Today is the feast day of that wonderful passionate saint, mystic and Doctor of the Church - St Catherine of Siena.
She is often depicted in a habit and so it’s a common mistake to think she was a nun. However she was a laywoman! She belonged to the Third Order Dominicans and so wore a type of habit as a consecrated lay person. Not only did she have mystical experiences of God which are recorded in her “Dialogues”, she received invisible stigmata, experienced mystical marriage to Jesus and most famously she told off the Pope who was living in Avignon at the time - told him to “man up” and come back to Rome!
She developed a beautiful concept of having an “inner cell”, the place within your heart where you can always have union with God no matter what your external circumstances. She also used an image of Christ’s humanity as the “bridge” between us and God.
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O God,
who set Saint Catherine of Siena on fire
with divine love in her contemplation of the Lord’s Passion and her service of your Church, grant, through her intercession,
that your people, participating in the mystery of Christ, may ever exult in the revelation of his glory.
Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.
— Amen.
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