The Life of Saint Catharine of Sienna by Raymond of Capua

(Charlotte: Tan Books, 2011), 353

O abyss! O eternal Diety! O unplumbed sea! What more can you give me, when you have given me yourself? (298)

  • Be pure and moderate for my daughter's sake: "Thus the modesty and decency that were to be found in Giacomo's house drove license and indecency from the house of his son-in-law Niccolo." (5)
  • Catherine was her parent's 25th (!!) child (7)
  • She made a vow of virginity at age 7: "she began to realize that it was necessary to be perfectly pure in body and soul if she was to love well" (14)
  • God gives us desires that he may satisfy them: "Almighty God had infused this zeal into her soul for other ends and intended to satisfy her desire." (18)
  • Catherine chastised her mother: "Lady mother, when I don't do what you tell me to do, or go too far, beat me as much as you like so that next time I shall take more care, because this is meet and just; but I beg you not to let my failings make your tongue run away with you and make you start cursing the neighbors, whoever they may be, because this doesn't suit anyone of your age and it causes me very great pain." (19)
  • Catherine's fasting and penances
    • She hardly ate and slept, spending most of her time in prayer and contemplation (23)
    • First gave up meat and lived entirely on bread and raw herbs, then gave up bread and lived on raw herbs, but "her physical powers were not at all enfeebled by this lack of food and drink" (35)
    • "While we are attending to God we find it easy to fast, but if we turn to other things we find it well-nigh impossible to go on with it." (36)
    • "She gradually overcame her need for sleep until she needed no more than half an hour every other day...she found learning to do without sleep the most difficult thing of all." (37)
    • "To observe the vow of purity better she decided to preserve an utter silence and never speak except at confession." (54)
    • "The value of a person's sanctity is to be weighted and judged, not on the basis of any fasting but according to the degree of that person's charity." (138)
  • Catherine: "Make yourself a cell in your own mind from which you need never come out." (27)
  • Imagine your enemies as the Lord: She told me that she had imagined her father as our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, her mother as his most glorious Mother, and her brothers and the other members of the family as the holy Apostles and disciples. With this in her mind, she had been able to serve them quite conscientiously and contentedly—much to their amazement." (28)
  • Catherine received the Dominican habit: "white for innocence and black for humility" (47)
  • She distributed her family's goods to the poor and prayed that their prosperity would come to end and and they be reduced to a state of poverty (53)
  • Catherine: "I have never learned anything about the way of salvation from men or women but only from the Lord and Master Himself." (55)
  • "Truth makes the soul humble but lies make it proud." (56)
  • Catherine's trustworthiness was made known to Raymond through her revealing his sins to him, and by Christ appearing to him through her (57-60)
  • "The souls of the faithful are quickened and fed by the word of God." (62)
  • Think only about God: "Just try to think of me and understand me, for your perfection and final good are to be found in this." (66)
  • Catherine's teachings (68+)
    • Forsake yourself and immerse yourself wholly in God.
    • The more love you have for God the more hatred you will have for sensuality
    • The love of self leads to pride and all the other vices
  • "The Lord in His mercy allowed all this to happen to increase His bride's crown, and He supplied her with such strong spiritual weapons that she made more progress through having to fight than she would have done if she had been left in peace." (72)
  • "I willed to act by way of the cross, so that I could teach you by words based on actions. If you want to have the strength to overcome all the enemy's powers, take the cross as your refreshment as I did...The more you suffer such things for My sake the more you make yourself like Me. If you conform yourself to Me in suffering, truly, as My Apostle says, you will become like Me in grace and glory." (73)
  • Catherine's rule: just go on praying, never descend to the level of argument with the Enemy in times of temptation.
  • "When the wise athlete of Christ feels himself growing inwardly tepid, he should go on with his usual spiritual exercises and if anything increase them." (75)
  • Dialogue of suffering (76-77):
    • Devil: "You wretched creature, do you intend to live in this deplorable condition for the rest of your life?"
    • Catherine: "With joy I have chosen the way of suffering and shall endure these and any other persecutions in the name of the Savior for as long as it shall please Him to send them, in fact i shall enjoy them."
    • Jesus: "You see how much I suffered for you? Do not be sad, then, that you must suffer for me. What pleases me is not the pains but the will of the person who endures them with fortitude."
  • "The Lord appeared to her very frequently indeed, and had long conversations with her...Generally he came alone and talked to Catherine as one friend to another, so much so, as she shyly confessed to me, that they would say the Psalms together, walking up and down the little room like two religious brothers saying their office." (78-79)
  • Uniqueness of the saints: "Upon each of his saints the Lord confers some special gift that he alone can rejoice in, so that not only all the saints together, but each one in particular, will manifest some facet of the Lord's greatness." (79)
  • God taught her to read: "Lord if you want me to learn to read so that I can say the Psalms and sing your praises in the Canonical Hours, deign to teach me what I am not clever enough to learn by myself. If not, thy will be done: I shall be quite content to remain in my ignorance and shall be able to spend more time in meditating on you in other ways." When she got up she knew how to read any kind of writing quite easily and fluently. (79-80)
  • She was drawn into the active life: "Be quiet, sweetest daughter; it is necessary fro your to fulfill your every duty, so that with my grace you may assist others as well as yourself. I wish to bind you more closely to myself, by means of love of the neighbor...You must walk, in fact, with both feet, not one, and with two wings fly to heaven!" (89-90)
  • She determined to receive Holy Communion as often as she possibly could: "Anyone who truly feeds on it is at once united with His Body." (93)
  • Catherine gave her silver cross to a beggar, and in prayer later that night Jesus returned it to her covered with jewels. (103)
  • She gave a tunic to a beggar, and the Lord returned it to her and from then on she never had need to wear more clothes in winter than in summer. (105-106)
  • She cared for a leper woman until her death and contracted the disease. As soon as Catherine buried her, the disease disappeared from her hands. (114)
  • Jesus: "I give your soul a special illumination which will enable you to see the beauty or ugliness of all the souls who come to you, so that your spiritual senses will henceforth perceive spiritual conditions." (118)
    • Catherine: "If you could see the beauty of a rational soul, you would not doubt for a minute that you would be prepared to give your life a hundred times over for the salvation of that soul, for there is noting in this world that can compare with such beauty." (119)
  • While caring for Andrea she was overcome with nausea while changing her bandages. "Long live the highest, the sweet Bridgegroom of my soul! This which you find so abhorrent, let it enter into your bowels! And she collected up into a bowl the fetid stuff that had been used to wash the sore, along with all the pus, and going away a little, gulped it all down. When she had done this ,the temptation to feel repugnance passed away." Then she had a vision of Jesus on the cross, who said "Drink, daughter, the liquid from my side." From that time she never wanted food or was able to take it. (127-129)
  • Daily Eucharist:
    • "I feel so satisfied by the Lord when I receive his most adorable Sacrament that I could not possibly feel any desire for any other kind of food." (131-136)
    • "She received the Sacrament not every day, but frequently." Cites Hierarchy of the Church by Dionysius that daily communion was common in the early church (255), and Aquinas that frequent reception increases devotion in the person receiving but sometimes reduces his feeling of reverence (256 cf. ST III, Q. 80, A. 10).
    • "Father I'm hungry! For the love of God, give my soul its food!" (257)
    • "I saw the particle quite clearly jump out of the chalice" and fly to Catherine so she could receive. (261)
  • "We must accept whatever God demands of us; otherwise we would despise God's special gifts." (139)
  • "All the evil that happened to her she attributed to her sins, and all the good to God." (139)
  • Don't engage: "To the professional scandalmongers, whose tongues have grown accustomed to telling lies, the best answer is silence, not words." (140)
  • "Dearest daughter, as I took your heart away from you the other day, now, you see, I am giving you mine." (144)
  • St. Paul appeared to her: "Just think what Christ's reprimand will be like at the Last judgement, if that of one of his Apostles could make me so afraid!" (161)
  • Interpreting Scripture: "If the works of the Lord are studied attentively, they will be found to be so full of meat that everyone will find the part of the meat that suits him and fits in with his salvation. If the weak find comfort for their weakness in their prayer of the Lord's, it seems necessary that the strong and perfect too should be able to find an increase of their strength in it; which would not be the case if this kind of interpretation could not be made. It is better, therefore, for it to be interpreted in several ways so that everyone can have his share in it. If it was interpreted in one way only, it would only suit one kind of person." (165-166)
  • "The suffering that Jesus endured for our salvation could not have been borne by anyone else without his dying of it many times over...He accepted the greatest pains invented so that he might reveal himself to us most perfectly...It was not the nails that held him to the cross, but love, not human strength that overcame him, but his own love." (166-167)
  • Lust: "I also saw the torments of the damned and the souls in Purgatory, but there are no words that can adequately describe these. If poor mortals had a glimpse of the least of those torments they would undoubtedly prefer to die ten times over rather than have to bear such a thing for one day. I was specially struck by the punishment meted out to those who sin in the married state, who do not respect their vows as they should and seek to satisfy their lust." I then asked her why this sin, which is no more serious than any other, should be punished so severely. She replied, "Because the people concerned don't regard it as important and consequently are not sorry for it as they are for the others, and so they succumb to it more readily and frequently." And she added, "This fault is all too dangerous, however trivial it may seem, because no one who commits it bothers to get remission of it through repentance." (170)
  • Catherine accepted additional suffering to spare her father Purgatory (176-177)
  • Talking Back to demons: "'If you don't stop, we and the spirits surrounding these two will find some way of tormenting you and making you a possessed woman.' But Catherine answered, 'Whatever God wills, I too will. I shall not stop doing what I have begun.'" (183)
    • "'If I come out of here I will enter into you.' Immediately the virgin had replied, 'If the Lord wills it so, and I know that without His permission you can do nothing, God forbid that I should prevent you, or in any other way alienate myself from His will or set myself up against Him.' Whereupon the proud spirit, struck amidships by such humility, lost nearly all the power he had over the little girl." (221)
  • "Why are you getting so upset about him, when you should be pleased? If the Lord afflicts him with temporal punishments, you can be sure that he has forgiven him his eternal ones." (191)
  • "It is not possible for any man to remember the names of all the unfortunate people Catherine pulled back from the jaws of hell." (192)
  • "Pope Gregory XI, delighted and greatly encouraged by Catherine's rich harvest of souls, granted me faculties equivalent to a bishop's, to absolve all who came to see the virgin and wanted to confess their sins." (193)
  • She restored her mother to life so she could make her confession before she died. (197-198)
  • "'Get up, Messer Matteo, this is no time for lying in a soft bed!' At the words of this command the fever and swelling and pain immediately disappeared. At the sound of her voice his body had been restored to perfect health." (200)
  • Raymond's prayer to Catherine: "O sweetest daughter, virgin consecrated to God, come to our aid in this tremendous danger." (230)
  • "The first law of justice is that anyone who is perfectly obedient to God shall himself be obeyed by all things...Catherine, being obedient to the Creator, was obeyed by created things." (242)
  • Catherine loved to host: "Her heart had such trust in the Lord that it never occurred to her that one so liberal might fail to provide for everyone who came along." (245)
  • Catherine was a model of patience: "Gregory in his Dialogues (Book 1, Chapter 12) puts the virtue of patience above marvels and miracles." (253, 326)
  • "As soon as she was freed from the occupations in which she was engaged for the good of souls, her mind was raised to the things of heaven. This movement was caused by an ever-burning fire that always ascends towards higher things." (274)
  • Catherine's Dialogue, dictated in ecstasy, is "a book overflowing with deep, life-giving thoughts revealed to her by the Lord...It was not composed by any natural powers but by the power of the Holy Spirit working within her." (275-276)
  • Catherine's teachings:
    • "Her first and fundamental principle is that people who wish to begin to serve God must rid their hearts of all that kind of love into which the senses enter: they must seek for God the Creator single-mindedly and wholeheartedly. The heart cannot be entirely given to God unless it is delivered from all other affections and is simple and open and free from double-mindedness. The soul cannot reach its perfect state unless it prays; prayer must necessarily be founded upon humility." (301)
    • Persevere in prayer, vocal and mentl. Vocal prayer should be at certain fixed times, but you should always be praying mentally. (302)
    • Everything that happens to you comes from God: love God's commandments and ministers and obey them promptly.
    • To acquire purity of mind it is necessary to refrain from judging others and gossiping about what they do, and to have regard only for God's will for them. (302)
    • "Divine Providence never lets down anyone who trusts in it." (303)
  • She went to confession every day (305)
  • Catherine died on April 29, 1380 at the hour of Terce saying "Lord, I commend my spirit into your hands!" (307)
  • Pray for patience: "In the canonization of the saints, their works are considered more attentively than their miracles, and amongst their works most regard is given to patience, as the virtue that gives the best guarantee of charity and sanctity." (328)
  • Temptation: "O my most sweet Bridgegroom, you know that I have never wanted any husband but you; come to my aid, so that in your holy name I may overcome these temptations. I do not ask for them to be taken away, but that in your mercy you will enable me to emerge victorious." (332)

Topic: Catherine of Siena

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New Words

  • celerity: Swiftness of action or motion; speed (34)

Created: 2024-11-07-Thu
Updated: 2024-12-10-Tue