Notable Quote: Do You Know Who You Are?

Today, April 29^th, is the Feast Day of St. Catherine of Siena, and those that follow this blog should know that she is my personal patron saint and the patron saint of this blog.  I have lots of posts on St. Catherine here such as her biography, her letters, her spirituality, and her quotes.  Just do a search in the blog search feature in the upper left corner or find and click St. Catherine of Siena in the labels list to the right.

Today I want to pull out an explanation of one of her most difficult insights as explained by Fr. Paul Murray O.P. from his book on S. Catherine’s teaching: Saint Catherine of Siena: Mystic of Fire, Preacher of Freedom. 

 

I should say a word about the book and the author.  The book is published by Word on Fire Institute, which is Bishop Robert Barron’s ministry.  I bought the book when it first came out, and, subsequently, people knowing I was a devotee of St. Catherine, two separate people gifted me the same book.  So I have three copies!  If anyone is interested in a copy, I will be glad to give you one.  Let me know in the comments section.  But you’ll have to promise you’ll read it!

The book follows Catherine’s spirituality on how through fire ultimately leads to the freedom of the person.  Fr. Paul Murray O.P. is a Dominican priest from Ireland, a scholar, and a poet.   He currently teaches at the Angelicum, the Dominican University in Rome, specializing in Literature of the Western Mystical Tradition. 

I am going to post an extended quote of Fr. Murray explaining one of Catherine’s most difficult observations that arose from her dialogue with God the Father with God declaring, “You are the one who is not, and I AM HE WHO IS.”  What does this actually mean, and how does this reveal God’s great love for us.  This is taken from Chapter 4, “’Who am I?’: Catherine and Self-Knowledge”  (pp. 49-52)

 

Catherine, during the countless hours she spent at prayer and meditation, was told wonderous things about the dignity and beauty of her own nature, and indeed about human nature in general.  But on one occasion, when she was alone in her “cell” at Siena, she received a message from God that, at first hearing, seemed to contradict all the affirmative things she had been told up to that point.  According to the report given to Raymond of Capua, God said to Catherine: “Do you know, daughter, who you are and who I am?...You are the one who is not, and I AM HE WHO IS.” 

Let me break in here.  Raymond of Capua was a Dominican priest assigned to be Catherine’s confessor.  He was no ordinary priest.  He was high up in the hierarchy of the Dominican Order.  Catherine had attracted attention with her strange life and mysticism, so the Order assigned a priest to monitor her and be her personal confessor.  Raymond, who would eventually after his death was beatified to Blessed, would after Catherine’s death be elected as Master General of the Order for 19 years.  During his lefe he would go on to perform tasks for various popes.  That is quite a resume.  Murray continues.

 

These two statements, far from being calculated to make Catherine feel that she counted for nothing in the eyes of God, were intended, Raymond tells us, as nothing less than “a betrothal-pledge.”  Acceptance by Catherine of their meaning, their import, would set her feet “on the royal road which leads to the fullness of grace, and truth, and light.”  Catherine would have “beatitude” in her grasp.  Well, that does sound reassuring!  But viewed from the perspective of common sense and reason, what light or truth or grace—what beatitude-could possibly be based on the words addressed to Catherine: “You are she who is not”?

At the heart of this question is, do we as humans in respect to God have dignity and worth?  Or are we a piffling thing to be tossed aside?  Murray searches for Catherine’s intent.

 

As an aid towards unraveling this puzzling conundrum, there is in the Dialogue one passage that merits close attention.  Catherine, after stating openly, “I am she who is not,” addresses God the Father: “You alone are who you are, and whatever being I have and every other gift of mine I have from you.”  So utterly convinced is Catherine of her complete dependence on God that she confesses in the same passage: If I should claim to be anything of myself, I should be lying through my teeth!”  These are strong and bold assertions, but they do not exhaust the full meaning of the statements made originally to Catherine.  For it soon becomes clear that, at their core, they are nothing less than a revelation of love.

So how can “being she who is not” be a “revelation of love?

 

Responding on one occasion to the question of how in practice people come to the realization that they are loved by God, Catherine replied, “In holy self-knowledge…we see that we were loved before we came into existence, for God’s love for us compelled him to create us.”  The idea is startling.  That something or someone, a mere “nothing,” could be loved into existence and most tenderly held there by God, is a stupendous thought, a thing of wonder—and it is the hidden, joyous meaning of “You are she who is not.”

“God’s love for us compelled him to create us.”  The word “compelled” is worth emphasizing and is certainly eye raising.  Is God compelled to do anything?  He is God!

 

In Raymond’s Legenda maior, the statement “You are she who is not” is taken up and looked at from many different angles.  Although small, the phrase contains, Raymond declares, “a meaning without limit” and “a wisdom without measure.”  He writes: “Let us take the trouble to unearth it, for even what we see on the surface shows that a rich hoard lies hidden here.”  What is that hidden wisdom, that buried “hoard”?  It is, he tells us, the revelation of a “bountiful and gracious Lord…who loves his creatures so much, and bears so much good will, that they were loved by him before he ever made them.”

Raymond’s Legenda maior is the biography of Catherine’s life Raymond wrote after her death.  As her confessor, he had unique and privileged conversations with Catherine, and he would use that insight to write a contemporaneous biography.  You can access his Legenda maior in the original Italian.  You might be able to find English translations online as well.

 

These lines of Raymond are indeed very fine.  But on the subject of self-knowledge, nothing quite measures up to Catherine’s illumined thoughts and expressions.  Her words impact the reader like radiant arrows.  They strike with force; her voice comes to us as wholly alive and wholly present.  On one occasion, addressing head-on the question of the “nothing” in self-knowledge, she writes: “I have no doubt that if you turn your understanding’s eye to look at yourself and realize that you are not, you will discover with what blazing love your being has been given to you.  I tell you, your heart and affection will not be able to keep from exploding for love.”

God is compelled to love.  He is love itself.  He cannot do otherwise.  Yes He can extinguish us faster than the blink of an eye, but love would not allow Him to do so.  “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life” (Jn 3:16).  He has so much love that He allowed His only son to become incarnate—one of us!—and sacrifice His life for our salvation.  The fact that He doesn’t extinguish us—even the most horrific sinner—shows how much he sees us with dignity and human worth.  Catherine’s “you are she who is not” is not a statement of triviality but a manifestation of great significance.

St. Catherine of Siena pray for us!

Sunday Meditation: Have Mercy on Us and on the Whole World

The Second Sunday of Easter has the same readings each year, the passage where St. Thomas the Apostle needs to see and feel Jesus’s wounds to believe. 

 

On the evening of that first day of the week,

when the doors were locked, where the disciples were,

for fear of the Jews,

Jesus came and stood in their midst

and said to them, “Peace be with you.”

When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side.

The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.

Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you.

As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them,

“Receive the Holy Spirit.

Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them,

and whose sins you retain are retained.”

Thomas, called Didymus, one of the Twelve,

was not with them when Jesus came.

So the other disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord.”

But he said to them,

“Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands

and put my finger into the nailmarks

and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

Now a week later his disciples were again inside

and Thomas was with them.

Jesus came, although the doors were locked,

and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.”

Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands,

and bring your hand and put it into my side,

and do not be unbelieving, but believe.”

Thomas answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!”

Jesus said to him, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me?

Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”

 

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples

that are not written in this book.

But these are written that you may come to believe

that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,

and that through this belief you may have life in his name.

~Jn 20:19-31

I have posted on this passage the last two years.  You can listen to Fr. Geoffrey Plant from two years ago as he connects the “signs” of John’s Gospel to faith.    And last year Fr. Joseph Mary of theFranciscan Capuchins used the dystopia of George Orwell’s 1984 to shed light on Divine Mercy, one of his best homilies.  

This year Bishop Robert Barron walks us through the Gospel reading and connects the it to Divine Mercy Sunday, which Pope St. John Paul II fixed to the Second Sunday of Easter.

The “peace” from Christ is the breath of Divine Mercy!

The pastoral homily comes from Fr. Patrick Briscoe O.P. who connects the reading to our hope for eternal life, and how much we need to accept Divine Mercy.

Alleluia, He is risen!

 

Sunday Meditation: “Peace be with you.  As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

 

Finally, we sung the Divine Mercy Chaplet today at our parish in a special Three O’clock gathering with the exposed Blessed Sacrament.  It was beautiful.  I’m going to provide a YouTube clip of a Divine Mercy Chaplet in song, sung from The National Shrine of The Divine Mercy, Stockbridge, MA, USA.

 

I want to also provide a picture of the side display today at my parish, St. Rita’s Catholic Church on Staten Island, NY, of the Divine Mercy painting.  Beside stood our picture of beloved Holy Father, Pope Francis. 

 

May Pope Francis rest in peace.  I will have a memorial post for his passing.

Sunday Meditation: Easter Sunday, The Women at the Tomb

The day of Resurrection is here!  Blessed be God, He has risen!

 

I will post on the Gospel reading for the Easter Vigil Mass. The Gospel is always the same for each of the three years, the discovery of the empty tomb from St. John’s Gospel.  Easter Vigil Mass follows the Lectionary cycle, which for Year C is the empty tomb passage of Luke.

 

At daybreak on the first day of the week

the women who had come from Galilee with Jesus

took the spices they had prepared

and went to the tomb.

They found the stone rolled away from the tomb;

but when they entered,

they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.

While they were puzzling over this, behold,

two men in dazzling garments appeared to them.

They were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground.

They said to them,

"Why do you seek the living one among the dead?

He is not here, but he has been raised.

Remember what he said to you while he was still in Galilee,

that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners

and be crucified, and rise on the third day."

And they remembered his words.

Then they returned from the tomb

and announced all these things to the eleven

and to all the others.

The women were Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James;

the others who accompanied them also told this to the apostles,

but their story seemed like nonsense

and they did not believe them.

But Peter got up and ran to the tomb,

bent down, and saw the burial cloths alone;

then he went home amazed at what had happened.

~Lk 24:1-12

 

Fr. Sam French offers us a homily in which faith and reason work toward understanding the resurrection.

The changes and persistence in the apostles and disciples after the Resurrection that something as earth shaking as Jesus rising from the dead is what really convinces me. 

Fr. Timothy Dore OFM Cap of the Companions of St. Anthony provides a pastoral homily.

Alleluia, He is risen!

 

 

Sunday Meditation: "Why do you seek the living one among the dead?  He is not here, but he has been raised."

 

 

Let us rejoice with the Victimae paschali laudes, which you should have heard on Easter Sunday.  I really like this simple rendition in English by Corpus Christi Watershed.

 

 

The choir at our Mass performed it in Latin.  I have posted on it in Latin and analyzed its beauty.  I’m going to capture this English translation attributed in the video to a Father Fortescue.

 

Sing to Christ your paschal victim

Christians sing your Easter hymn

The sinless Lord for sinners

Christ God's son for creatures died

The sheep who stray the Lamb of God redeemed

Then death and life their battle

Wonderfully fought and now

The King of life once dead forever lives

Tell us Mary we pray

What you saw on Easter day

Empty was the grave and looking

I saw there the glory of his rising

The angel witnesses I saw and folded linen

Christ my hope is risen truly in Galilee

He goes before you

We know he rose from death indeed

And so to him we pray

Great king and Lord of life

Bless us this day

Amen

Hallelujah

Have a blessed Easter!

Triduum Meditation: The Friday We Call Good

Last year I started the Triduum Mediation, and I and I started with Holy Thursday.  I intended to post on one day of the Triduum each year.  This year I will post a meditation on Good Friday.

As I said last year, the Pascal Triduum are the three days that lead to the Resurrection on Easter Sunday. 

The Gospel reading for Good Friday is the entire Passion Narrative from the Gospel according to St. John, Jn 18:1-19:42.  I can’t post the entire two chapters, so I’ll take a portion that will have the most resonance to the embedded homilies.

 

So they took Jesus, and, carrying the cross himself, he went out to what is called the Place of the Skull, in Hebrew, Golgotha.

There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus in the middle.

Pilate also had an inscription written and put on the cross.

It read,

“Jesus the Nazorean, the King of the Jews.”

Now many of the Jews read this inscription, because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek.

So the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate,

 “Do not write ‘The King of the Jews,’ but that he said, ‘I am the King of the Jews’.”

Pilate answered,

“What I have written, I have written.”

 

When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and divided them into four shares, a share for each soldier.

They also took his tunic, but the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from the top down.

So they said to one another,

“Let’s not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it will be, “ in order that the passage of Scripture might be fulfilled that says:

            They divided my garments among them,

                        and for my vesture they cast lots.

This is what the soldiers did.

Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala.

When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son.”

Then he said to the disciple,

“Behold, your mother.”

And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.

 

After this, aware that everything was now finished, in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled,

Jesus said, “I thirst.”

There was a vessel filled with common wine.

So they put a sponge soaked in wine on a sprig of hyssop and put it up to his mouth.

When Jesus had taken the wine, he said,

“It is finished.”

And bowing his head, he handed over the spirit.

 

Here all kneel and pause for a short time.

 

Now since it was preparation day, in order that the bodies might not remain on the cross on the sabbath, for the sabbath day of that week was a solemn one, the Jews asked Pilate that their legs be broken and that they be taken down.

So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and then of the other one who was crucified with Jesus.

But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs, but one soldier thrust his lance into his side, and immediately blood and water flowed out.

An eyewitness has testified, and his testimony is true; he knows that he is speaking the truth, so that you also may come to believe.  For this happened so that the Scripture passage might be fulfilled:

            Not a bone of it will be broken.

And again another passage says:

            They will look upon him whom they have pierced.

~Jn 19:17-37

I will go with Fr. Geoffrey Plant again because he offers so much information.  After he explains Good Friday, Fr. Geoffrey takes us through Jesus last seven words on the cross.  

It is with the fourth cup of the Passover and the death of the Lamb of God that completes the atonement.    I loved that ending from Fr. Geoffrey: “The Evangelists remind us that the life of a Christian is lived in the tension between ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” and “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”

Bishop Barron tells us on the horrific nature of the crucifixion.

And despite the horror of the cross, Christians embraced it!

 

Sunday Meditation: "When Jesus had taken the wine, he said,

“It is finished.” And bowing his head, he handed over the spirit."

 

This is too solemn a day for a hymn.  Indeed there was no music at Good Friday Mass today, just a Capella.  So another reflection is in due order, this time by two Dominican friars from Our Sunday Visitor, Frs. Patrick Briscoe and Vincent Bernhard O.P. who reflect on Good Friday traditions.

 

If you’re wondering what a “double genuflection” is, it’s not very mysterious.  I had just never heard it was called anything.  Here is a clip to demonstrate it.

 

So at Good Friday adoration of the wood of the cross, I had to try a double genuflection after hearing the friars talk about it.  Geez, I almost couldn’t get up with my aging knees.

Sunday Meditation: Palm Sunday of the Lord's Passion

We arrive at Holy Week and Jesus’s triumphant entrance into Jerusalem, known as Palm Sunday.  Today at Palm Sunday Mass, sitting next to Olga, who serves as our Eucharistic Minister, she made a palm cross for me.  She is an expert on making these.

 

Thank you Olga.  God bless you.

I have posted quite often on Palm Sunday, and you can peruse the various Palm Sunday posts here.  There is a lot of good stuff in the various posts over the years.  I will try to make this post contain fresh and new material.  First the Gospel reading for Year C.  I cannot post the entire Passion narrative from Luke, but I will post the Gospel reading. 

 

Jesus proceeded on his journey up to Jerusalem.

As he drew near to Bethphage and Bethany

at the place called the Mount of Olives,

he sent two of his disciples.

He said, "Go into the village opposite you,

and as you enter it you will find a colt tethered

on which no one has ever sat.

Untie it and bring it here.

And if anyone should ask you,

'Why are you untying it?'

you will answer,

'The Master has need of it.'"

So those who had been sent went off

and found everything just as he had told them.

And as they were untying the colt, its owners said to them,

"Why are you untying this colt?"

They answered,

"The Master has need of it."

So they brought it to Jesus,

threw their cloaks over the colt,

and helped Jesus to mount.

As he rode along,

the people were spreading their cloaks on the road;

and now as he was approaching the slope of the Mount of Olives,

the whole multitude of his disciples

began to praise God aloud with joy

for all the mighty deeds they had seen.

They proclaimed:

"Blessed is the king who comes

in the name of the Lord.

Peace in heaven

and glory in the highest."

Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him,

"Teacher, rebuke your disciples."

He said in reply,

"I tell you, if they keep silent,

the stones will cry out!"

~Lk 19:28-40

Fr. Geoffrey Plant has a wealth of information on Palm Sunday.  So do you know which of the four Gospels is the only one that mentions palms for the entry into Jerusalem?  Find out.

Fr. Geoffrey quotes Hans Urs von Balthasar : “Through the cross and only through the cross will the gates of the kingdom be opened.” 

 

Along those same lines of the cross, Bishop Robert Barron gives a homily that knocked my socks off.  This is a must watch.

That is one of the best pastoral homilies I have ever heard.  “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

 

Sunday Meditation: "Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord.  Peace in heaven and glory in the highest."

 

For the hymn, let’s double up on the good thief’s contrite words, performed by Taizé. 

 

The images to go with the music are as spectacular as the musical rendition.