, author of the Fourth Gospel, and presumably they went to live in the city of Ephesus, where John settled. In fact, according to the accounts of Irenaeus of Lyons and Polycrates of Ephesus, St. John, after sojourning for a short time on the island of Patmos, moved to Ephesus, in present-day Turkey, and went to live in a house on an uninhabited hillside. When the time came for him to die, the Lord warned him, and John dug a tomb in the shape of a cross and lay down in it. In that hole he disappeared shrouded in great light and sweetest perfume. His disciples buried him, but they related that in the following days the earth placed on the tomb kept rising, as if moved by a breath. Hence the name given to the hill: aya soluk, “holy breath.”

But before reaching Ephesus we know that Mary and John remained in Jerusalem with the other apostles until the day of Pentecost. In the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 2:1-11) we read the episode: Mary and all the Apostles were in the same place when “Suddenly there came a roaring from heaven, as of a gusty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were. There appeared to them tongues like tongues of fire dividing and resting on each of them; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them power to express themselves.” We can say that Mary is the very heart of Pentecost, she who has always interceded with God for menkind, and who participates in the descent of the Holy Spirit, almost a catalyst, who made possible by his grace the investiture of the Apostles and the promise of hope for all men.

Mary’s home in Ephesus

The house of Our Lady was in Ephesus. Or so it is presumable to believe, if indeed Mary Mother of God went to live in this city in her later years. In fact, there is a place of worship in Ephesus, The House of Mary, in Turkish Meryem Ana Evi, visited annually by at least 1 million pilgrims, both Christian and Muslim. It was discovered in the late 19th century by a research team of religious and lay people led by Sister Marie de Mandat-Grancey, a French nun devoted to Mary and obsessed with finding the place where she lived. It was she who started from the directions left by the German mystic Anna Katerina Emmerick, who had had visions about Mary and St. John and their lives after Jesus’ Resurrection. In one of her books published in Munich in 1852 the mystic had related that she had seen the house, and that it was made of rectangular stones, with large windows, formed of two parts, with the hearth in the center. Anna Katerina Emmerick had also told where the house stood: “Mary did not live exactly in Ephesus, but in a nearby village. Mary’s dwelling was on a hill to the left of the road in the direction of Jerusalem, about three and a half hours from Ephesus. This hill thins out steeply as you turn toward Ephesus; approaching from the southeast, the city seems to lie on raised ground… Narrow paths in a southerly direction lead to a hill, at the summit of which there is an irregular plateau, about half an hour’s journey away.”

The mystic Maria Valtorta also claimed to have had detailed visions and conversations with Mary and Jesus. Sister Marie compared the writings of the two women and following the indications in them discovered the place where Mary’s house stood, on a hill outside the city. A few years earlier the French priest Julien Gouyet had already found here the remains of a building that he linked back to Mary’s story. Excavation uncovered the remains of a house dating from the first century, on which the first basilica dedicated to Mary had been erected in the fifth century. Locals called those ruins Panaya Kapulu, “Gate of the Virgin.” The nun purchased the land, which immediately became a destination for pilgrimages and even plenary indulgences at the behest of Pope St. John XXIII and other pontiffs after him.

Meta description: Where did Our Lady live after the Resurrection of Jesus? The Gospels offer brief insights into Mary’s life in her later years. Her home is located in Ephesus

The washing of the feet is one of the greatest gestures of God’s love. Here is how it happened and how it is repeated every year between the rites of Holy Thursday

There is one particular episode that is told only in one of the four Gospels. It is the washing of the feet, that is, the moment when Jesus, having found himself for the last time with the Apostles to have the Paschal Supper, kneels down and washes the feet of each of them. This gesture of absolute humility on the part of the Master towards his disciples is not mentioned in the synoptic Gospels, that is, those of Mark, Matthew and Luke. It is present only in the Gospel of John, where instead the institution of the Eucharist is lacking.

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But what does this episode mean? We must think that among the many Jewish customs there was that the head of the family had to wash the hands of the guests before starting the Easter dinner. Moreover, in the Jewish world washing someone’s feet was a manifestation of great hospitality and devotion, a gesture that the servant reserved for the master, or the wife for the husband. The fact that on the occasion of the Last Supper, it was Jesus who undressed himself, wrapped his hips with the towel, the cloth that was used precisely for this practice, and kneeling puts the act of washing the feet under a completely new light.

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In the last general audience before Easter 2021 Pope Francis recalled that: “Jesus replaced the sacrificial victim – the Paschal Lamb – with himself: his Body and his Blood give us salvation from the slavery of sin and death. Salvation from all bondage is there It is the evening when He asks us to love each other by making us servants of one another, as He did by washing the disciples’ feet.”

The story in the Gospel of John

Here is briefly how John in his Gospel tells the episode of the washing of the feet (John 13). Jesus decreed a place to meet with the Apostles. The Lord knew that His time in the world was coming to an end and He wanted to spend His last moments with those He had loved most: “Knowing that His time had come to pass from this world to the Father after He loved His own in the world, He loved them to the end.” (John 13:1). Then, while the supper has begun and Judas’ betrayal has already triggered the series of tragic events that will lead to His arrest, Jesus gives them a great example of humility and brotherly love: he gets up, strips, wraps a towel around his hips, takes a basin and begins to wash the feet of other men, one after another.  Peter rebels against that gesture, astonished, but Jesus tells him that only by accepting him he can be with him and share everything with him.

What Jesus does is to show his disciples what he expects they will do after He is gone, a continuous and total giving to others, living daily the love for neighbour and the mercy of which he was a prophet for the time of his brief mission on earth. If He who is Master and Lord lowers himself has such a humble act, done only to please and care for another person, why should not the Apostles and like them we all? Jesus washes the feet of the Apostles and becomes Servum servorum Dei, servant among the servants of God. Thus he says to His Apostles: “Verily, I say to you: a servant is not greater than his master, neither is an apostle greater than he who sent him” (John 13,16).

It is through gestures like this that the Kingdom of Heaven is earned. To Peter, who protests and refuses to let his feet be washed, Jesus answers: “If I do not wash you, you will have no part with me”, as if to emphasize that only by following him and imitating him also in those humble gestures will the disciples deserve to share with him the glory that will come. In the Gospel of John Jesus addresses the Apostles after having risen and clothed himself with these words: “Do you know what I have done to you? You call Me Master and Lord and you say well, because I am. Therefore, if I, the Lord and the Master, have washed your feet, you also must wash your feet. For I have given you an example, because as I have done, you also do” (John 13,12-15).

The rite of Holy Thursday

For the Catholic Church, the washing of the feet is a symbol of God’s love. Among the rites of Holy Week that prepare for Easter and in particular among those of Holy Thursday, there is the evening mass, Mass in Cena Domini, which recalls the Last Supper of Jesus with his disciples. Holy Thursday is the last day of Lent and the first of the so-called Easter Triduum, the three most important days of Christian Easter, which culminate on Easter Sunday and encompass the central time of the liturgical year and some of the main mysteries related to Jesus: the institution of the Eucharist, the passion, death and descent into hell and resurrection. In addition to the institution of the Eucharist on the occasion of Holy Thursday, the washing of the feet is also accomplished.

The Catholic Church has practised the rite of washing the feet on many occasions and with variations, over the centuries. Practised in monasteries on the evening of Holy Thursday when a guest arrived, as a sign of humility and emulation of Jesus, it then became a rite performed by the Bishop, who on that day Saint washed the feet first to the canons and then to the poor. Then the rite was transformed again: the Bishop had to wash the feet of thirteen poor people. The Cistercians used to wash their feet every Saturday in their monasteries.

Before the anti-Covid-19 norms also limited the customs of the Church, Pope Francis had revolutionized the rite of washing the feet by arranging that also women and then non-believers could receive from him that gesture of fraternal love. Moreover, Jesus said at the Last Supper: “You too must wash your feet one another” (John 13,14).

Last Supper, 9 cm
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The washing of the feet, 9 cm
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Jesus ascent to Calvary, 9 cm
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Christ moment of Resurrection
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The Mount of Olives has since ancient times been a place of mysteries, the scene of great biblical events. This is where the Passion of Jesus begins.

Scripture does not only speak of characters and events related to the history of the Faith. We have seen how there are references to trees and flowers that hold various symbolic meanings, as well as animals that become emblems and embodiments of spiritual concepts and mysteries. But there are also references in the Bible to special places that were the scene of pivotal events for Christians, and which retain the essence and deepest meaning of those events even today. One of those places is the Mount of Olives.

It is a hill that still stands to this day east of Jerusalem, and was once covered with olive trees, indeed, from which it got its name. Instead, the Arabs call it Jabal at-Tur, “Mount of the Summit,” but also “mountain par excellence,” “holy mountain.” Here, at the foot of the Mountain, once stood Gethsemane, better known as the Garden of Olives, a small plot of land in which Jesus withdrew in prayer and dialogue with God after the Last Supper, shortly before He went to meet His destiny.

But more generally, the Mount of Olives is mentioned in the Scripture as the setting of important events in the history of Christianity. Let’s see which ones.

The biblical episodes that occurred on the Mount of Olives.

The prophet Zechariah is the first to mention the Mount of Olives. If his prophecies are correct, it will be from the Mount of Olives that all the dead will begin to rise at the end of time, to welcome the return of Jesus: “On that day his feet shall stand upon the Mount of Olives which is opposite Jerusalem toward the east, and the Mount of Olives shall cleave in two, from east to west, forming a very deep valley; one half of the mount shall withdraw toward the north, and the other toward the south” (Zech 14:4). This is the reason why Jews began using the mount as a burial place from ancient times, and even today they are willing to pay considerable sums of money to be able to rest there. In fact, the Jewish cemetery still stretches across the slope of the Mount of Olives. It is more than three thousand years old and is the oldest cemetery in the world. You can visit it and walk among the more than 150,000 graves, some recent, some very old and almost completely obliterated by the slow and relentless erosion of time.

The Mount of Olives was also the scene of the sacrifice of the red heifer, a ritual of atonement sanctioned by Moses (Numbers 19:1-10): a red heifer that was never supposed to have borne the yoke was led to the Mount, killed, cut into pieces, and burned with cedar wood, hyssop (an aromatic plant). Woolen cloth dyed red was also laid on the stake. Eventually the ashes were collected and poured into a container filled with pure water, intended to be sprinkled on those who needed to be purified.

When Absalom usurped the throne of his father, King David, the latter took refuge in the Cedar Valley, on the border between the Mount of Olives and Jerusalem. Jesus would travel the same route in the opposite direction a thousand years later, returning from Jericho on a donkey that would take him to Jerusalem, in tears at the sight of the remains of the Holy City (Luke 19).

The town of Bethany, from where Lazarus, Martha and Mary, Jesus’ friends, and Simon, the leper He healed, also stood on the eastern slopes of the Mount of Olives.

The Mount of Olives would also be where Jesus’ Ascension to Heaven took place. Luke speaks of it in his Gospel, telling of the encounter with the disciples on the road between Bethany of Judea and Jerusalem (Luke 24:51), and in the Acts of the Apostles we read, “And because they were gazing up to heaven as he went, behold, two men in white robes came to them and said, ‘Men of Galilee, why are you gazing up to heaven? Jesus, who was from among you taken up to heaven, will return one day in the same way you saw him go to heaven.” Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mountain called the Mount of Olives, which is as close to Jerusalem as the way allowed on a Sabbath” (Acts 1:10-12).

For this reason the Mount of Olives is also called the Mount of Ascension.

There is also a cave where, according to Gospel tradition, Jesus taught the disciples the Lord’s Prayer.

During the siege of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, which saw the destruction of the Second Temple, Roman soldiers camped on the Mount.

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Ascension bas-relief in stone, Bethléem

This bas-relief is hand made by the nuns of the Atelier d’Art de Bethléem, in France.

Gethsemane or Garden of Olives.

We have mentioned Jesus in the Garden of Olives. Here is how the Gospels recount that last evening that marks the beginning of Jesus’ Passion: “Then Jesus went with them to an estate, called Gethsemane, and said to the disciples, Sit here, while I go there to pray” (Matthew 26:36).  Left alone, Jesus turns to God the Father. He is tired, seized with doubts he did not have before, and he asks God whether his sacrifice is really necessary: “And having gone a little further, he threw himself with his face to the ground, praying, and saying, My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.'” (Matthew 26:39). In the end, however, He accepts His own destiny and prepares to face the Passion and death.

“Here came Judas, one of the Twelve, and with him a great crowd with swords and clubs, sent by the high priests and elders of the people. The traitor had given them this sign, saying, The one I will kiss, it is he; arrest him!” (Matt. 26:47-48)

Jesus’ agony in Luke’s Gospel

Although the episode in the Garden of Olives is present in all the Gospels except John’s, it is Luke‘s Gospel that most poignantly recounts Jesus’ agony in Gethsemane, the first and irretrievable step toward the Passion. “Then an angel appeared to him from heaven to strengthen him. And being in agony, he prayed even more intensely; and his sweat became like large drops of blood falling to the ground” (Luke 22:43-44). Christ’s suffering is almost palpable, His inner struggle becomes real in that blood oozing from His body, almost a prophecy of the pain and suffering to come. Alone, abandoned by His sleeping friends, lost before God the Father who does not answer Him, truly His agony is one of the highest and most significant moments of His mission in the world.

Even today the Franciscans guard these places, where, in memory of the sufferings suffered by Jesus, today stands the Basilica of the Agony, or Church of All Nations. From a small olive grove of centuries-old trees the friars still produce a precious oil.

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St. Luke the Evangelist statue in resin 30 cm

Richly detailed statue in resin, hand-painted. Compared to PVC, resin statues have more definition in the lines…

Who helped Jesus carry the cross? Simon of Cyrene, despite himself a participant in the Passion and protagonist of the fifth station of the Way of the Cross. But who was he?

The Synoptic Gospels recount the journey of Jesus to the hill of the crucifixion, Calvary, or Golgotha, the place of the skull, as was known even then this hill, scene of bloody executions, with some significant differences. In particular, the Gospel of Mark and that of Matthew mention the name of a man, Simon of Cyrene, who would help Jesus to carry the cross to the place of the Crucifixion. Christ, exhausted after the scourging and innumerable tortures to which he had been subjected by his tormentors, no longer had the strength to reach Golgotha, and so the Roman soldiers: ” … they forced a passing man, a certain Simon of Cyrene who came from the countryside, father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry the cross. They then led Jesus to the place of Golgotha, which means place of the skull” (Mk 15:21-22).

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Jesus ascent to Calvary Passion of Christ 9 cm

Jesus ascent to Calvary Passion of Christ 9 cm. In this moment, Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus carry the Cross…

Matthew also mentions a certain Simon, who, in his version, is forced by the Romans to carry the cross from the exit of the court where Jesus was condemned (Mt 27:32). Instead, according to John Jesus carried his own cross until Golgotha.

But who was this Simon of Cyrene, and why did the Romans force him to play such an unhappy yet significant role in the crucifixion of Jesus? We must consider the historical context of the Passion of Jesus: the Romans ruled Judea and, as all the rulers, they did not fail to oppress the people under their control with demonstrations of strength and oppression. In fact, there was a law that allowed Roman officers to force anyone to complete even heavy work, and this, regardless of the social condition of the person. Simon of Cyrene, who is chosen to carry the patibulum, or the horizontal arm of the cross, behind Jesus, was only a passerby. He was not witnessing the Passion of Christ, he passed there by chance, and according to some historical sources he was a notable, therefore a man of culture and rank not low. Forcing him to carry that instrument of torture and death, the Romans not only humiliated him but automatically prevented him from participating in the Passover, because from that moment on he would be impure in the eyes of God and men.

In Jerusalem stands the Chapel of Simon of Cyrene, right near the place where Simon came to Jesus’ aid. Built in 1895 along the Via Dolorosa in the Old Town, it belongs to the Franciscan order.

The Cyrenean in the Gospel of Mark

It is probable that the evangelist Mark knew Simon, or at least his sons Alexander and Rufus, mentioned as witnesses to the scene in which his father was the protagonist. We understand this from the fact that usually Marco was very reluctant to write the precise names of the protagonists of the events he told, while in this case he appointed all the members of the family. Perhaps they were still alive when Mark wrote his Gospel, and in any case they were well known in the Roman Christian community. The family was originally from Cyrene, a city located in eastern Libya, at the time a Roman colony. Hence the term “Cyrenean“, with which Simon is sometimes quoted, and which in common language has become synonymous with those who, willingly or unwillingly, take upon themselves the burden and suffering of another person. The discovery of some tombs and ossuaries in the mid-20th century has provided new information and demonstrated the historical existence of this character and his family.

The fifth station of the Way of the Cross

An ordinary man, Simon of Cyrene, a stranger from afar, and yet ready to take upon himself the terrible burden of a broken Man, at a time when all friends had abandoned Him, and His own Father was condemning him to a fate worse than death. A hymn to love and mercy, even where we do not expect to find it, an appeal to embrace diversity, to welcome it and support it along the winding path of life. The fifth station of the Way of the Cross is dedicated to him, made part of an unspeakable crime, and yet able to lend strength and support to those who, at that time, suffered more than him. Observing the various representations of the stations of the Way of the Cross, of which you can find many valuable reproductions also in our online store, we can not help but feel in our turn sharers of the mystery of the Passion, just like Simon of Cyrene and his children, spectators of a unique event and become part of the history of all stories, in the New Testament.

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Way of the Cross

Way of the Cross: here you can find the Stations of the Cross in various materials and designs…

Meta description: Simon of Cyrene, an ordinary man, a foreigner forced to share the Passion of Jesus. Let’s find out who he was and where we find him in the Way of the Cross