Today marks the last in the series on Catherine of Siena, in the process we have seen the times in which she lived and her heart for God.  We have considered her writings,  and will continue to explore more about her life and mission.

     Another area in which we se both Catherine’s spirituality and theology would be her recorded prayers.  It is though the recordings of these prayers that we can see how her intimacy with God bore fruit in her vision and her mission.

     Her biographers have recorded some of the external details and habits of her life.  For example,

“Catherine’s favorite times for prolonged prayer were after the morning’s liturgy and in the early evening as well as during the long night hours when she scarcely slept.  She would frequently and spontaneously interrupt her business or conversations to “consult” as it were with God.”

     This attitude of prayer certainly a model for us as directors.  She would easily fall into an ecstatic trance, losing use of all her senses except speech.  Often in such a trance she was physically very expressive: Walking, kneeling, or prostrate on the floor, extending her arms or clasping her hands to her heart or striking her breast in contrition, gazing upward or closing her eyes.  And when she prayed alone, especially in the garden, she liked to sing.

     Obviously, what is more important for us are the personal traits which we can find in her prayers.  It is through these that we can get a glimpse of Catherine and her relationships with God and others.  Examples of these prayers are also recorded or eluded to in her many letters.  On one such occasion a letter in August of 1376, we can read of a prayer for Pope Gregory XI, a portion of it follows;

“Oh eternal Godhead, ineffable love, in you I see the love that compelled you to open the eye of compassion upon us poor wretches.  For after we had through the wretchedness and weakness fallen into the filth of sin when our first father disobeyed you, you, high eternal father, sent us the Word incarnate, you only-begotten Son, veiled in our poor flesh and clothed in our mortality.  And you, Jesus Christ, our reconciler, our refashioner, our redeemer–you, Word and love, were made our mediator.  You took out on your own body the punishment for Adam’s disobedience and our sins by being obedient even to the shameful death of cross.”

     As her biographers have written of the external details of her prayers one can see the physical energy and concern in her prayers.  When we look into the recorded words, we can see her deep passion for Christ and the people for whom she intercedes.

     As we conclude this series, we have just scratched the surface of the person Catherine of Siena.  Catherine was an individual who through the “Unity of the Spirit” loved both God and her neighbor.  Catherine was a woman living in a crucial period of time; with injustice, illness, and death around her.  We can learn much from her today.  We too live in a world filled with wars, injustice, and catastrophes.  We have the same hope, love and mercy to incarnate before the world by the power of the Spirit in Jesus Christ.  Her model for spiritual direction through perhaps more “direct” is something for us to consider at times in our world today.  As people around us seek the truth, may we follow Christ so intently in the grace of the Spirit that others would receive the bread that they need for their journey.  In spite of initial resistance from her family, and the resistance of the world around her, Catherine of Siena, the mystic, used to the fullest the life that God gave her for his glory.

Quotes:  Suzzane Noffke, OP., The Prayers of Catherine of Siena, 2nd ed.