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Catherine of Siena
Mystic and political activist
posted 8/08/2008 12:56PM
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In a series of letters, Catherine exhorted the pope to address the problems of the church and charged him to return to Rome: "Respond to the Holy Spirit who is calling you! I tell you: Come! Come! Come! Don't wait for time because time isn't waiting for you."
One year later, in 1377, after Catherine had visited with him in Avignon, Gregory XI finally returned to Rome. It was the great moment of her public life.
In her 383 extant letters and The Dialogue, which she referred to as "my book" and which describes her mystical experiences, she expressed her driving motivation to love God. She wrote that God told her "not to love Me for your own sake, or your neighbor for your own sake, but to love Me for myself, yourself for Myself, your neighbor for Myself."
At the heart of Catherine's teaching was the image of a bleeding Christ, the Redeemer—ablaze with fiery charity, eager sacrifice, and unqualified forgiveness. And it was not the cross or nails that held Christ to the tree; those were not strong enough to hold the God-Man. It was love that held him there. She records God's words to her: "My son's nailed feet are a stair by which you can climb to his side, where you will see revealed his inmost heart. For when the soul has … looked with her mind's eye into my son's opened heart, she begins to feel the love of her own heart in his consummate and unspeakable love."
Catherine died in Rome at the age of 33. In 1970 the Roman Catholic Church declared her a doctor of the church, an honor bestowed on only 31 others (and only one other woman).
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