St. Catherine was a third-order Dominican, peacemaker and counselor to the pope. She single-handedly ended the Avignon exile of the successors of Peter in the 14th century.
Born in Siena, on the feast of the Annunciation, March 25, 1347, Catherine was the 23rd of Jacopo and Lapa Benincasa's 25 children. Her twin sister died in infancy.
She exhibited an unusually independent character as a child and an exceptionally intense prayer life. When she was 7 years old, she had the first of her mystical visions, in which she saw Jesus surrounded by saints and seated in glory. In the same year she vowed to consecrate her virginity to Christ. When, at the age of 16, her parents decided that she should marry, she cut off her hair to make herself less appealing, and her father, realizing that he couldn't contend with her resolve, let her have her way.
She joined the Dominican Tertiaries and lived a deep and solitary life of prayer and meditation for the next three years. She had constant mystical experiences, capped by the end of the three years with an extraordinary union with God granted to only a few mystics, known as "mystical marriage."
St. Catherine suffered many intense periods of desolation alongside her mystical ecstasies, often feeling totally abandoned by God.
She ended her solitude at this point and began tending to the sick, poor and marginalized, especially lepers. As her reputation for holiness and remarkable personality became known throughout Siena, she attracted a band of disciples, two of whom became her confessors and biographers, and together they served Christ in the poor with even greater ardor.
God called her to a more public life while she was still in her 20s, and she established correspondences with many influential figures, advising and admonishing them and exhorting them to holiness, including the pope himself, who she never hesitated to rebuke when she saw fit.
Great political acts which are attributed to her include achieving peace between the Holy See and Florence who were at war, to convince the pope to return from his Avignon exile, which he did in 1376, and to heal the great schism between the followers of the legitimate pope, Urban VI, and those who opposed him in 1380. She achieved this while on her deathbed.
Her "Dialogues," one of the classics of Italian literature, are the record of her mystical visions which she dictated in a state of mystical ecstasy.
In 1375, while visiting Pisa, she received the stigmata, even though they never appeared on her body during her lifetime, owing to her request to God. They appeared only on her incorruptible body after her death.
She died in Rome on April 29, 1380, at the age of 33.
She is one of the two patron saints of Italy; the other is St. Francis of Assisi.
— Catholic News Agency
St. George was a soldier of the Roman army who was tortured and beheaded for his Christian faith in the year 303, in Lydda (in modern-day Palestine).
He was likely born in Cappadocia, of a Cappadocian father and a Palestinian mother of noble rank. At the death of his father (possibly martyrdom) he and his mother moved to Palestine, where he joined the military and apparently served with some distinction, meriting several promotions in rank.
One account of the martyrdom of St. George is Eusebius´ “Ecclesiastical History,” which relates that when the emperor Diocletian issued an edict “to tear down the churches to the foundations and to destroy the Sacred Scriptures by fire…a certain man, of no mean origin, but highly esteemed for his temporal dignities, stimulated by a divine zeal, and excited by an ardent faith, took it as it was openly placed and posted up for public inspection, and tore it to shreds as a most profane and wicked act.” This act of intransigence and holy audacity enraged the emperor, who had the man tortured and killed. This man “of no mean origin,” i.e. of nobility, has been identified by more than one ancient source, including Eusebius, as St. George, though most modern historians of the period state that this is unlikely.
St. George is usually depicted in Christian art as a soldier on horseback, killing a dragon with a lance. This image is a representation of a popular legend of St. George which first appears in 1265 in a romance titled “The Golden Legend,” in which he saved a town terrorized by a dragon with one blow of his lance. The image, however, is also, and more significantly, a powerful symbol of the victory of Christian faith over evil (sometimes interpreted more contextually in the early Church as “paganism”), personified by the devil, who is symbolized by the dragon according to the imagery in Revelation.
St. George is invoked as a patron of military causes, not only because he was a soldier, but also, and primarily, due to his appearance to the Christian armies before the battle of Antioch, in which they were victorious, and to King Richard the Lionheart of England during his crusade against the Saracens.
The cult of St. George, while universal, remains strongest in the Eastern Church where he is venerated as “The Great Martyr.” Accounts of early pilgrims identify the seat of the cult of St. George at his burial site in Lydda. The cult has been in existence since the 4th century, soon after his death.
St. George is the patron of soldiers and the patron of many nations, including Palestine, Lebanon, England, Georgia and Malta. He is also the patron of Palestinian Christians and of Boy Scouts. He is invoked by sufferers of herpes, skin diseases, skin rashes, syphilis and snakebites.
— Catholic News Agency