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40 The Head of St. Catherine Basilica di San Domenico, Siena, Italy Among the incorruptibles this bride of Christ offers her cowled, leather-taut face as icon of all that’s pious and chaste. Behind a golden grate, her head, enshrined, was once borne through Siena sanctified and severed. Serenely it now betrays a body scourged, scalded, and starved to grace. Such discipline is its own kind of pride. Her exquisite desire to suffer flared and blazed, but the wise ones have said that faith without works is dead. So Catherine cared for the poor and pocked, healed schism and plague. Through all her radiant deeds she prepared long for the withered visage of a saint. ...

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