Dobbie and Star

Sometimes it is good to stand back and remember the high moments of a special occasion, say our Advent and Christmas Liturgies – but also to recall the homely and seemingly insignificant things that can speak so eloquently of the love God our Father, has for us, his children – He comes to us in so many ways to reveal the wonder of His Fatherhood, the wonder of Jesus’ life and death in order to save us sinners, the wonder of His creation,

St. Francis is one of the saints who was very conscious of the beauty of Creation and we are told that it was he who created the first Christmas Crib.

But Scripture too has much to tell us as have our poets.  Joseph Mary Plunket’s poem comes to mind:

“I see His Blood upon the Rose and in the stars the glory of His eyes, His body gleams amid eternal snows, His tears fall from the skies”

And Isaiah speaks of the peace that will come to the animal world.

“The wolf shall be the guest of the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid.  The calf and the young lion shall browse together with a little child to lead them. Is.11.6.

During Christmas week, our homely Lord revealed His wonderful love and care for me through Dobbie and Star who are two homeless cats that wandered into our garden several years ago and decided to make their home with us.  Mother, and we think son, are not noted for their great affection for each other so the following episode was a surprise.

A basket had been left outside a door in a sheltered spot and one frosty morning Star was found sleeping peacefully in it.  A short while later, Dobbie was seen to have found her way right inside the basket beside Star and was carefully washing his face with an obvious maternal love!  The son was actually allowing this to happen.

Later again, I found Dobbie with her paw right round Star and both fast asleep – an amazing example of Reconciliation…!

A line from Psalm 90(91) came to mind: 

“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High, and abides in the shade of the Almighty says to the Lord, “my refuge, my stronghold, my God in whom I trust”.

 Dobbie and Star’s new found friendship is not in contrast to God’s words to Jeremiah 31.3  “with an age old love I have loved you so I have my mercy for you” and again, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you came to birth I consecrated you” Jer. 1.5.

God’s love is not a passing love.  He sees all my waywardness  and fickleness yet his constant personal love for me never changes.  St. John expresses it so beautifully: “as the Father has loved me so I have loved you – remain in my love” Jn.15.9 .

But our two little friends had still more to teach us.  About a week after Christmas, the basket disappeared and the pussies have not yet returned to their sunny corner, and I really miss their delightful company – ‘Tis called – “Learning necessary detachment”  - but again the poet got my perspectives right –

“He who holds to himself a joy

doth the winge’d life destroy.

He who kisses a joy as it flies

dwells in Eternities’ Sunrise”.

But Dobbie and Star have one final word of advice for us:

Do we know that there is a silver lining to every disappointment and this story ends on a note of joy –

The basket is back and Dobbie lies enthroned!

Novena to St Catherine of Siena - Day 2

Today is the 2nd day of the novena to St Catherine. It is also Vocation Sunday. So during the week as I was reflecting on St Catherine I had the theme of Vocations in mind also and today’s Gospel-‘I know my own and mine know me’. Somehow these converged for me in a single Gospel text-‘This is Eternal Life to know you the one true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent’.

This is the reason for our existence. This is why God created us, why He sent His Son to redeem us- so that we might know God, might participate in the very life of God, might experience being utterly and completely taken up into God’s love and be endlessly happy. The vocation of every human being is to fulfil this purpose for which we were brought into being. Our personal vocation is to discover and to follow the path marked out for us, to follow that path until we reach our destination and are one with God forever.

Catherine with this end always in view, travelled the way with single minded resolution, and in doing so brought many with her. The rest of us-well sometimes our eyes get heavy, our vision falters, we become somewhat short sighted and the things around us seem more attractive than the distant scene. We let our gaze roam, the bye ways beckon and we leave the way to explore alternative routes. Sometimes we even get lost.

On this vocation Sunday let us listen to Catherine reminding us of what we are about. Let the fire of her love set us alight, that aglow with the love of God, we might light up the way for others.

Catherine was utterly convinced, without the slightest shadow of doubt, that she was loved by God. That realization directed every moment of her life.  She just couldn’t stop talking about it so real was it for her.

The madness of God’s love bowls her over. How incessantly she returns to this theme as if to draw life from it, to draw love from it, to have the memory of it evoke a response in her- a response of love for God and of zeal for the salvation of all.

In her prayers we hear her pray:

‘O my miserable soul, arise from the darkness, arouse yourself, open the eye of your mind and contemplate the abyss of God’s love’

She sees God’s love manifested in Creation and Redemption. In one of her letters she speaks of “that perfect charity which God gave you and showed you before the creation of the world, being in love with you before you existed, for had he not been in love with you he would never had created you. By the love which He had for you, seeing you in Himself He was moved to give you being”

But this expression of God’s love is far surpassed by the abyss of love made manifest through Redemption. In prayer XI she tries to give voice to this incredible revelation :

“Just as love constrained you to draw us from yourself, so the same love constrained you to redeem us when we were lost. You indeed showed that you loved us before we existed when you willed to draw us from yourself solely through love, but you showed greater love towards us when you gave yourself, enclosing yourself in our humanity. And what more could you give than yourself? Because of this you cauld truly say ‘what should I have done or what could I have done that I have not done’”.

This is the truth that Catherine has come to know and is ever realising more clearly as she dwells continually in God’s presence. Her one desire, her sole mission in life is to bring others to the knowledge of this truth and to help them respond to it.

 And so she says to us this evening “I urge you to gaze into the abundance and abyss of his charity”  She urges us to gaze, not just to give a passing glance but to become totally absorbed, to look long and steadily until we have really seen what is to be seen, not just with our physical eyes but with the eyes of our souls. It is only in this kind of gazing, wonder struck, that we will be able to perceive in some small way the unfathomable mystery of Divine love and in perceiving be empowered to respond to it.

Palm Sunday

During the past week as I reflected on St Mark’s Passion narrative,(Ch 14 &15) which we heard at Mass this morning, my attention was drawn to the woman who broke the jar of ointment and poured it out on Jesus’ head – a very good symbol of our monastic contemplative way of life. St Mark tells us that she broke the jar and poured out the precious ointment while the disciples murmured and criticised her action as being wholly foolish and wasteful: “why this waste? Ointment like this could be sold and the money given to the poor! And they were angry with her.” We hear similar comments regarding our way of life: “why waste your life away within an enclosure apparently doing nothing while there is so much need in our modern world.” However Jesus praised the woman’s action saying: "leave her alone ……. You have the poor with you always …she has done what was in her power to do ….. wherever the Good News is proclaimed what she has done will be told also in remembrance of her."

Jesus and the woman were looking at life from a different perspective, both understood each other, they had a deep contemplative vision which penetrated beyond the external appearances to the heart - in a word they were seeing from God’s point of view.

Later in chapter 14 Jesus is present at another meal when he will take bread saying: “take it, this is my Body” and he will take the cup saying: “this is my Blood which is poured out for you”.

The woman breaks the jar and does ‘what was in her power to do’ – she gives all! Jesus gives all he has – his Body and Blood – his very all and pours it out – ‘this is all I have and I give it.’ So too with us whatever we have it is enough for Jesus to take and transform. We remember the boy with the five loaves and two fish with which He fed the multitude. What Jesus seeks above all is my heart’s love - for if he has not got my heart, then no matter what else I give, He has got nothing!

As we enter into this Holy Week accompanied by Mary and the whole Church following Jesus on his way to Calvary and beyond to the Resurrection we may ask ourselves: “what do I have that I can break open and pour out?. This pouring out of our lives becomes Gospel and Good News - there are no limits to love. A monastery is a place where the Paschal Mystery is lived out and becomes a ‘Holy Preaching’ when our lives become Gospel and Good News for others – many of whom we will never meet or know in this life.

With the Prophet Isaiah in this morning’s first reading may we too be able to say:
“Each morning he wakes me to hear
to listen like a disciple.
The Lord has opened my ear”. (Is 50:4)

Gospel Reflection: 3rd Sunday of the Year

The Communion Antiphon for this 3rd Sunday of the year urges us to "Look up to the Lord with gladness and smile ...".

Julian of Norwich, in the 15th Century, also reminds us that it is "in this, Our Lord wills that we be occupied - having joy in him for he has joy in us".If joy, as has been said, "is gladness of heart in the presence of the Beloved" then "greatly ought we to rejoice that our soul dwells in him".
"For our courteous Lord wills that we be be as homely with him as heart can think or soul desire. But we must beware lest we take this homeliness so recklessly as to forsake courtesy.

And he wants to have us, who will be with him in heaven without end, like himself in all things.
If we do not know how we shall do all this, let us desire it from our Lord, and he will teach us, for that is his own delight and his glory."

We know that "he is the ground of all our life in love; he is our everlasting keeper and mightily defends us against our enemies. When we come to him in our weaknesses the says to each of us - 'my dear darling I am glad that you have come to me; in all thy woe I have been with you. And now you see me in my love and we are one in bliss."

Blessed Henry Suso expresses a similar thought,when he wrote, "Be glad dear daughter, because you have found God whom you sought so long and so earnestly. Turn to him with shining eyes, smiling face and happy heart. Embrace him with the outstretched arems of your soul."

cf. The Revelation of Divine Love by Julian of Norwich

"May this message in all its richness find a home in you" Col.3:16

Novena to St Catherine of Siena

As promised we share here some of Catherine's writings on which we are reflecting during these days of preparation for her feast on the 29th.

The following is an extract from a letter addressed to Fr Bartolomeo Dominici, in Florence in 1375: (taken from Suzanne Noffke's translation of Catherine's letters, Vol I)

I Catherine, servant and slave of the servants of Jesus Christ am writing to encourage you in the precious blood of God's Son. I long to see you set afire, swallowed up and consumed in His blazing charity, for we know that those who are set afire and consumed in that true charity lose all self-consciousness. That is what I want you to do.

I am inviting you, in this blazing charity, to plunge into a peaceful sea, a deep sea. I have just rediscovered the sea - not that the sea is new, but it is new to me in the way my soul experiences it - in the words "God is love". Just as the sun shines its light on the earth and a mirror reflects a person's face, so these words echo within me that everyting that is done is simply love, because everything is made entirely of love, This is why He says "I am God, Love". This sheds light on the priceless mystery of the incarnate Word, who out of sheer love, was given in such humility that it confounds my pride. It teaches us to look not just at what He did but at the blazing love this Word has given us. It says that we should do as a loving person does when a friend comes with a gift, not looking at the friend's hands to what the gift is, but looking with the eyes of love at the friends's loving heart. This is what God's supreme, eternal, more tender that tender goodness, wants to do when He visits our soul.

So when He comes to you with His incalculable blessings, let your memory open up at once to receive what you understanding has seen in His divine love, and let your will rise up in blazing desire to receive and gaze upon the burning heart of the giver, the good gentle Jesus, In this way you will find yourself swallowed up and clothed in the fiery gift of the blood of God's Son. You will be freed from all suffering and grief. This is what relieved the holy discioples' pain when they had to leave Mary and one another, though in order to spread God's word they gladly endured the separation. Run! Run! Run!
May God be ever in your soul. Amen.

4th Sunday Cycle C

Mass Readings:
1st Reading: Jer 1:4-5, 17-19
2nd Reading: 1Cor 12:31-13:13
Gospel: Luke 4:21-30

The Gospel reading to-day is a continuation of last week's Gospel Luke 4:14-21. Last week Luke told us that Jesus "with the power of the Spirit in Him returned to Galilee; and His reputation spread throughout the countryside - He taught in their synagogues and everyone praised Him."

While today we hear again that Jesus "won the approval of all and the people were astonished by the gracious words that came from His lips" this admiration soon turned sour! Today's Gospel ends with the stunning words: "they took Him (Jesus) up to the brow of the hill their town was built on, intending to throw Him down the cliff, but He slipped through the crowd and walked away".

How mysterious to relflect on the fact that the preaching of Jesus, the Son of God, who was filled with "the power of the Spirit", was rejected by some. Must we, His disciples, be surprised if our preaching is not accepted by our contemporaries. But Jesus continued to proclaim the truth no matter what the cost and we know that this ultimately led to the Cross. His love for His Father and for us His brothers and sisters was so great that it was unthinkable for Him to give up. St Paul's hymn on 'love' in the second reading could be paraphrased as follows:

Jesus was always patient and kind; He was never jealous; He was never boastful or conceited; never rude or selfish; did not take offence, and was not resentful. Jesus took no pleasure in other people's sins but delighted in the truth; He was always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope and to endure whatever came.

Ultimately it was His love which triumphed over death and in Him we too triumph over sin and evil. And so we pray in the opening prayer of today's Mass:

Lord our God, help us to love you with all our hearts and to love all men and women as you love them. Amen.

2nd Sunday Cycle C

THEY
HAVE
NO
WINE












1st Reading: Is 62:1-5
2nd Reading: 1Cor 12:4-11
Gospel: Jn 2:1-12

Reflection 1

A homely scene some 2000 years ago
A wedding feast at Cana.
Jesus, God and man invited,
His disciples too.
The wine runs short
Mary, God’s own Mother takes note,
Her appeal to her Son bears fruit.
Water is turned into wine and in abundance!
And today?
Jesus loves the Church, you and me, as a Bride.
He conquered our sin and death by His appalling Death
And glorious Resurrection.
Brought us redemption; blessed us with his Spirit.
Shamefully we, members of the Church, have been unfaithful.
The God of love does not forsake us:
“No longer are you to be named ‘forsaken’
nor your land ‘abandoned’
but you shall be called ‘my delight’
and your land ‘the wedded’
Dare we once again heed God’s Mother
And do what he tells us?
‘Repent and believe the Gospel.’
‘Love one another as I have loved you’.
‘Forgive and you shall be forgiven’
‘As the Father has loved me so I have loved you
remain in my love'
He let his glory be seen (through us) and his disciples
Believed in him.
As the bridegroom rejoices in his bride,
So will your God rejoice in you.

Thank you, Merciful Jesus, friend of sinners.


Reflection 2

About Zion I will not be silent
About Jerusalem I will not grow weary
until her integrity shines out like the dawn,
and her salvation flames like a torch

In this 1st.reading of to-days liturgy we hear an echo of Jesus' great cry on the Cross---- I THIRST.

Thirsting-yes but for what?-----Water to be sure, to quench the terrible physical thirst he was enduring ---- but far, far more He thirsted for our love---yours and mine ------everyone’s-----He says 'I will not grow weary'

Julian of Norwich tells us that He still has that same thirst and longing which He had on the Cross. This desire and longing and thirst were in Him from the beginning and they will persist until He has won the last soul for his Father.

Listen again----About Zion I will not be silent-----About Jerusalem I will not grow weary. Hear the yearning and pleading in these words. This is Jesus' spiritual thirst - His longing in love to gather us all into the safe place of His Heart, to our endless joy. As truly as there is in Him a quality of compassion so there is in Him a quality of thirst and longing, and the power of this longing in Christ enables us to respond to His longing.

His is a longing to possess us - "As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride - so will your God rejoice over you". In nearly every page of the Prophets and the Gospels we can sense this thirsting love of our God.

The Saints heard it - Dominic heard it - Mother Teresa in our own day felt in her inmost being this thirsting love of Jesus on the cross, and it became a living flame within her. He asked her to bring this love into the dark corners of every heart.

He even turns to us, pleads with us to sow the seed of His Word in every heart.
Maybe the ground of my heart is parched, but if I plead with Him He will surely send His Spirit to irrigate it, and transform me into a missionary of His love.

Most Holy Spirit let your power overshadow me, and come into my heart with fire and love, and make it one with Mary's love and Mary's will to save the world.

We have only to say to Mary------'I have no wine'----and she will ask Her Son to transform our lukewarmness into her own thirst for souls.

My Jesus do not grow weary,

With Mary I will satiate your Thirst for souls

December 24th/25th - CHRISTMAS

On Christmas Eve we began the Divine Office with the antiphon

Know today that the Lord will come: in the morning your will see his glory

Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could live each day with the conviction that yes, the Lord will come - that He will come is as sure as the dawn!
During the past four weeks of Advent we have been waiting for His coming and we have reflected on His three comings:
1) His coming at the end of time
2) His coming on the first Christmas at Bethlehem
3) His coming in grace to each individual

While we remember and celebrate His coming on the first Christmas night when the angels brought the shepherds "the news of great joy that today a Saviour has been born" we can also look on our celebration of Christmas as a foretaste of that moment when that same Saviour will bring us through the gates of death to eternal life and then we shall see His glory! what our joy will be on that day we will never grasp until we experience it!
Therefore each celebration of the Christmas mystery deepens our joy and our hope and unites us with our loved ones who have gone before us and who await us to share in the great banquet of our heavenly home.



We wish all our readers a grace-filled Christmas.


The following is a reflection given by one of the our sisters at First Vespers of Christmas which we would like to share with you

REFLECTION

This year marked the 30th Anniversary of Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s death. He was given this title “The World’s Preacher” because he had an audience of millions for his T.V. shows and radio broadcasts – up to 30 million viewers per week in the 1930’s, 40’s & 50’s. His TV show was called ‘Life is Worth Living’ and his message is as relevant today as it was 60 years ago – if not more so.

At his anniversary Mass in New York, two weeks ago Archbishop Dolan said that the key message of the ‘World’s Preacher’ was “He wanted to get to Heaven; and he wanted to bring the whole world with him”- a mission very similar to that of our Dominican Order which was founded by St Dominic “for preaching and the salvation of souls”.

Archbishop Dolan continued to say in his homily that “Fulton Sheen’s pivotal insight, central to revelation, was that Jesus Christ was the way to heaven, the truth about how to get there, the life we hope to share for all eternity. For him this Jesus was alive, still active, still powerful, still teaching, still healing, still praying, still leading us to heaven, because you see the Incarnation was still going on: The Word was still taking flesh; God was still becoming man”. The great mystery of the Incarnation continues if we allow the Word to become flesh in us. In preface III of Christmas, we read these wonderful and astonishing words:

Today in Jesus Christ a new light has dawned upon the world:
God has become one with man,
and man has become one again with God.

It is God who has achieved for us this unity with him. Our communion with God is emphasised also in the prayer over the gifts in Mass tonight (Midnight Mass) as it says:

‘Lord, accept our gifts on this joyful feast of our salvation. By our communion with God made man, may we become more like him, who joins our lives to yours, for he is Lord for ever and ever. Amen’

Our union with Christ is sustained and nourished through the Eucharist and the other sacraments, through the celebration of the Liturgical Hours, through private prayer, through doing good deeds, through loving others. Love and loving are central. Pope Benedict said recently that “the secret of true joy does not consist in having a lot of things, but in feeling loved by the Lord, in making oneself a gift for others, in loving.”

It struck me that Fulton Sheen’s preaching combined very powerfully the three comings of Christ with particular emphasis on the third coming which, if lost sight of, distorts the quality of our living to the full, diminishing it in some way. Like Cassian’s first Conference it is helpful for us to have the goal of the monastic life always in view, which is the Kingdom of God – Heaven Itself, while being aware that the way to reach it, is living deliberately, in purity of heart, in deep love of God and neighbour.

Being aware of the tensions between the past, present and future comings of Christ and keeping them in correct balance, sustains us in our life of prayer, amid personal, Church, country and global darkness and crises. Jesus still invites us to come to Him for peace, meaning, purpose, for salvation, and eventually to come with him forever to Heaven, as Preface II of Christmas says:

“Christ has come to lift up all things to himself,
to restore unity to creation,
and to lead mankind from exile into your heavenly kingdom.

I will end with the second opening prayer of the Mass tonight which beautifully illustrates these three comings of Christ and the joy which will be ours in eternity at the final coming of Christ, while being given a foretaste of this joy now on our journey on earth.

Let us pray
‘Lord our God, with the birth of your Son, your glory breaks on the world.

Through the night hours of the darkened earth we your people watch for the coming of
your promised Son. (1st Coming)

As we wait, give us a foretaste of the joy (2nd coming in grace) that you will grant us when the fullness of his glory has filled the earth, (Final coming) who lives and reigns with you for ever and ever. Amen.

Second Week of Advent

The readings for this Sunday are full of hope and enouragement - as we all know, we, Irish people are greatly in need of such hope in our present crises.
One can almost feel that these readings were selected specially for us!!!

The entrance antiphon which we sing in our community for the Mass of this Second Sunday of Advent expresses very well these sentiments of hope which God's loving providence provides:

People of Zion, the Lord will come to save all nations, and your hearts will exult to hear his majestic voice. The people of God will sing songs of joy, like songs in the night. They will have gladness of heart. People of Sion the Lord will come to save all nations and your hearts will exult to hear his majestic voice. On every high mountain streams will flow and there will be light - as you are healed by the Lord. Yes on every high mountain, streams will flow and there will be joy, for your are loved by the Lord

In the Gospel this Majestic voice - the Word of God - came to John the Baptist in the wilderness. So too with us God's word comes to us in the wilderness - in the ordinariness, of our own lives and in bewildering circumstances - if only we have an open ear and an open heart to listen and hear His message. John's message of repentance for the forgiveness of sins is one of hope. No matter how far we may have strayed from God, He is always there at our side - for we cannot escape His all seeing eye - waiting for us to return. Like the father in the parable of the prodigal son (Lk 15) our heavenly Father is always ready to embrace us once we repent of our sin and turn back to Him.

Recently I came across the following poem by Péguy - perhaps it may speak to you, our readers, as it did to me?

You may wonder, you may ask yourself: but how is it
That this fountain of Hope flows eternally,
Eternally young, eternally pure.
Eternally fresh, eternally flowing.
Eternally living.....
My good people, says God, it is not tricky....
If she wanted to make pure springs out of pure water
If she wanted to make springs of pure water,
Then she would never find enough of it in the whole of my creation.
Because there is not a whole lot of it.
But it is precisely with the impure water that she makes her springs of pure water.
And that is the reason she never runs out.
but that is also why she is Hope...
...and that is the most beautiful secret in the garden of the world!

And so we pray with St Paul in the second reading:

May our love for each other increase more and more and never stop improving our knowledge and deepening our perception so that we can always recognise what is best and so become pure and blameless and prepare us for the Day of Christ when we will reach the perfect goodness which Jesus Christ produces in us for the glory and praise of God.

“Jesus looked steadily at him and loved him”

Last Sunday’s Gospel (the story of the rich young man, Mk ch 10) is a very rich one for vocation discernment. Every vocation grows from an awareness that, just as He did with the young man in the Gospel, Jesus is looking at me with love and saying, “come, follow me”. It is also important to see that a religious vocation is given to those who “lack” something – a religious vocation is not given to one who is holy but to one whom God wishes to make holy. Jesus looks at each one, just as we are, and loves us and calls us to follow him. It is out of that deep love that he says, “there is one thing you lack” – he loves us so much that he wants us to be complete and whole, loving God and our neighbour with our whole being. And so he calls us and says, “there is one thing you lack … come follow me”. Jesus is not saying we must be perfect to be called to religious life but He is calling us to religious life because He knows that this is the best way for us.

A vocation is not so much what we do for God as what God is doing for us. The particular vocation to which Jesus calls each one of us is intended to help us to overcome what we are ‘lacking’. Many people speak of the ‘feeling that something was missing’ in their everyday life before they discerned their vocation. For me personally I experienced this sense that something was ‘lacking’ during my discernment regarding where the Lord was leading me and which Order I should to enter. As I searched I kept feeling that there was something missing until I discovered this community of Dominican Nuns.

Jesus continues to guide us and to say, “there is one thing you lack”. We must be willing to listen to Jesus speaking in the depths of our hearts, helping us to see what we lack. And as we grow and become more open to God’s loving action in our lives we will see more clearly what Jesus is telling us and correct it with His help, until at last, in heaven, we will lack nothing.

‘cups and pots and bronze dishes’

22nd Sunday in Ordinary time Yr B
Gospel from Mark 7:1-8;14-15;21-23

‘cups and pots and bronze dishes’

What are these before the Lord? … nothing …
and not only nothing, but empty.

Why do you hide behind them?
Why do you make them out to be so important?
Why won’t you follow Me?

You – not the cups and pots and bronze dishes – you are the one I want, not these empty, lifeless things. They are only useful for holding and carrying, but I want you to contain Me – I want to live and be alive in you.

We are invited to give up trying to control God, trying to make God out to be what we think He should be. But, we don’t believe in God so as to be able to force His hand, to have control over how He acts, to tell Him how to be God. God is not complicated, as we make Him out to be. He has given us His Son, who is the Way the Truth and the Life. He has given us everything, and still humbly asks us neither to ‘take from’ nor ‘add to’ what we have been given – don’t try to perfect Him who is already perfect, who is God.

When I come to the Lord, then, and don’t know what to do or say, and almost helplessly cry out ‘Lord, all I want is you’, I should remember and believe that they are the same words He speaks to me: ‘My child, My beloved, … all I want is you’.

So, shake off the fear of unworthiness and unclean-ness – or, at least, be an honest hypocrite before God. Give Him the fear, but give Him yourself as well, give Him yourself first, give Him your divided heart – and if you can’t ‘accept and submit to the word which has been planted in you and can save your souls’ – yet – humbly acknowledge it and ask for the grace to receive God in all the ways He wants to love you. …
and it will be yours.

St Catherine of Siena - Novena Day 6

The Eternal Father speaks to Catherine about charity:

It is like a vessel that you fill at the fountain. If you take it out of the fountain to drink, the vessel is soon empty. But if you hold your vessel in the fountain while you drink, it will not get empty. Indeed it will always be full. So the love of your neighbour is meant to be drunk in Me without any self-interest.

I ask you to love Me with the same love with which I love you. But for Me you cannot do this, for I loved you without being loved. Whatever love you have for Me you owe Me, so you love Me, not gratuitously but out of duty, while I love you not out of duty, but gratuitously. So you cannot give me the kind of love I ask of you. This is why I have put you among your neighbours: so that you can do for them what you cannot do for Me - that is, love them wihtout any concern for thanks and without looking for any profit for yourself. And whatever you do for them I will consider done for me.

So your love should be sincere: You should love your neighbours with the same love with which you love Me. Do you know how you can tell when your spiritual love is not perfect? If you are distressed when it seems that those you love are not returning your love and not loving you as much as you think you love them. Or if you are distressed when it seems to you that you are being deprived of their company or comfort or that they love someone else more than you.

From these and from many other things you should be able to tell if your love for Me and for your neighbours is still imperfect and that you have been drinking from your vessel outside of the fountain, even though your love was drawn from Me. But it is becasue your love for Me is imperfect that you show it so imperfectly to those you love with a spiritual love.

From the Dialogue of St Catherine of Siena - Chapter64

St Catherine of Siena - Novena Day 5

The Eternal Father speaks to Catherine:

Keep in mind that each of you has your own vineyard. But every one is joined to your neighbours' vineyards without any dividing lines. They are so joined together, in fact, that you cannot do good or evil for yourself without doing the same for your neighbours.

All of you together make up one common vineyeard, the whole Christian Assembly, and you are all united in the vineyard of the mystic body of holy Church from which you draw your life. In this vineyard is planted the vine, which is my Only-Begotten Son, into whom you must be engrafted.

It is charity that binds you to true humility - the humility that is found in knowing yourself and Me. See then that as workers I have sent you all. And now I am calling you again, because the world is failing fast. The thorns have so multiplied and have choked the seed so badly that it will produce no fruit of grace at all.

I want you, therefore, to be true workers. With deep concern help to till the souls in the mystic body of holy Church. I am calling you to this because I want to be merciful to the world as you have so earnestly begged Me.

From the Dialogue of St Catherine of Siena - Chapter 24

St Catherine of Siena - Novena Day 1

From a letter to Frate Giusto di Giovanni da Volterra:

I long to see you eating and savouring souls. Take your lesson from gentle First Truth who in His restlessly yearning hunger and thirst for our salvation cried out from the wood of the most holy cross, "I thirst". It is as if He were saying: "I am more longingly thirsty for your salvatin than I can show you through this finite suffering." Yes, He is tortured with physical thirst, but that suffering is finite. It is the pain of holy desire, shown us in His thirst for the human race, that is infinite. Oh good and gentle Jesus, You let us know You are thirsty and at the same time You ask for a drink.

He gave His blood out of love and it is with this love that He asks us for a drink. I mean that Jesus, who loves, is asking to be loved and served. It is only right that the one who loves ought to be loved. This is how we give our Creator a drink: when we give Him love for love. But we cannot give it to Him through any service we can render Him; no we must give it to Him in the person of our neighbour.

(Taken from Letter 8 in Letters of St Catherine of Siena, Volume II translated by Suzanne Noffke OP,- published by Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies,2001)

Dare to Believe

Then she knows the truth about me the eternal Father: that in love I have created her to give her eternal life. This is the truth, and I have revealed it to her in the blood of Christ crucified. Once the soul has come to know this, she loves it, and she shows her love by genuinely loving what I love and hating what I hate. …
… So the memory, all imperfection past, is filled … because it has remembered and held within itself my blessings.
… Understanding receives the light. Gazing into the memory it comes to know the truth, and shedding the blindness of selfish love it remains in the sunlight of Christ crucified in whom it knows both God and humanity. … Then the will, which follows understanding, united itself in a most perfect and burning love. And if anyone should ask me what this soul is, I would say: She is another me, made so by the union of love.

[Dialogue, ch.96]

These are words spoken by God, our eternal Father, to St Catherine of Siena, whose feastday occurs at the end of this month. She had an astounding love for the Lord, uncontainable, and it pours out in the words of the ‘Dialogue’. The words quoted above caught my attention, and then on re-reading them, caught my attention still more, and in these last few days, even hours, of Lent – they are quite powerful when you sit with them. St.Catherine’s ‘Dialogue’ is demanding that way, you can’t read too much at a time, because it contains so much.

St.Catherine was passionate about the Lord, and she was passionate about people – all of us, who were created in His image and likeness – and she longed for everyone to know how precious we are in our Father’s sight; how infinite is His love for us, and what dignity is ours as His children.

And we can come to know this too, if especially in these days – we allow ourselves to be open to the ‘possibility’ that even we – even you – are just that precious to God … no matter what. In times when it is so easy to feel that nothing is ‘going right’, when the point of any of our efforts is beyond us; no work, no hope, and our worth as people is lost – the words of our Father to Catherine are vital. Read them again, and let yourself be amazed at how amazing you are.

YOU ARE AMAZING

God’s words to Catherine are His words to you – if you let yourself come to Him, just as you are, and sit with Him, watch Him, and ask to be drawn to know Him a little bit better – what you will discover is that in every moment of your life, in your every breath – your Father is watching you with eyes that love you infinitely; with a love that does not judge you as you judge yourself; and with mercy that is deeper than anything you could grasp.

The Lord carried you, as a man carries his child, all along the road you travelled

Deut 1:31b