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| Giovanni Battista Tiepolo 1746 St. Catherine of Siena |
Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire. ~ St. Catherine of Siena.
Today is her feast day. She was the 24th child! Today, that'd be unheard of ... why, we'd worry that we wouldn't be able to feed the children or have room in the house or send them to college or any number of things. But this child, though uneducated, grew to love Christ and His Church to such a degree she even advised the Pope! She is a Doctor of the Church and some day I hope to read her Dialogue. I tell you, the Church has such a treasury of materials, I can't even begin to make a dent in my reading pile. Sometimes I wonder the things they write about in heaven.
Today's Magnificat had a lovely reflection from St. Catherine on not remaining in the darkness. She writes, "You know that sin can live only in a perverse and evil will. When you know you have a good will, and you know you would rather die than actually offend your Creator, then you must let go of your discouragement and walk by the light of the grace hidden within your soul, the grace God has given you in safeguarding your good will ... I'll say no more. Fly on the wings of deep humility and blazing charity! Keep living in God's holy and tender love."
2 comments:
24 was pretty unheard of then! Her parents must have been very healthy (and had the same Rh factor). I wonder if they ever wondered why God gave them so many more children than their neighbors, or even envied those with quiet homes of only a dozen! Thank goodness God was so generous with them, and they with Him, as St. Catherine truly is a saint who sets the world ablaze.
Faith, it is incredible since childbirth would've been the leading cause of death in those days apart from the plague. St. C's twin died. Upon reading farther, half of her siblings died (not all in childhood). She herself died at the perfect age of 33. But what a beautiful soul and writer. I shall not have enough time on earth to read everything ... I pray to reach heaven!
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