Osanna of Cattaro

Osanna of Cattaro ( sr, Озана Которска, Ozana Kotorska; 25 November 1493 – 27 April 1565) was a Catholic visionary and anchoress from Cattaro. She was a teenage convert from Orthodoxy of Serbian descent from Montenegro.Luković, Don Niko. ''Blažena Ozana Kotorka'', Kotor (1965). (most detailed biography of Ozana Kotorska) "Blažena Ozana Kotorska rođena je 1493 – selo Relezi – Lješanska nahija, čobanica, od srpskih roditelja." "Blessed Osanna of Cattaro is born in 1493 – village Relezi – Lješanska nahija, shepard, from Serbian parents." She became a Dominican tertiary and was posthumously venerated as a saint in Kotor. She was later beatified in 1934.

Life

Osanna was born in the village of Relezi in Zeta to an Eastern Orthodox priestly family named Kosić and was baptized "Jovana" in that tradition.Razzi, Serafino. "La vita della beata Osanna da Cattaro", Firenze (1592), AS XX, 39-42. (first personal biographer of Osanna) Her father was priest Pero Kosić and her uncle was Marko Kosić, a monk with the name of "Makarije" who later became Eastern Orthodox Bishop of Zeta. Her grandfather Aleksa Kosić and her great grandfather Đuro Kosić were also Orthodox priests. She was a shepherdess in her youth, and developed the habit of spending her solitary hours in prayer. A story says that one day while watching the flocks, she saw a child lying asleep on the grass. Attracted by its beauty, she went to pick up the baby, but it disappeared, leaving Osanna with a feeling of great loneliness.

Osanna continued to witness these apparitions. When she was 14 years old, her visions began to be followed by an odd desire to travel to the coastal Venetian town of Cattaro in Albania Veneta (Bay of Kotor, modern-day Montenegro), where she felt she could pray better. Her mother did not understand, and grudgingly arranged a position for Osanna as a servant to the wealthy Catholic Buća family, who allowed the girl as much time as she wished for church visits. In Cattaro, Osanna abandoned Eastern Orthodoxy and converted to Roman Catholicism, and took the name Katarina (Catherine Cosie). Osanna learned to read and write during her free time. She read religious books in both Latin and Italian, especially the Bible.

In her late teens, Osanna felt a call to live the life of an anchoress. Though she was considered very young for such a calling, her spiritual director had her walled up in a cell built near Saint Bartholomew's church in Cattaro. It had a window through which Osanna could hear Mass, and another window to which people would occasionally come to ask for prayers or give food. Katarina made the customary promises of stability and the door was sealed.

After an earthquake destroyed her first hermitage, she moved to a cell at Saint Paul's church, and became a Dominican tertiary, taking the name Osanna in memory of Blessed Osanna of Mantua. She would follow the Dominican Rule for the last 52 years of her life. A group of Dominican sisters took up residence near her, consulting her for guidance, and came to consider her their leader. Osanna soon had so many followers that a convent was founded for them.

In her tiny cell, it is said that Osanna received many visions. These included the Christ as an infant, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and several saints. Once the Devil appeared to her in the form of the Blessed Virgin and told her to modify her penances. By obedience to her confessor

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