As we continue our Novena to St Catherine, I will read a short extract from a letter she wrote to Pope Gregory, calling on him to end the conflict with Florence:

In the name of Jesus Christ Crucified and of Sweet Mary Most Holy, holy and reverent father in Christ sweet Jesus, your unworthy daughter Catherine, servant and slave of the servants of Jesus Christ, writes your Holiness in His precious blood with desire to see you achieve peace, having peace yourself and your children around you.

But when people have the light, they become true servants of their Creator. Though they are living in the night of this darksome life they walk with the light, and though they are on the stormy sea they receive and experience interior peace. They are always running on toward perfection, constant and persevering right up to the moment of their death.

From a very young age, Catherine felt a strong attraction to prayer and service to others. At the age of sixteen, she entered the Dominican Third Order and dedicated her life to prayer, penance and caring for the sick and needy. .... Like St. Dominic what most characterized St. Catherine’s life and spirituality was her love of Christ and her passion for the Cross. For her, the Cross was the way to union with God and the source of salvation.

In The life of St. Catherine of Siena, the saint’s biographer and confessor, Blessed Raymond of Capua, recounts a time in which while sharing a lengthy conversation with the saint on God and various spiritual matters, he found himself, “being weighed down by the weight of flesh”, and eventually succumbing to sleep.

From a letter of St Catherine, in which she treats of the illusion of dominion / lordship and earthly power.

“For humanity is nothing of itself; what we have, we have from God by grace, not because he owes it to us. This is why no man who knows himself will ever mortally offend God or become proud because of his position or greatness or power. If he were lord of the whole world, he would consider himself nothing. ...

Often when we think of the canonised Saints we look to the finished work of art and we might be inclined not to pay enough attention to the process, their gradual transformation by grace throughout their whole lives that eventually culminated in their total self giving to God and to others. So in preparation for her Feast this year I focused on various salient moments, milestones in Catherine’s journey, as related by her biographer Raymond of Capua that remind us that Catherine struggled at times to do God’s will and when it came to the end died of a broken heart, ...

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We have now reached day seven and our final ‘O’ antiphon. Emmanuel, which means “God with us” is more than a title- it is a promise, a truth, and a comfort- it is the heart of the Christian mystery.

From the very beginning, God has desired to dwell among His people. ...

O King, whom all people desire, you are the cornerstone which makes all one. O come and save us whom you made from clay.

While reflecting on this ‘O Antiphon’, I was reminded of a recent lecture that we shared as a community on some significant ecumenical councils, specifically the Council of Florence that was held between the years 1439- 1445. This council was an attempt to reconcile the already centuries old divide between the Catholic and Orthodox churches.