Novena to St Catherine - Day 6

St Catherine lived a deep and intimate relationship with Jesus; an intimacy that is frequently expressed in such pictures as Catherine and Jesus walking along with their heads together talking, or their exchange of hearts. Catherine was also fully aware that such intimacy was utterly vital for the Christian life. In her “Dialogue” we hear God the Father saying:

(Chap. 23) I am the gardener, then, who planted the vine of my only-begotten Son in the earth of your humanity so that you, the branches, could be joined to the vine and bear fruit. … joined and engrafted to this vine … you will produce much fruit, because you share the vital sap of the vine. And being in the Word, my Son, you will be in me, for I am one with him and he with me. If you are in him you will follow his teaching, and if you follow his teaching you will share in the very being of this Word – that is, you will share in the eternal Godhead made one with humanity, whence you will draw that divine love which inebriates the soul. All this I mean when I say that you will share in the very substance of the vine.

This intimacy grows through Lectio Divina (the prayerful reading of Scripture) – spending time with the Lord, listening to His words and watching Him in action in the text of the Gospels. As this passage from the dialogue says, Christ lives more fully in us to the extent that we follow His teaching; but we will not follow His teaching unless we are familiar with it, unless we allow His words to “abide” in us (Jn 15:7). It seems very appropriate that we should remind ourselves of this necessity to become intimate with Christ through the Scriptures today, being the Feast Day of St Mark the Evangelist (something I hadn’t registered when I initially prepared this reflection).

This building of intimacy with Christ and familiarity with His words is particularly important at the present time, with people claiming that the Church’s teaching about ‘X’ or ‘Y’ is wrong and that ‘Jesus would not (or did not) teach that ‘X’ or ‘Y’ is a sin’ – such claims can often be people turning “their own ideals and indignations into an image that they call Christ,”[1] rather than Christ’s own teaching, and only familiarity with His Word equips us to recognise that.

---

[1] Sheed, F. Christ in Eclipse. (London: Sheed & Ward, 1978), p. 25.

Novena to St Catherine - Day 5

St Catherine of Siena as a woman exercised an apostolate that perhaps no other woman has done before or since. She counselled popes and cardinals and people in very walk of life. Like our Lord Himself she had a great following of people wherever she went. These were called the “Caterinati”, that is the followers of Catherine, who called her and loved her as a mother. Still, anyone who knows anything of St Catherine’s spirituality will realise that it is a very vigorous and virile one. She constantly speaks of such themes as: “living in the light of holy faith”, “the love of Christ crucified”, courage and patience, to mention but a few – in short the narrow way of the Gospel. The extract from “The Dialogue of St Catherine of Siena” that I have chosen illustrates this point:

(Chapter 5 – the Eternal Father is speaking) “Very pleasing to Me, dearest daughter, is the willing desire to bear every pain and fatigue, even unto death, for the salvation of souls, for the more the soul endures, the more she shows that she loves Me; loving Me she comes to know more of My truth, and the more she knows, the more pain and intolerable grief she feels at the offences committed against Me. Thou didst ask Me to sustain thee, and to punish the faults of others in thee, and thou didst not remark that thou wast really asking for love, light, and the knowledge of the truth, since I have already told thee that, by the increase of love, grows grief and pain, wherefore he that grows in love grows in grief. Therefore, I say to you all, that you should ask, and it will be given you, for I deny nothing to him who asks of Me in truth. Consider that the love of divine charity is so closely joined in the soul with prefect patience, that neither can leave the soul without the other. For this reason (if the soul chooses to love Me) she should chose to endure pains for Me in whatever mode or circumstance I may send them to her. Patience cannot be proved in any other way than by suffering, and patience is united with love as has been said. Therefore bear yourselves with manly courage, for, unless you do so, you will not prove yourselves to be spouses of My Truth, and faithful children, nor of the company of those who relish the taste of My honour, and the salvation of souls.”

Novena to St Catherine of Siena - Day 5

The Prayer of St. Catherine on which I am reflecting  today, is a typically Trinitarian one, calling on the Father as Power the Son as Wisdom and the Holy Spirit as Mercy.  Its concerns reflect St. Catherine’s pre-occupation:  Peace and unity for the Church, mercy for the world and the people to whom she was ministering, and strength for herself in the tension under which she found herself working.

 

PRAYER

Power of the eternal Father, help me!

Wisdom of the Son, enlighten the eye of my understanding!

Tender Mercy of the Holy Spirit,

enflame my heart and unite it to yourself!

I proclaim, eternal God, `

that your power is powerful and strong enough

to free your Church and your people, to snatch us from the devil’s hand,

to stop the persecution of Holy Church,

and to give me strength and victory over my own enemies.

I proclaim that the wisdom of your Son,

who is one with you, can enlighten the eye of my understanding

and that of your people,

and can relieve the darkness of your sweet bride.

And I proclaim, eternal gentle goodness of God,

that the mercy of the Holy Spirit, your blazing charity,

wants to enflame my heart and everyone’s

and unite them with yourself.

Power of you, eternal Father,

wisdom of your only begotten Son in his precious blood;

mercy of the Holy Spirit,

fire and deep well of charity

that beheld this Son of yours fixed and nailed to the cross-

you know how to

and you can

and you want to,

so I plead with you:

have mercy on the world and restore the warmth of charity

and peace and unity to holy Church.

O me!      I wish you would not delay any longer!

I beg you, let your infinite goodness force you

not to close the eye of your mercy!

Gentle Jesus!     Jesus love!

Novena to St Catherine of Siena - Day 4

Reflection on Charity – from the Dialogue of St Catherine of Siena, Chap. 148

 

Enlarge your heart, daughter, and open your mind’s eye to the light of faith. See with what great love and providence I have created and ordained humankind to rejoice in my supreme eternal reward. I have provided everything in soul and body, for the imperfect and the perfect, for the good and the bad, spiritually and temporally, in heaven and on earth, in this mortal life and in the immortal.

In this mortal life, so long as you are pilgrims, I have bound you with the chain of charity. Whether you want it or not, you are so bound. If you should break loose by not wanting to live in charity for your neighbors, you will still be bound by it by force. Thus, that you may practice charity in action and in will, I in my providence did not give to any one person or to each individually the knowledge for doing everything necessary for human life. No, I gave something to one, something else to another, so that each one’s need would be a reason to have recourse to the other. So though you may lose your will for charity because of your wickedness, you will at least be forced by your own need to practice it in action. Thus you see the artisan turn to the worker and the worker to the artisan: Each has need of the other because neither knows how to do what the other does. So also the cleric and religious have need of the layperson, and the layperson of the religious; neither can get along without the other. And so with everything else.

Could I not have given everyone everything? Of course. But in my providence I wanted to make each of you dependent on the others, so that you would be forced to exercise charity in action and will at once. …

Look up into me, everlasting Life; look up to the angels and the citizens of this everlasting life who have won eternal life by the power of the Lamb’s blood. I have so ordered their charity that no one simply enjoys his or her own reward in this blessed life that is my gift without its being shared by others. This is not how I have willed it to be. Rather, their charity is so well ordered and perfect that the great find joy in the reward of the small, and the small find joy in the reward of the great. I mean small in the sense of capacity, not that the small are any less full than the great. As I have told you elsewhere, each has his or her own measure.

Oh, how intimate is this charity! How united they are with me and with each other! For I am the source of what they have and they acknowledge this with holy fear and due reverence. When they see this they immerse themselves in me, and in me they see and know the dignity that I have given them. The angelic communicates with the human, that is, with the souls of the blessed, and the blessed with the angels. Thus all of them in this joyous charity rejoice in each others’ reward and exult in me in jubilation and mirth without any sadness, sweet without any bitterness, because while they lived and died they enjoyed me in loving charity through charity for their neighbors.

Novena to St Catherine of Siena, 2013 - Day 1

During the Novena to St Catherine, each evening before Vespers a sister shares a reflection or some extracts from her writings. We are happy to share these with our readers during the coming days.

Day 1

Recently we experienced the great joy of the Election of Pope Francis following the Retirement of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, and as today we begin our Novena in preparation for St. Catherine’s Feast day, I was reflecting on her deep concern and zeal for the Papacy in her particular time of the Church’s history.

For many eras, the Church has been truly blessed with wonderful Popes, each with his own personality and God given gifts has been one hundred per cent dedicated in responding to his high calling from God.   Pope Francis, no less than his predecessors faces  so many difficulties in our own particular historical situation both in the Church and in our world.  Surely we can with great confidence invoke the powerful intercession of St. Catherine to plead for the guidance and strength of the Holy Spirit which our Holy Father Francis, needs in his daily ministry.. 

Each successive Pope has had to face much criticism not only by the media but sadly at times from his own flock for what he has or has not done, or what some people think he has or has not done..  Yet at the same time, I think it is true to say, that the Popes of our own times have been deeply appreciated and looked up to by a great majority of people of all races, colours and creeds.  They have been very prayerful Shepherds whose hearts have bled for suffering humanity, for the peoples suffering war, violence of so many kinds, abuse, disease, poverty, grief  – the list is endless – they have ministered to bring God’s healing love to every anguished situation

Whilst St. Catherine was called upon to admonish the Pope of her time, she also gave firm but gentle encouragement.  I quote just part of a letter she wrote to Pope Gregory XI in 1377 when he was on his way back to Rome from Avignon in France..

'Most holy Father’, she writes, ‘open the eye of your understanding and see that if virtue is so very necessary to all peoples so that each may save his soul, how much more does one in your position, whose responsibility is to feed and care for the mystical body of holy Church, your bride, stand in need of such constancy, fortitude and patience – now you are Christ’s Vicar , you must toil and struggle for the honour of God, the salvation of souls and the reform of holy Church; all these mean pain and suffering for you’. 

Well you know, holy Father, that when you took holy Church as your bride, you took on the task of toiling and striving on her account and of facing up to many cross-winds, much pain and suffering.  Go out to meet these dangerous winds with fortitude, patience and long-suffering    Let your heart rejoice, for the many adverse situations that have and will come about, God’s work was never done in any other way.  Imitate the meekness and patience of Christ, sweet Jesus, whose Vicar you are.  I am confident in our Lord Jesus Christ, that in this and in other things he will be so much at work in you.  Be comforted and trust in the prayers of God’s good servants who are praying for you.  Abide in the sweet and holy love of God.  Sweet Jesus, Jesus love’

How applicable this reflection is to our own times – let  us be among those ‘good servants’ of whom St. Catherine speaks, and support Pope Francis  untiringly with our prayer and any sacrifice we can make for him, let us really listen to his teachings and put them into practise in our daily lives, and as far as we can, with God’s ever present Grace, imitate his humility and simplicity of life.

St. Catherine pray for the Church, pray for Pope Francis, pray for his world-wide flock.

Novena to St Catherine - Day 8

From ‘The Gifts of the Holy Spirit in Saint Catherine of Siena’, taken from ‘Que Dijo Dios al Volver’ of Dominican Nuns of Olmedo, Spain; transl by Dominican Nuns of Buffalo, New York.

The fidelity of St. Catherine led her to the practice of the loftiest and most heroic virtues.
    Nevertheless, we know that the virtues in a heroic degree cannot be practiced by the soul of itself. The action of the Holy Spirit is needed.
    But God does not let Himself be out-done in generosity, and if the soul does what it can, God does all that He wishes and He perfects the soul, leading it to the heights.
    The GIFTS -- herein is the secret.
    We cannot move them of ourselves; we know this.
    This seven-fold instrument needs a most delicate touch, so to speak.
    The Holy Spirit alone is their Artist.
    But the Holy Spirit was not given to us for nothing. He acts; and if He is impeded, "He groans with unspeakable groanings", wishing to move His gifts; and He does move them freely.
    We cannot make the gifts act but we can paralyze them -- tragic power that we have when we wrongly use this great gift of our freedom!
    St. Catherine of Siena gave the Holy Spirit full freedom in her soul, and the Holy Spirit unfurled His powerful sails in our virgin's little boat.

The Gift of Fear
    Let us look into the supernatural and divine effects caused in her soul by the gifts.
    At first sight, we see that the Gift of Fear is very pronounced in her soul.
   The experience of being Nothing is, in St. Catherine, something out of the ordinary. It is not that she sees 'nothingness' or that she discovers the contrast of the ALL. Rather, she experiences, radically, her nothingness.
    She knows herself as nothing.
    She knows herself to be an abyess of nothingness.
    The Lord has permitted her to experience it with irresistible force. She knows it; she enjoys it; she savours it in the depth of her being.
    The felling becomes more profound. She submerges herself more and more in the abyss and the Voice of God comes to confirm her in this radical nothingness, pronouncing in the centre of her soul, the phrase that leaves an indelible impression on the life of the saint.

"You are she who is not"

    Negation of being! One cannot arrive at more, or better said, less.
    Experience of the nothing! What must it be?
    By contrast, she has encountered the abyss of BEING, "You are she who is not; I am HE WHO IS." You are the exact opposite to Me. You are negation of being. My negation. I am BEING, affirmation, your complement. I have abundance of life for Me and for you. In my abyss there is room for both of us. Your abyss of shadows is filled with light from the resplendence of My rays. Your nothingness receives My Life!
    And the soul of the Saint trembled!
   
The Gift of Fear made her tremble before the presence of sin. The word sin pierced her soul like a sharp sword. She fled from sin; even from the least shadow of sin. She could not tolerate imperfections; rebellion.
    She felt the power of the Majesty of God, and shadows seem to her as abysses of darkness. The smallest infidelities made her cry out with pain, "My sins; my sins are the cause of all the evils in the world."

    She fled from everything that could seduce her, by the extreme vigilence that the horror of sin produced in her soul.
    Absolute detachment is the logical consquence; no threads to hold the soul back; freedom of heart! Nothing must hold her back.
    She goes out of her nothingness, as an arrow from the bow, directly to its point -- God.
    God was drawing her and it was the imperious necessity of her life that she reach Him.
    Her fear did not separate her from God; on the contrary, it submerged her in hope.
    She hoped, confidently and secure; with much more security, knowing that her eternity depended more on God than on herself.
   She has experienced His Infinitude and she knows that His pardon and bounty are also Infinite.
   She hopes and trusts, and is secure. She knows in Whom she has confided and she will never doubt.