St. Mary Magdalen of Pazzi

St. Mary Magdalen de' Pazzi was born Caterina de' Pazzi on April 2, 1566, into one of the noblest families of Florence. Drawn to prayer from childhood, she received her First Communion at ten—unusually young for the era—and privately vowed her virginity to God soon afterward. Refusing the marriage her rank made expected, at sixteen she entered the Carmelite monastery of St. Mary of the Angels in Florence, reportedly choosing it because the nuns there were permitted to receive Communion almost daily. She took the name Mary Magdalen. A grave illness in 1584 brought her to the point of death, and she was allowed to make her religious profession early, from a sickbed. There followed an extraordinary series of ecstasies and mystical experiences, which her sisters, at her superiors' direction, recorded as she spoke; the transcripts fill several volumes and rank among the notable mystical literature of the Catholic Reformation. Her raptures centered on the love of God poured out in Christ, and she longed for the renewal of the Church and the sanctification of religious life. Her mysticism was purified by suffering: she endured a five-year interior trial of desolation and temptation, which she called her 'lions' den,' emerging with a spirituality summed up in her desire to suffer for love of Christ rather than to enjoy consolation. In her later years she served her community as novice mistress and subprioress, guiding younger sisters with practical wisdom that balanced her extraordinary graces. Worn out by illness, she died in Florence on May 25, 1607, at the age of forty-one. She was beatified in 1626 by Pope Urban VIII and canonized on April 28, 1669, by Pope Clement IX. Her body, venerated as incorrupt, rests with the Carmelite nuns at Careggi outside Florence, and she remains a patroness of the sick and of those mocked for their devotion. Her feast is celebrated on May 25.