CATHERINE THOMÁS, Saint. — Augustinian canoness regular of the Order of St Augustine, born at Valldemuza on the island of Majorca (Balearic Islands) on 19 May 1533, died at Palma on 5 April 1574. Having lost her parents at an early age, she was taken in by a maternal uncle at San Gallard, where she met Fr. Antonio Castañeda, who helped her to realise her strong desire to withdraw into the religious life. At nineteen years of age, she entered the monastery of St Mary Magdalene in Palma, where she spent the rest of her life practising the highest virtues. The fame of her holiness, which soon spread beyond Palma and the Balearic Islands to the Spanish mainland, drew around her a great concourse of people, who came from all sides to venerate her or seek her counsel.
God rewarded the great charity of this elect soul and her elevated spirit of mortification with the gift of contemplation, accompanied by very frequent ecstasies. Beatified by Pius VI on 12 August 1792, she was canonised on 22 June 1930 by Pius XI. Feast day: 5 April.