"For many years she had accustomed herself to so rigorous an abstinence, that the blessed eucharist might be said to be almost the only nourishment which supported her. Once she fasted from Ash Wednesday till Ascension-day, receiving only the blessed eucharist during that whole time."
taken from Vol. IV of "The Lives or the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints" by the Rev. Alban Butler, the 1864 edition published by D. & J. Sadlier, & Company.
This extreme example of fasting was frowned upon by clergy, and her own priest-confessor ordered her to eat properly. Catherine replied that she could not do so, describing the situation as an illness. The condition worsened to such an extent that by the beginning of 1380 she could neither eat not swallow water.
"With the new year a great bodily change came over her, but still she struggled to continue her work, though now it was pain to her not only to eat, but even to swallow a sip of water, so that she was tormented with thirst."
taken from "St. Catherine of Siena" by Alfred W. Pollard (1919), published by Sidgwick & Jackson, London, England.
By the beginning of February she could no longer use her legs.
"She was so emaciated that her bones could be easily counted. She appeared withered, and her face worn and sunk, and it no longer presented the same beauty as formerly........Her body was then reduced to the state in which painters represent death; her limbs seemed to be those of a mere skeleton covered with a transparent skin. Her strength was so annihilated that she could not turn herself from one side to the other."
taken from "Catherine of Siena - A Biography" by Josephine E. Butler (1894; 3rd edition), published by Horace Marshall & Son of London, England.
Ultimately the condition led to her death in Rome on 29 April 1380.
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