St. Catherine of Siena

Who they were

Catherine was the twenty-third child of a Sienese wool dyer, refused every marriage arranged for her, and joined the Dominican third order as a laywoman: no convent, no rank, no leverage. From that position she nursed plague victims and condemned prisoners, and became the moral voice of Italian politics. Nearly four hundred of her letters survive, to queens, mercenaries and cardinals, and to Pope Gregory XI in Avignon, whom she addressed as my sweet babbo and told, in effect, to be a man, come back to Rome, and lead. He came. Her Dialogue, dictated in ecstasy, made her a Doctor of the Church in 1970, one of the first two women ever named. She died at thirty-three in Rome, worn through.

Why people turn to St. Catherine of Siena

People whose calling requires saying a hard thing to someone above them. The whistleblower's saint, and the saint of the meeting where you have to speak. Nurses have her from the plague years.

How to ask their intercession

Before the conversation you are dreading with the person who outranks you. Ask her prayers for the courage and for the charity, since she never separated them, which is why she was heard.