Catherine of Siena

Tuesday 29 April
St Catherine of Siena (Patron of Europe) (Feast)

We were celebrating Mass today for my special friend St. Catherine of Siena. For some reason she is my favourite. She is a Doctor of the Church but she never wrote a line. All her teaching was dictated. By comparison St. Therese of Liseaux wrote with ease not to say poetically, and piously. Catherine’s teaching is so theological and so Trinitarian. There seems more of a masculine strength in her words. Her style is not that of the Little Flower. Catherine would rather say , “Do not be satisfied with little things, because God wants great things”.

Thumbnail sketches of Catherine’s career tend to journalistic reporting of society and politics with a veneer of spirituality, not the stuff of mysticism.

It is her own words that are more powerful. The Reading from the Prayer of the Church (The Breviary) from The Dialogue is an example. When I hear her words and the ongoing flow of her thought, one paragraph is enough. My mind goes into ‘grid lock’ just to get my head around the shear mysticism in her spirit.

Our guests at the Mass fastened their ears to some of the quotes;
“'You are rewarded not according to your work or your time but according to the measure of your love'. . . . 'Love transforms one into what one loves.'

'The soul cannot live without love. She always wants to love something because love is the stuff she is made of, and through love he created her.'

In a vision she shared that God the Father spoke to her and said:

'Do you know, daughter, who you are and who I am? If you know these two things you have beatitude within your grasp. You are she who is not, and I am he who is.'

- - - “St. Catherine was one of the most brilliant theological minds of her day, although she never had any formal education. She persuaded the Pope to go back to Rome from Avignon, in 1377, and when she died she was endeavoring to heal the Great Western Schism. In 1375 Our Lord give her the Stigmata, which was visible only after her death. Her spiritual director was Blessed Raymond of Capua. St, Catherine's letters, and a treatise called "a dialogue" are considered among the most brilliant writings in the history of the Catholic Church. She died when she was only 33, and her body was found incorrupt in 1430”. (catholic.org)

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