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Saint Catherine

Saint Catherine

by Andrew Ciastko in Reflections

Ready for the Next Theme?

We hope you enjoyed the new Saint Catherine of Siena theme: All the Way to Heaven Is Heaven.

Saint Catherine had a lot to say, so it was challenging to decide exactly how to approach this theme. But as I read her book, The Dialogue, I noticed that above everything else, Saint Catherine was describing a real, lived experience of God.

She was not describing the mystical joy she experienced as something she hoped to receive only after she finally “got to heaven one day,” as we can sometimes be tempted to think today. Catherine was completely enveloped in God’s love during her life here on earth, nearly 700 years ago.

She was fully immersed in God’s eternal life as she continually abided in Christ, grew in her knowledge of the Father, and trusted in His will for her life. In fact, she describes this present life with God through three powers of the soul: memory, understanding, and will.

“The memory holds on to my blessings and my goodness to the soul. Understanding contemplates the unspeakable love I have shown you through the mediation of my only-begotten Son, whom I have set before your mind’s eye for you to contemplate in him the fire of my charity. The will, finally, is joined with them to know and desire me, your final goal.

 

“When these three powers of the soul are gathered together, I am in their midst by grace. And as soon as you are filled with my love and love of your neighbor, you will find yourself in the company of the multitude of solid virtues. Then the soul’s appetite is ready to be thirsty, thirsty for virtue and my honor and the salvation of souls. Every other thirst is now exhausted and dead, and you travel securely, without any slavish fear. You have climbed the first step, that of desire. Once desire is stripped of selfish love, you rise above yourself and above passing things. What you decide to keep, you love and hold not apart from me but with me, that is, with true holy fear and love of virtue.”

—The Dialogue, p. 108

All I can say is “WOW” every time I open this book.

Saint Catherine is describing exactly what it feels like to be filled with God’s love, and the powerful joy and virtue that begin to grow within us when we decide to follow God’s commands and live in the eternal life of Christ.

You see, the point is that we have to move beyond the mindset that the entire goal of being Catholic is simply “getting to heaven one day when we die.” The goal of the Catholic Christian life is to know God, love God, and serve God in this life. Heaven is not a separate goal from knowing Him now. It is the complete fulfillment of the life with God that begins within us here.

Jesus says, “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3).

If eternal life is to know the Father, then eternal life is not merely waiting for us after death. By God’s grace, it begins within us now as we come to know Him, love Him, and abide in Christ.

Jesus also says, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him” (John 14:23).

When you weave all of these ideas together, they begin to paint a beautiful picture that makes the Gospel truly good news.

We are not here to grind through life in painful sacrifice without love, nor are we called to glide through life in blissful ignorance while continuing to live in sin.

God calls us out of both of these ways of thinking and invites us into His eternal life. Right here. Right now.

When we truly love God, desire His presence in our hearts, keep His word, and surrender our will to His, He makes His home within us. The joy that comes from living in that union is indescribable.

The saints lived it, and each of us is called to live it too.

Peace be with you,
Andy

 

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