S. Catherine of Siena on living the life of grace

“All the way to Heaven is heaven, 

because He said, ‘I am the Way.’" 

- S. Catherine of Siena (1347-1380)

Today is the heavenly birthday of S. Catherine of Siena. Born in 1347, the 24th child of a wool dyer in northern Italy, she was very sensitive to spiritual realities from childhood. From the age of six she could see guardian angels as clearly as the people they protected. S. Catherine became a Dominican tertiary when she was sixteen, and continued to have visions of Jesus, Mary, and the saints. She could also discern the presence of demons. Although she had no formal education - being more or less illiterate - she was one of the most brilliant theological minds of her day, and she sent letters to many major public figures. She also carried on a long correspondence with Pope Gregory XI.

In fact, at this very difficult time in the Church’s history, S. Catherine persuaded the Pope to go back to Rome from Avignon, in 1377. In 1375 she received the Stigmata, which was visible only after her death. Catherine’s spiritual director was Raymond of Capua. Her letters, and a treatise called “A Dialogue” are considered among the most brilliant writings of the saints.

S. Catherine died on 29th April, 1380, when she was only 33, and her body was found incorrupt in 1430. Her tomb is under the altar in the Church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, in Rome.

'She burned with the love of God and her neighbour. As an ambassador she brought peace and harmony between cities. She fought hard to defend the liberty and rights of the Popes and did much for the renewal of religious life. She also dictated books full of sound doctrine and spiritual inspiration. In 1970 Pope Paul VI declared S. Catherine a Doctor of the Church.' (Universalis)

God created us a second time 

in giving us the life of grace

From a Letter of S, Catherine of Siena to Blessed Raymond of Capua

This is the divine truth: we were created for the glory and praise of God’s name, to enable us to participate in God’s eternal beauty and to sanctify us in God. And the proof that this is the truth? The blood of the spotless Lamb. How are we to know this Blood? By self-knowledge.’

I know of no means of savoring the Truth and living with it, without self-knowledge. It is this knowledge which makes us really understand that we are nothing, that our being came from God when we were created in God’s image and likeness; and also that God created us a second time in giving us the life of grace through the blood of the only Son, blood which has shown us the truth of God the Father.

We were the earth where the standard of the cross was planted. We were the vessel that received the blood of the Lamb as it streamed from the cross. Why did we become that earth? Because the earth would not hold the cross upright; it would have refused such a great injustice. The nails could not have held the Lord fixed and nailed had not his love for our salvation held him there. It was love on fire with the glory of his Father and with desire for our salvation which fixed him to the cross. So we are the earth which held the cross upright and the vessel which received the blood.

We who can recognize this and live as the spouse of this Truth will find grace in his blood, and all the richness of the life of grace; our nakedness will be the nuptial garment; we will be invested with the fire of love, because the blood and fire mingle and penetrate one another; it is love which has united the blood with the divinity and poured it out.

We must live in simplicity, with neither pretensions nor mannerisms nor servile fear. We must walk in the light of a living faith that shines in more than mere words—and always so, in adversity as well as in prosperity, in times of persecution as well as in times of consolation. Nothing will be able to change the strength or the radiance of our faith if Christ who is the Truth has given us knowledge of truth not just in desire but in living experience.

S. Catherine's Prayer to the Trinity

Eternal God, eternal Trinity,
you have made the blood of Christ so precious 

through his sharing in your divine nature. 

You are a mystery as deep as the sea; 

the more I search, the more I find, 

and the more I find the more I search for you. 

But I can never be satisfied; 

what I receive will ever leave me desiring more. 

When you fill my soul I have an even greater hunger, 

and I grow more famished for your light. 

I desire above all to see you, the true light, as you really are.

I have tasted and seen the depth of your mystery 

and the beauty of your creation 

with the light of my understanding. 

I have clothed myself with your likeness 

and have seen what I shall be. 

Eternal Father, you have given me a share in your power 

and the wisdom that Christ claims as his own, 

and your Holy Spirit has given me the desire to love you. 

You are my Creator, eternal Trinity, and I am your creature. 

You have made of me a new creation 

in the blood of your Son, 

and I know that you are moved with love 

at the beauty of your creation,

for you have enlightened me.

Eternal Trinity, Godhead, mystery deep as the sea, 

you could give me no greater gift than the gift of yourself. 

For you are a fire ever burning and never consumed, 

which itself consumes all the selfish love that fills my being. 

Yes, you are a fire that takes away the coldness,

 illuminates the mind with its light 

and causes me to know your truth. 

By this light, reflected as it were in a mirror, 

I recognise that you are the highest good, 

one we can neither comprehend nor fathom. 

And I know that you are beauty and wisdom itself. 

The food of angels, you gave yourself to man in the fire of your love.

You are the garment which covers our nakedness, 

and in our hunger you are a satisfying food, 

for you are sweetness 

and in you there is no taste of bitterness, O triune God!

Inspiration from St Catherine

“All the way to Heaven is heaven, 

because He said, ‘I am the Way.’" 

- S. Catherine of Siena

Born in 1347, the 24th child of a wool dyer in northern Italy, Catherine was very sensitive to spiritual realities from childhood. From the age of six she could see guardian angels as clearly as the people they protected. Catherine became a Dominican tertiary when she was sixteen, and continued to have visions of Jesus, Mary, and the saints. She was one of the most brilliant theological minds of her day, although she had no formal education. 

At a very difficult time in the Church’s history, Catherine persuaded the Pope to go back to Rome from Avignon, in 1377, and when she died she was endeavoring to heal the Great Western Schism. In 1375 she received the Stigmata, which was visible only after her death. Catherine’s letters, and a treatise called “a dialogue” are considered among the most brilliant writings of the saints. 

Catherine died in 1380 when she was only 33, and her body was found incorrupt in 1430. Her tomb is under the altar in the Church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, in Rome.

God created us a second time 

in giving us the life of grace

From a Letter of St Catherine of Siena to Blessed Raymond of Capua

I know of no means of savouring the Truth and living with it, without self-knowledge. It is this knowledge which makes us really understand that we are nothing, that our being came from God when we were created in God’s image and likeness; and also that God created us a second time in giving us the life of grace through the blood of the only Son, blood which has shown us the truth of God the Father.

This is the divine truth: we were created for the glory and praise of God’s name, to enable us to participate in God’s eternal beauty and to sanctify us in God. And the proof that this is the truth? The blood of the spotless Lamb. How are we to know this Blood? By self-knowledge. ’

We were the earth where the standard of the cross was planted. We were the vessel that received the blood of the Lamb as it streamed from the cross. Why did we become that earth? Because the earth would not hold the cross upright; it would have refused such a great injustice. The nails could not have held the Lord fixed and nailed had not his love for our salvation held him there. It was love on fire with the glory of his Father and with desire for our salvation which fixed him to the cross. So, we are the earth which held the cross upright and the vessel which received the blood.

We who can recognize this and live as the spouse of this Truth will find grace in his blood, and all the richness of the life of grace; our nakedness will be the nuptial garment; we will be invested with the fire of love, because the blood and fire mingle and penetrate one another; it is love which has united the blood with the divinity and poured it out.

We must live in simplicity, with neither pretensions nor mannerisms nor servile fear. We must walk in the light of a living faith that shines in more than mere words—and always so, in adversity as well as in prosperity, in times of persecution as well as in times of consolation. Nothing will be able to change the strength or the radiance of our faith if Christ who is the Truth has given us knowledge of truth not just in desire but in living experience.

Pope John Paul II officially recognised as a saint (and Pope John XXIII, too!)

Well, just because of today’s canonisation here is a photo of a much younger Fr Chislett in Rome (with no grey hair!), together with Fr Bill Edebohls, then Anglican Dean of Ballarat, with Pope John Paul II. This was in February 1994. 

Lord Jesus, Thank you for sending us such a great man to show us how to handle the trials of our life. Thank you, Lord, for Pope John Paul II.

(Of course, we also give thanks for Pope john XXIII who opened the windows of the Church so that the fresh air, the wind of the Holy Spirit, could enter afresh, renewing and empowering empowering Christians to witness faithfully to the Gospel.)

Below is the homily preached by Pope Francis this morning:

At the heart of this Sunday, which concludes the Octave of Easter and which John Paul II wished to dedicate to Divine Mercy, are the glorious wounds of the risen Jesus.

He had already shown those wounds when he first appeared to the Apostles on the very evening of that day following the Sabbath, the day of the resurrection. But Thomas was not there that evening, and when the others told him that they had seen the Lord, he replied that unless he himself saw and touched those wounds, he would not believe. A week later, Jesus appeared once more to the disciples gathered in the Upper Room, and Thomas was present; Jesus turned to him and told him to touch his wounds. Whereupon that man, so straightforward and accustomed to testing everything personally, knelt before Jesus with the words: “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28).

The wounds of Jesus are a scandal, a stumbling block for faith, yet they are also the test of faith. That is why on the body of the risen Christ the wounds never pass away: they remain, for those wounds are the enduring sign of God’s love for us. They are essential for believing in God.  Not for believing that God exists, but for believing that God is love, mercy and faithfulness. Saint Peter, quoting Isaiah, writes to Christians: “by his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24, cf. Isaiah 53:5).

John XXIII and John Paul II were not afraid to look upon the wounds of Jesus, to touch his torn hands and his pierced side. They were not ashamed of the flesh of Christ, they were not scandalized by him, by his cross; they did not despise the flesh of their brother (cf. Isaiah 58:7), because they saw Jesus in every person who suffers and struggles. These were two men of courage, filled with the parrhesia of the Holy Spirit, and they bore witness before the Church and the world to God’s goodness and mercy.

They were priests, bishops and popes of the twentieth century. They lived through the tragic events of that century, but they were not overwhelmed by them. For them, God was more powerful; faith was more powerful – faith in Jesus Christ the Redeemer of man and the Lord of history; the mercy of God, shown by those five wounds, was more powerful; and more powerful too was the closeness of Mary our Mother.

In these two men, who looked upon the wounds of Christ and bore witness to his mercy, there dwelt a living hope and an indescribable and glorious joy (1 Peter 1:3,8). The hope and the joy which the risen Christ bestows on his disciples, the hope and the joy which nothing and no one can take from them. The hope and joy of Easter, forged in the crucible of self-denial, self-emptying, utter identification with sinners, even to the point of disgust at the bitterness of that chalice. Such were the hope and the joy which these two holy popes had received as a gift from the risen Lord and which they in turn bestowed in abundance upon the People of God, meriting our eternal gratitude.

This hope and this joy were palpable in the earliest community of believers, in Jerusalem, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles (cf. 2:42-47). It was a community which lived the heart of the Gospel, love and mercy, in simplicity and fraternity.

This is also the image of the Church which the Second Vatican Council set before us. John XXIII and John Paul II cooperated with the Holy Spirit in renewing and updating the Church in keeping with her pristine features, those features which the saints have given her throughout the centuries. Let us not forget that it is the saints who give direction and growth to the Church. In convening the Council, John XXIII showed an exquisite openness to the Holy Spirit. He let himself be led and he was for the Church a pastor, a servant-leader.  This was his great service to the Church; he was the pope of openness to the Spirit.

In his own service to the People of God, John Paul II was the pope of the family. He himself once said that he wanted to be remembered as the pope of the family. I am particularly happy to point this out as we are in the process of journeying with families towards the Synod on the family. It is surely a journey which, from his place in heaven, he guides and sustains.

May these two new saints and shepherds of God’s people intercede for the Church, so that during this two-year journey toward the Synod she may be open to the Holy Spirit in pastoral service to the family. May both of them teach us not to be scandalized by the wounds of Christ and to enter ever more deeply into the mystery of divine mercy, which always hopes and always forgives, because it always loves.

Pope Francis - PRAY for this humble and Godly man . . .

The white smoke went up tonight, and we have a pope again. The Guardian got in fairly quickly and published What we know about Pope Francis:

• He likes to travel by bus.

• He has lived for more than 50 years with one functioning lung. He had the other removed as a young man because of infection.

• He is the son of an Italian railway worker.

• He trained as a chemist.

• He is the first non-European pope in the modern era.

• He claims that adoption by homosexuals is a form of discrimination against children but believes that condoms “can be permissible” to prevent infection.

• In 2001 he washed and kissed the feet of Aids patients in a hospice.

• He speaks fluent Italian, as well as Spanish and German.

• Until now he has been living in a small flat, eschewing a formal bishop’s residence.

• He told Argentinians not to travel to Rome to celebrate if he was appointed but to give their money to the poor instead.

• He is believed to have been the runner-up in the last papal conclave in 2005.

• He has co-written a book, in Spanish, called Sobre el Cielo y la Tierra (On Heaven and Earth). You can buy it on Kindle.

• Though conservative on church doctrine, he has criticised priests who refuse to baptise babies born to single mothers. 

* * *

These are the first words of the new Pope from the balcony of St Peter’s in the Vatican:

Brothers and sisters good evening. 

You all know that the duty of the Conclave was to give a bishop to Rome. It seems that my brother Cardinals have gone almost to the ends of the earth to get him… but here we are. I thank you for the welcome that has come from the diocesan community of Rome.

First of all I would like to say a prayer pray for our Bishop Emeritus Benedict XVI. Let us all pray together for him, that the Lord will bless him and that our Lady will protect him.

Our Father…

Hail Mary…

Glory to the Father…

And now let us begin this journey, the Bishop and the people, this journey of the Church of Rome which presides in charity over all the Churches, a journey of brotherhood in love, of mutual trust. Let us always pray for one another. Let us pray for the whole world that there might be a great sense of brotherhood. My hope is that this journey of the Church that we begin today, together with the help of my Cardinal Vicar, may be fruitful for the evangelization of this beautiful city.

And now I would like to give the blessing. But first I want to ask you a favour. Before the Bishop blesses the people I ask that you would pray to the Lord to bless me – the prayer of the people for their Bishop. Let us say this prayer – your prayer for me – in silence. 

[A period of silence was kept by the crowd.]

I will now give my blessing to you and to the whole world, to all men and women of good will.

Brothers and sisters, I am leaving you. Thank you for your welcome. Pray for me and I will be with you again soon... We will see one another soon. 

Tomorrow I want to go to pray to the Madonna, that she may protect Rome.

Good night and sleep well! 

* * *

The Most Rev’d Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, released this statement on the election of Cardinal Bergoglio: 

We wish Pope Francis every blessing in the enormous responsibilities that he has assumed on behalf of Roman Catholics around the world.

His election is also of great significance to Christians everywhere, not least among Anglicans. We have long since recognized—and often reaffirmed—that our churches hold a special place for one another. I look forward to meeting Pope Francis, and to walking and working together to build on the consistent legacy of our predecessors. May the love of Christ unite us, and intensify our service in a genuine and fruitful ecumenism that can be a blessing for the Body of Christ throughout the world.

Pope Francis is well known as a compassionate pastor of real stature who has served the poor in Latin America, and whose simplicity and holiness of life is remarkable. He is an evangelist, sharing the love of Christ which he himself knows. His choice of the name Francis suggests that he wants to call us all back to the transformation that St Francis knew and brought to the whole of Europe, fired by contemplation and closeness to God.

As I begin tomorrow a prayer pilgrimage toward my own inauguration as Archbishop in Canterbury next Thursday, Pope Francis will be much in my own prayers, as he will be throughout the coming months and years.

Pray for Pope Shenouda

Please pray for His Holiness Pope Shenouda III who is seriously ill. A modern day hero of the Church, he became Patriarch of Alexandria in 1971, and under his leadership the Coptic Orthodox Church has experienced a period of rapid expansion at home and around the world. 

This has been due, not only to migration, but also to a passion for evangelisation, as Pope Shenouda has managed to impart to his people a renewed love of Scripture and the proclamation of the Gospel. Indeed, for many years, as Patriarch he personally taught Bible studies every second Sunday evening in St Mark's Cathedral, Alexandria, regularly attended by 2,000 people, and also every Wednesday evening at St Mark's Cathedral in Cairo, attended by 7,000 people. His approach to the Bible is simultaneously evangelical and orthodox; and he always applies the text to the day to day Christian lives of ordinary people. 

The Coptic Orthodox Church is the Church of the ancient Desert Fathers, and  embodies an orthodox spirituality marked by celibate monasticism and asceticism, blended with a simple evangelical faith and earthy piety, with regular hours of prayer. History shows that Coptic monasticism and spirituality influenced Celtic Christianity in the British Isles well before St Augustine's 597 AD mission to the Anglo Saxons. 

It has been observed by a number of commentators that Pope Shenouda III has "opened the Church of the Desert Fathers up to the world." 

(Go HERE to Pope Shenoudda's website.)

* * * * * 

According to The Middle East Monitor 9th March, 2012 Dr. Mohamed Badie, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, visited Pope Shenouda on 8th March, wishing the Pope a speedy recovery and lasting good health:

"Dr. Badie and the Pope had a cordial discussion," said a spokesman, "with joint expressions of hope that the atmosphere of love and affection manifested during the January 25 revolution, which showed the real mettle of ordinary, decent people, would last among all Egyptians, Muslims and Copts alike."

The statement added that Pope Shenouda expressed his appreciation of this very first visit by the General Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood to the Holy See, and wished the movement success in the prominent role it now plays in the country’s affairs.

The visit gave the Cathedral staff an opportunity to extent traditional hospitality, which was much appreciated.