SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA
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SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA |
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VIRGIN, DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH
( 1380 AD)
ST Catherine had a remarkable life since she was born in 1347. Born in a middle class, she was the youngest of twenty-five children, and was born twin to a sister who died immediately. Early in age, she was devoted to a life of prayer and penance. She was very beautiful, although she did not want to recognize that. She saw visions of the Lord with Peter, Paul, and John that led her to steadfastly refuse to consider marriage against the will of the parents. In one of her visions, it was said that Jesus placed a ring in her finger, and her soul attained mystical union with God. After a period of three years of solitude, the Savior told her that he wanted her to go out into the world, nursing the sick, help the poor, and save souls. Thus, she began to mix with others and gather together a group of disciples called as ‘her family’. They accompanied her in her frequent journeys to call people to repent and amend their lives in the spirit of the crucified Jesus. She evoked resentment, however, from those who opposed her. Nevertheless, their mission had amazing success. When a wave of plague struck her home town in 1374, most people fled but she and her followers stayed to minister the ill, and bury the dead.
During her preaching mission in 1375, she claimed after her communion, to have received the stigmata (bleeding wounds similar to those suffered by Christ on the cross) while she was looking at the crucifix. Suddenly, five blood-red rays pierced her heart, feet and hands, seemed to come from it. The wounds were seen by her alone, but clearly visible after her death. At the heart of Catherine’s teaching was the image of a bleeding Christ. (St. Catherine of Siena at first had visible stigmata but through humility she asked that they might be made invisible, and her prayer was heard). She got involved in the reform of the church, and the political intrigue of the fourteenth century. She wrote to ‘ Urban’, the pope who invited her to Rome for support. She never knew how to write. Jesus taught her Himself. During the schism that divided the church, Catherine saw a vision of herself crushed by the church as a great ship.
During the period of 1377-78, she dictated her major work, ‘The Dialogue’, on the spiritual life. She exhausted herself with fasting and prayer. In 1380 her health deteriorated fast, and she could not eat or drink water. In 1380, St. Catherine suffered a stroke and died in Rome at the age of 33. She was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1970.
From St. Catherine’s ‘Dialogue’: (God responds to her offer to suffer for others) “ … suffering and sorrow increase in proportion to love: When love grows, so does sorrow. Patience is not proved except in suffering, and patience is one of charity. Endure courageously, then. Otherwise you will not show yourselves to be - nor will you be - faithful spouses and children of my Truth, nor will you show that your delight is in my honor and in the salvation of souls”.
V V V
“Even the hairs of your head are counted”
God told me: “No one can escape from my hands. For I am who
am (Ex 3:14), and you, you are not of yourselves; you are only insofar as you
have been made by me. I am the creator of all things that have a part in
being, but not of sin, which is not, and which was thus not made by me. And
because it is not in me, it is not worthy of being loved. A creature only
offends me because it loves what it must not love, sin… It is impossible for
human beings to go outside of me; they either abide in me through the force of
justice, which punishes their faults, or else they abide in me, protected by
my mercy. So open the eye of your intelligence and look at my hand; you will
see that I am telling you the truth.”
Then, opening the eye of the spirit so as to obey the Father who is so great,
I saw the whole universe enclosed in that divine hand. And God told me: “My
daughter, see now and know that nothing can escape me. Everyone here is held
by justice or by mercy, because they are mine, created by me, and I love them
infinitely. No matter how wicked they might be, I will have mercy on them
because of my servants; I will hear the request that you brought before me
with so much love and suffering”…
Then my soul, as if drunk and outside of itself in the ever greater ardor of
its desire, felt at one and the same time blessed and in pain. Blessed through
the union it had had with God, tasting his joy and his goodness, wholly
plunged into his mercy. In pain because of seeing the offense done to such
great goodness.
Saint
Catherine of Siena (1347-1380), Dominican Tertiary, Doctor of the Church,
Co-patroness of Europe
Dialogue, 37
Judas’ despair
[“Judas… began to regret his action deeply. He took the thirty pieces of
silver back to the chief priests and elders and said, ‘I did wrong to deliver
up an innocent man!’ They retorted: ‘What is that to us? It is your affair!’
So Judas flung the money into the temple and left. He went off and hanged
himself.” (Mt 27:3-5)
God said to Saint Catherine:] In this world and in the other, the unforgivable
sin is that of the person who, despising my mercy, did not want to be
forgiven. That is why I consider it to be the most serious, and that is why
Judas’ despair made me sadder and was more painful for my son than his
betrayal. Thus, people will be condemned for the false judgment that makes
them believe their sin is greater than my mercy… They are condemned for their
injustice when they weep over their lot more than over how they have offended
me.
For that is when they are unjust. They do not give me what belongs to me, and
they do not give themselves what belongs to them. To me, love is owed, sorrow
over one’s fault and contrition; they must offer these to me because of their
offenses, but they do the opposite. They only have love and compassion for
themselves, since they only know how to lament over the punishment that awaits
them. So you see that they are committing an injustice, and that is why they
find themselves doubly punished for having despised my mercy.
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