August 16, 1379 At Rome

     “Eternal Godhead, break my body so that I may be able to see the truth– for now my memory cannot encompass you, nor my understanding comprehend you, nor my affection love you as I ought.  Oh divine nature you raise the dead and you alone give life.  You choose to join dead human nature to yourself so as to bring it back to life.  Oh Word eternal! you so joined mortal nature with yourself that it became absolutely impossible to separate it from you.  So on the cross mortal nature suffered but divine nature gave it life.  This is why you were at the same time sorrowful and happy.  Not even in the tomb could the one nature be separated from the other.  Oh eternal Father, you say that you clothed your Word in our nature so that in him this nature of ours might make atonement to you for us.  Oh unutterable mercy! You chose to punish your own natural Son for the sin of your adopted child!  And not only did he suffer the pain of the cross in his body, but the crucifying desire of his spirit as well. 

     Oh eternal Father!  How deep and unutterable are your judgments!  The fool does not understand them.  In fact, foolish people judge your actions and those of your servants by their husks, not by the profound depth of your charity or the wealth of charity you have poured into your servants.  Oh ignorant, bestial people!  Why, after God made you human, have you made yourselves beasts?  And not only beasts, but nothings!  And you judge as beasts would!  Don’s you know that bestial people are sentenced to the eternal pains of hell?  And in those pains they turn into nothings– not so far as existence is concerned, but in respect to that grace which completes nature, and whatever is deprived of its perfection can be called nothing.

     The eternal Word is given to us through Mary’s hands.  From Mary’s substance he clothed himself in our nature without the stain of original sin– for that conception was not a man’s doing, but the Holy Spirit’s.  The same was not true of Mary because she came forth from Adam’s clay by a man’s doing, not the Holy Spirit’s.  And since that whole mass was rotten and corrupt, it was impossible to infuse her soul into any but a corrupt material, nor could she be truly cleansed except by the grace of the Holy Spirit.  Now the body cannot receive that grace, but only the rational or intellectual spirit.  Thus Mary could not be cleansed of that stain except after her soul had been infused into her body–and this was done out of reverence for the divine Word who could enter that vessel.  So, just as a furnace devours a drop of water in a split second, so the Holy Spirit devoured that stain of original sin, for immediately after her conception Mary was cleaned of that sin and given great grace.  You know, Lord, that this is the truth.  Amen”.

     Suzzanne Noffke, OP, The Prayers of Catherine of Siena, 2nd ed., pgs. 240-243