St Catherine of Siena - Novena Day 9

From a letter of St Catherine to Frate Tommaso dalla Fonte

….Dearest Father, I beg you to fulfil my longing to see you united with and transformed in God. But this is impossible unless we are one with His Will. Oh sweetest eternal Will, to have taught us how to discover your holy Will! If we were to ask that gentlest most loving young man and most merciful father, this is how he would answer us: “Dearest children, if you wish to discover and experience the effects of My will, dwell within the cell of your soul”. This cell is a well in which there is earth as well as water. In the earth we can recognise our own poverty: we see that we are not - for we are not. We see that our being is from God. Oh ineffable blazing charity! I see next that as we discover the earth we get to the living water, the very core of the knowledge of God’s true and gentle will which desires nothing else but that we be made holy. So let us enter into the depths of that well - for if we dwell there, we will necessarily come to know both ourselves and God’s goodness. In recognising that we are nothing we humble ourselves. And in humbling ourselves we enter that flaming, consumed heart, opened up like a window without shutters, never to be closed. As we focus there the eye of the free will God has given us, we see and know that His Will has become nothing other than our sanctification.

Love, sweet love! Open, open up our memory for us, so that we may receive, hold fast, and understand God’s great goodness! For as we understand, so we love, and when we love, we find ourselves united with and transformed in love, in this mother charity, having passed through and yet ever passing through the gate that is Christ crucified.

He said as much to His disciples: “I will come and make my dwelling place with you.” This is my desire: to see you in the dwelling, in this transformation. My soul longs for this – for you especially and for everyone else to. I beg you: be nailed fast to the cross.

Letter 41 – from Letters of St Catherine of Siena - Volume I, translated by Suzanne Noffke OP,