Saint Catherine of Siena and Her Times

St. Catherine of Siena and Her Times tells the moving tale of Catherine, whose call to live a cloistered life of prayer and penance was trumped not only by the social needs of her day (poverty, plague) but by the explicit orders of the Pope, who, hearing of her remarkable powers of reconciliation of enemies, called her out of obscurity to mediate between the warring parties, sometimes even at the risk to her life.