This is a thread about my relative, St. Catherine Benincasa of Siena. I am comforted to know I can't possibly be as bonkers as this Benincasa, who announced Jesus gave her an engagement ring made of...his foreskin. The franchised corporation that is the Church made her a saint.
Catherine Benincasa was the youngest of 25 kids, about 13 of whom lived past childhood. Catherine was lovingly spoiled and once convinced local girls to beat themselves while reciting the Our Father. A power top ahead of her time!
BTW, my mom has forbidden me from making jokes about "Jesus's you-know-what" in the family chat because I like to light it up now and again taking about our famous Benincasa ancestress who was super into talking about Jesus's bris. I will be violating this rule, of course.
My most famous family member is somebody who OF HER OWN ACCORD beat herself with a thin whip while praying in a room alone as her family worked in the dye works in the basement of their house. And her best gal pals did the same. Her mom told her biographer all about it. FUN!
It is truly wild youngest child energy to tell your family you have visions of the Desert Fathers and that you go into sacred trances and for them to be like, "Okay sweetie, that sounds fun!" But that was St. Catherine Benincasa of Siena, youngest of 25, good Lord.
Speaking broadly, my family has quite a history of mental health issues, and uhhhhh St. Catherine of Siena had almost all of them in one person. WHEW. She lived 25 March 1347 – 29 April 1380 and announced as a kid that she was married to Jesus and thus forever virgin.
If you want to know more about St. Catherine Benincasa of Siena, here's some info. This thread will be ongoing as I learn more. Her life was SO WILD. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine…
Okay Saint Catherine was late a lot because she was busy meditating or praying or just off wandering and stuff. Relatable.
Okay so in Catherine's childhood in Italy, when a girl turned 12, they basically couldn't go out without an older female relative anymore. They could get married off, though it seems 15 or 16 was more "normal." Anyway, Catherine was like, "EWWWWWWWWW" and wouldn't do her hair.
APPARENTLY she was fair-skinned and slim, with golden brown hair, and her family was disappointed that she wouldn't marry a human man because she was secretly engaged to Jesus with an invisible foreskin ring. Ok.
Okay so then this chick tells a priest that she's secretly married herself off to Jesus with his invisible foreskin ring, and the priest is like, "Cool, I buy it, cut your hair off so you're not hot anymore and then they can't sell you off to be married or whatever" so she did.
She cuts off her braids and her family FUHLIPS out, her mom throws herself down freaking out, pretty sure her brothers and dad beat her up, and then she had to stay at home and do all the washing and cooking etc. She was forbidden to have a room alone or to lock her door.
One day her dad walks into a room and she's praying in a corner with a white dove sitting on her head. The dove flies away and her dad is like, "What was up with that bird?" and she's like "Bird? What bird?" And her dad is like, "Wow, maybe it's Jesus, hmm, gotta think on this."
Here's her head, BY THE WAY. You can go visit it in Siena, have fun! 
Okay so basically St. Catherine of Siena is a religious zealot with hallucinations of various kinds, a tendency to self-harm, a probable lifelong eating disorder, and a fairly sexual crush on Jesus. This is seriously basically what it took to be allowed to stay single as a woman.
So finally Catherine tells her famiglia about her wild delusion that she's engaged to Jesus, and that she'll leave the house if they can't deal. Then her dad feels bad and tells everybody that they have to be nice to their batshit youngest sibling and her troubling haircut.
It was a truly wild chess move, and the Benincasas cried and cried. This was just one of a series of manipulations that would lead her to eventually have political power in the Church of her era! A con artist for the ages! Today she'd have a VERY intense girlfriend in Rome.
For awhile she wore a hair shirt, okay. Then she wore a chain that would cut into her. She never became a nun but "was in ecstasy about physical discipline." YIKES. This is a kink-affirming Twitter sooooo I mean hey Auntie Catherine, that shit was consensual, good for you!
