Greetings,
April 29 was the Memorial for Catherine of Siena, Virgin
and Doctor. She was an Italian mystic
and teacher. The youngest of twenty-five
children of the Sienese Benincasa family, Catherine was born at Siena in 1347. At
six she dedicated her life to serve God through her chastity. Her parents tried to get her to marry, but
showing her resolution to devote herself to a life of prayer and service she
cut off her hair. [What would we make of this misfit - this rebellious young
person today?] She was eventually
accepted into the Dominican Tertiaries although it was normally comprised of
widows. After three years spent in
prayer and asceticism she went out to serve the poor and sick in her own city
and beyond.
In one of her many visions, Jesus told her, “…love of me
and love of neighbor are one and the same thing: Since love of neighbor has its
source in me, the more the soul loves me, the more she loves her
neighbors.” She reached out to prisoners
and became skilled at mediating disputes and helping individuals reconcile
differences. Her work of compassion was
one piece of her connection with the spiritual and political life of her
day. In her later years she became
highly involved in ecclesiastical politics, trying to mediate the conflict
between Florence and the Papal Government, and later, between Urban
IV and the rival pope at Avignon.
She received the sign of the stigmata, though tradition
says she felt its pain, without the visible marks on her hands. Catherine’s themes are God’s providence, the
role of Christ as redeemer and mediator, and the reform of the Church.
Although she could not write, she dictated some four
hundred letters and her Dialogue, a collection of insights gained in
prayer and meditative visions. The
following is from the dialogue “On Divine Providence.”
Eternal God, eternal Trinity, you have made the blood of
Christ so precious through his sharing in your divine nature. You are a mystery as deep as the sea; the
more I search, the more I find, and the more I find the more I search for
you. But I can never be satisfied, what
I receive will ever leave me desiring more. When you fill my soul I have an
even greater hunger, and I grow more famished for your light. I desire above all to see you, the true
light, as you really are.
I have tasted and seen the depth of your mystery and the
beauty of your creation with the light of my understanding. I have clothed myself with your likeness and
have seen what I shall be. Eternal
Father, you have given me a share in your power and the wisdom that Christ
claims as his own, and your Holy Spirit has given me a new creation in the blood
of your Son, and I know that you are moved with love at the beauty of your
creation, for you have enlightened me.
Eternal Trinity, Godhead, mystery deep as the sea, you
could give me no greater gift than the gift of yourself. For you are a fire ever burning and never
consumed, which itself consumes all the selfish love that fills my being. Yes, you are a fire that takes away the
coldness, illuminates the mind with its light and causes me to know your
truth. By this light, reflected as it
were in a mirror, I recognize that you are the highest good, one we can neither
comprehend nor fathom. And I know that
you are beauty and wisdom itself. The
food of angels, you gave yourself to man in the fire of your love.
You are the garment which covers our nakedness, and in
our hunger you are a satisfying food, for you are sweetness and in you there is
no taste of bitterness, O triune God!
Yours & His,
DED
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