St Catherine of Siena and her times

Yes she offered her life for the Church in Rome and it was at once accepted and she died a very hard death. In this she reminds me of St Teresa of Avila who said, 'I am a daughter of the Church@ and St Therese of Liseaux who said , 'My vocation is to be love at the heart of the Church'.

I had a funny kind of mixed bag of a day with the Church yesterday. Walking round the park a man , a complete stranger came up to me and congratulated me on becoming a Eucharistic Minister at Clonard Monastery. Such a good ,warm man reminding me of the Communion of the Saints.

Later on after mass another man interrupted my prayer after mass ( I am glad he did) to ask me to come outside to speak with him about Our Lady. Again warm feelings of brotherhood. I am usually on my own to get on with things so all this was good.

But the guy who had himself been a Eucharistic Minister to the same religious Congregation for over 40 years mentioned to me that several members of the Order are practising homosexuals in their community. I had no idea. But this explains me having to hold my hands over my ears during certain sermons. If the public know this I take it their superiors know it and nothing is being done. Horror.

But there is the mass, the mass, the mass, the mass, the sacraments.....I am a billion times better off for the Church, God, dear God thank you for the Church with all its faults.

Dear God help me to make the Church better by granting me the grace to become a saint, a kind gentle happy not to hard to stick kind of saint like St Catherine.
But St Catherine please show me how to, like you, kick asses that so badly need kicked. Do not let me be like the guy who walks past on the other side. At the moment I give an occasional swipe but nothing seems to happen. Whereas when you kicked ass they went into orbit.

View attachment 1910

 

The Island of Gorgona


I love the way the life of Saint Catherine is full of stories, not only stories but stories that are very probably true. We can say this because the guy who wrote most of them down Fr Raymond of Capua, was careful to put in little references to actual people who witnessed each even. Fr Raymond I suspect being aware that even for people from the middle ages references to being raised into the air during prayer might be hard to swallow.

One such story concerns the Carthusians in the beautiful island of Gorgona. The Prior insisted for many years that Catherine pay a visit. This is so remarkable. In the first place in that the Carthusians are the Green Berets of the Catholic Church, very austere hermits who would be inclined to look up to no one in terms of holiness, yet it is clear that the Prior at least was in awe of her. Also because she was a woman in a time when men were not inclined to give the ladies first spot.

Catherine was eventually drummed into a visit and along with 20 disciples stayed at a house. The Prior wheeled the 20 monks out into the open air and they listened awe struck to a little talk from Catherine, which was very much to the point indeed in indicating faults that needed fixing. The Prior noted that although he had spent years hearing the hermits confessions Catherine had laid her finger in a few minutes in what and where things needed done. She had read their souls.

I cannot help smiling at the thought of how much this reading of souls stuff might have led to red faces and discomfort and much shuffling of sandal.

But there are as well two other aspects of this that may be counted, I suspect as also supernatural. A great storm suddenly hit Catherine's boat on the way off the island....I suspect the hand of the devil. But they got ashore safely.

Also two or three years later Islamic corsairs hit the island and killed or took as slaves all those poor monks. I cannot help thing what a comfort it would have been to them in their slavery in North Africa to recall the great saints visit. She was the right woman, at the right time in the right place.

The Providence of God.



Carthusian Monastery Ruins , Gorgona.

 

Well back to St Catherine again. You know I read this book as a kid and all those years since I regarded st Catherine as my favourite saint. Rereading this book reminds me of why I love her so much. Well she is both so loveable and down to earth but also just so interesting she got up the most fantastic things. Miracle after miracle , mystical experience and clearly at the very heights of holiness right from the start.

It began in the smallest of ways. She locked herself in her bedroom for three years and ended up Married to God.

Three years is such a short time, really . Though St Teresa of Avila wrote that it would be possible fora person with the grace of God to become a saint in the space of one Hail Mary.

 

O Supreme and Ineffable God (St Catherine of Seinna)

O Supreme and Ineffable God, I have sinned! Therefore, I am unworthy to pray to Thee. But Thou canst make me less unworthy. Punish my sins, O Lord, but turn not away from my misery. From Thee I have received a body which I offer to Thee. Behold my body and my blood! Strike, destroy, reduce my bones to dust, but grant me what I ask for the Sovereign Pontiff, the one Bridegroom of Thy Spouse. May he always know Thy will, may he love it and follow it, so that we may not perish. O my God, create a new heart in him! May he ever receive an increase of Thy grace; may he never tire of bearing the standard of Thy holy cross; and may he bestow the treasures of Thy mercy upon unbelievers as he bestows them upon us who enjoy the benefits of the passion and blood of Thy most beloved Son, the Lamb without a spot. O Lord, eternal God, have mercy on me for I have sinned.

 

You know St Catherine , after her mystical wedding to our Lord was given a beautiful jewelled marriage ring on her finger which she could see there constantly for the rest of her life. Not only this but others, from time to time claimed to be able to see it as well.

I love this stuff. So beautiful. She really got the full works Jesus Himself present, Our Lady the angels, the works.

View attachment 1953

 

There are saints and then again there are great saints and very great ones. St Catherine I count amongst the very great.
View attachment 1958

Why? Well to meet a saint , either in real life (and I have met a few) or in books is to feel your heart take fire. For instance one time an English Anglican Clergyman travelled to the village of Ars to meet Saint John Vianney and when asked what he was like said,

'I have met God in a man'.
View attachment 1959

Many years ago when I was about 20 years old and my faith was just about gone I visited a lady as part of a Social Work Survey. The lady was, I suppose in her late 40's married with 8 children and was lying in her bedroom dying of cancer. As soon as I entered her room and started to talk to her I knew I was in the presence of a saint. Her name was Etta and she was gentle and kind, so listening, the love just flowed out of her.

Because Etta lived in my grandmothers street I had a chance to confirm my impressions. She was regarded my neighbours and all who knew her as a saint.

But with Saint Catherine we must multiply this light a hundred times. They are many reports of people coming to meet her for the first time, some of them intensely hostile and coming to pick a fight, or mock , or condemn and upon seeing Catherine, just to look at her, they fell on her knees in tears experiencing instant conversion.
THIS IS VERY GREAT HOLINESS INDEED.

Someone watching people in the street kneeling at her approach and kissing her hand spoke to her of the dangers of vainglory. Catherine puzzled replied, 'I have never understood how an ordinary creature , created by God could feel pride when everything we have and are is a gift from God'.

Now that is humility in a nutshell.

When she lay ding apparently the devil came to accuse her of pride for at one point she sat up on her death bed and said,

'No never vain glory everything was for the Cross of Christ!'.

In her case, at least, truest of all.

 

There is something else about Catherine that is hard to put into words.

There was a lady I I used to see many years ago at a distance who used to visit the monastery from time to time. I never knew her name or anything else about her. But looking at her I somehow knew she was a saint. How did I know? Well I don't know really. But I just never had any doubts, maybe we see a lot of things with an inner spiritual eye. But since she was so very Holy it would have been hard to hide, I think.

Anyway after seeing her coming and going a year or two I grew curious and wondered if I was right so I took the opportunity to ask one of the monks straight out, one who I suspected was her Spiritual Director,

'That lady is a saint isn't she?'

He seemed startled and gave me a funny look, then he nodded and said quite simply,

'Yes she is. She is a saint'.

Even all these centuries later you can sense this , I know not what in Catherine, a kind of regalness of great sanctity, she is no hired servant she is one of the family , a Regal Princess of Heaven.

The French have a phrase , 'Je sais pas ce que'. 'I know not what'. Catherine had the 'Je sais pas ce que' of heaven.

 

I read somewhere that when she needed to go to confession, the ring would fade. I wish I had a ring like that!!!

 

Can you find me one too Kathy as you look for more things on ebay like medals and what not

 

If we get to heaven we will all have one. Heaven is the Marriage Feast of the Lamb.

The Eternal Party. Of which the Eucharist is just the beginning of the beginning. Heaven on Earth.