As we have already said, her stomach could digest nothing and
her body heat consumed no energy; therefore, anything she ingested had
to exit
by the same way it entered, otherwise it caused her acute pain and
swelling of her entire body. The holy virgin chewed herbs and other
things, but swallowed nothing. Still, it was impossible to avoid
some crumb or juice descending into her stomach, and also she willingly
drank
fresh water to quench her thirst. So, she was constrained every
day to vomit what she little had eaten. To do this she regularly
and with great
pain inserted stalks of fennel and other plants into her stomach so
that she could vomit . . . Although some were scandalized by her fasting,
she
maintained this lifestyle until her death [about 6 years later].
Catherine of Siena, writing to a priest:
You wrote to me begging me to pray to God that I might be able
to eat. I say to you, holy father, that in every possible way I have
always
forced myself to take food once or twice a day. And I have prayed
often to God--and will so pray in the future--that he will help me so that
I may
eat as others do. If this is His will, I will eat normally, because
I wish to do so. Many times, I have looked into myself to try to
understand
my infirmity. God, in His special mercy, has saved me from the
sin of gluttony . . . . As to myself, I do not know what other remedy to
try
except that to beseech God to grant me the grace of being allowed to
take food.
These are somewhat freely translated and excerpted from texts found
in Rudolph Bell, HOLY ANOREXIA (1985), pp. 22-28. (Bell has an entire
chapter on St. Catherine of Siena.)
See also Caroline Walker Bynum, HOLY FEAST AND HOLY FAST: THE RELIGIOUS
SIGNIFICANCE OF FOOD TO MEDIEVAL WOMEN (1987).
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