Catherine of Siena (Outstanding Christian Thinkers)

At the age of six, walking home from her sister's house, Catherine of Siena believed that she met Christ. It was the beginning of a love story, a lifelong conversation in which Christ spoke to Catherine, and which she communicated His love to her 14th-century world. Mystic, champion of the poor and chuch reformer, Catherine's letters made their way to popes, cardinals, scholars and civic authorities. Unable to write until she was 30, Catherine became a Doctor of the Church and the world's first named female author in Italian.