Remembering St. Catherine of Siena
29th April, 2016
1 Jn 1:5 - 2:2; Mt 11:25-30
For the popularity that she enjoyed and the wisdom she possessed, if Catherine of Siena were to have been a male religious, she would have certainly been a Bishop and a Cardinal, or could have even gone on to become the Pope! That is why the Gospel of the day fits in so well with this saint: you hid the truths from learned and clever and revealed them to mere children.
Catherine was just 33 when she died and she learnt to write only towards the end of her life, while in her life time she had accomplished feats as great as convincing the Pope Gregory XI to get back to Rome from Avignon, negotiating peace between Rome and Florence, serving at the Papal Court of Pope Urban VI as a counsel!
Dedicating herself to Christ at an early age of 7, she did experience a hurdle at the age of 16 when her family wanted her to enter into a marriage. But she rededicated herself to the Lord and became a Third Order Dominican. That gave her the possibility of moving with people and directly working for their welfare in the world. She considered strongly that she was mystically married to Christ and did everything in her life at His bidding. In an atmosphere of rising promiscuity, Catherine of Siena seems a great model of what young disciples of Christ could achieve in life.
No comments:
Post a Comment