Blessed Catherine de Pallanza

Caterina Moriggi (1437 - 6 April 1478) was an Italian Roman Catholic who became a professed religious and adhered to the teachings and traditions of Augustine of Hippo. She lived in contemplation in the Italian mountains before establishing a new order, dubbed Order of Saint Ambrose ad Nemus which followed the Augustinian rule. Moriggi became known as Catherine of Pallanza when she became a religious and was noted for her austere model of living and for her deep personal holiness. Moriggi was beatified on 16 September 1769 after Pope Clement XIV recognized her long-standing cult in the northern Italian cities. Moriggi is also commemorated in the Ambrosian Rite that is celebrated in north Italian dioceses. Caterina Moriggi was born around 1437 in Pallanza; her parents and siblings all perished of the plague when she was a child. As a result, a woman from Milan adopted her as her own. At the age of fourteen she felt called to devote herself to the service of God; her willingness to live the life of an ascetic came from the well-known preacher and Franciscan Alberto de Sarteano. At the age of 20 she was emotionally moved after hearing a sermon on the Passion of Christ, prostrated herself before the Cross in the church and consecrated her virginity to God. It was not long after this that she had a vision of the crucified Jesus Christ who said to her: "Beloved daughter Catherine ... I have selected for you the place called Saint Mary on the Mountain". Acting on this, she lived - for a period of fifteen years starting in 1450 - with a group of fellow women as hermits in the mountains near Varese under the guidance of the archpriest of the Marian shrine near their location. Moriggi read each day the account from the Gospel of John on the Passion of Christ. She was noted for her personal holiness as well as for the austere model of which she led her life and was known to survive on the irregular gifts of food that spiritual students of hers brought to her.