May 25 | Saint Magdalene de' Pazzi

Welcome, young history buffs and curious minds, to My Daily Saint, the podcast that digs deep into the incredible lives of the saints, those remarkable people who shaped history and continue to inspire us today. Forget dusty old portraits and boring stories. Today, imagine a teenager who has the power to read people's thoughts. Now, imagine she can also predict the future, exist in two completely different places at the exact same time, a superpower known as bilocation, and miraculously cure the sick. This is the story of St.

Mary Magdalene de Pazzi. Today, we are diving deep into her fascinating, dramatic, and heartbreaking life, and if you or anyone you know ever struggles with sickness or physical pain, pay close attention to her story, because she is the official patron saint of bodily ills. Our story begins in Florence, Italy, where she was born as Caterina de Pazzi on April 2, 1566.

Because she was the only daughter of a very wealthy, noble family, her parents had a very specific life plan already mapped out for her. They wanted to marry her off at a young age to secure a powerful, advantageous connection for their family. But Katerina had a different plan. By the time she was nine years old, she convinced her mother to let her be taught mental prayer, and she started spending half an hour every single day just sitting in silence and talking to God.

When she was ten, she received her first communion, which was super rare for kids back then, and soon after, she made a private promise to dedicate her entire life to God as a virgin. But things got truly dramatic when she turned twelve. One evening, Katerina was simply looking at a beautiful sunset, admiring the incredible glory of God's creation. Suddenly, she fell into her very first mystical ecstasy. Now, if you or I had a supernatural vision while looking at the sky, we might want to brag about it to all our friends.

Not Katarina. She actually thought this mystical experience was a sign that she was spiritually weak. She figured other people could become holy without needing flashy visions, but she needed the extra help just to be good. At the age of 16, she decided to leave her wealthy lifestyle behind and entered a Carmelite convent called St. Mary of the Angels. She picked this specific convent for one major reason. The sisters there received the Eucharist every single day, which was a very uncommon practice at the time.

One year after she entered the convent, she chose her new religious name, Mary Magdalene. In 1584, she asked to make her religious profession early, but she was refused. About a month later, she fell dangerously ill. The sisters in the convent were scared she was going to die before she could officially make her vows. The situation was so intense that they carried her on a stretcher straight into the chapel just so she could make her profession. Right after that, she went through a wild 40-day period of severe illness.

She had an illness mixed with intense spiritual ecstasies. Her visions were so intense that her confessor ordered her to dictate everything she experienced to sister secretaries to make sure she wasn't being tricked or deceived. Once she recovered, she served as a novice mistress, took on teaching and supervisory positions, and did everyday manual labor around the convent. People respected her deeply because she had an incredible sense of discipline, massive empathetic charity, and deep spiritual wisdom that she earned through her own intense suffering.

Mary Magdalene lived a life of serious extremes. On one hand, she had an incredibly casual, familiar, and personal relationship with Jesus. Once, Jesus told her in a vision, I called, and you didn't care. Her response? She sassily fired back, you didn't call loud enough. On the other hand, she didn't always feel this love. She actually went through agonizing years of total spiritual darkness, where she hated praying and was tempted by absolutely everything. During this time, her depression became so severe that she was close to suicide on two separate occasions.

It's a powerful reminder that even the greatest saints face massive mental health struggles. And incredibly dark days. Through all of this, Mary Magdalene de Pazzi remained fiercely humble. Instead of being proud of her unusual spiritual gifts, she did absolutely everything she could to hide her spiritual life. One time, Jesus asked her to walk barefoot as a sacrifice. Knowing people would notice and praise her if she stopped wearing shoes, she secretly cut the soles completely out of her shoes. That way, she was walking barefoot on the hard ground, but to everyone else looking at her, it seemed like she was wearing normal shoes.

Her intense sacrifice remained totally hidden. She passed away from intense nerve pain in 1607, at the young age of 41. She was canonized as a saint by Pope Clement IX in 1669. So, what does a mystical, mind-reading, 16th-century Italian nun have to do with you today?

Mary Magdalene de Pazzi teaches us the incredible power of the hidden sacrifice. Today, I challenge you to do one kind, difficult, or generous thing for someone else, but do it entirely in secret. Don't post about it on social media, don't tell your friends, and don't take any credit for it. Just like Mary Magdalene cutting the soles out of her shoes, let your good deed be a secret superpower that only you and God know about. Thank you for joining us on My Daily Saint. We look forward to sharing another incredible story of faith and courage with you tomorrow.