Today we Dominicans joyfully remember our beloved sister, St. Catherine of Siena.
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What a treasure St. Catherine of Siena is! One does not become a Doctor of the Church by being fearful to express, teach and live God's Truth in its entirety.
How ill-advised we are to discount, ignore or try to nuance the wisdom God has shared over the centuries through such faithful servants as she. Less likely would we be to commit this error if our primary concern was the salvation of souls. No wonder those who wish to only tickle our ears and destroy our consciences ignore these great spiritual writers, abandoning God's Truth for a less demanding and counterfeit one.
The following words Jesus shared with St. Catherine in the 14th century are clear and unambiguous directions to his shepherds - not only those living then but for those among us today. May we and they be given the grace, humility and wisdom to hear and follow His Inerrant Voice:
"No rank, whether of civil or divine law, can be held in grace without holy justice. For those who are not corrected and those who do not correct are like members beginning to rot, and if the doctor were only to apply ointment without cauterizing the wound, the whole, body would become fetid and corrupt.So it is with prelates or with anyone else in authority.
If they see the members who are their subjects rotting because of the filth of deadly sin and apply only the ointment of soft words without reproof, they will never get well. Rather, they will infect the other members with whom they form one body under their one shepherd. But if those in authority are truly good doctors to those souls, as were those glorious shepherds, they will not use ointment without the fire of reproof. And if the members are still obstinate in their evildoing, they will cut them off from the congregation so that they will not infect the whole body with the filth of deadly sin.
But [those who are in authority] today do. not do this. In fact, they pretend not to see. And do you know why? Because the root of selfish love is alive in them, and this is the source of their perverse slavish fear. They do not correct people for fear of losing their rank and position and their material possessions. They act as if they were blind, so they do not know how to maintain their positions. For if they saw how it is by holy justice that their positions are to be maintained, they would maintain them. But because they are bereft of light they do not know this. They believe they can succeed through injustice, by not reproving the sins of their subjects. But they are deceived by their own sensual passion, by their hankering for civil or ecclesiastical rank.
Another reason they will not correct others is that they themselves are living in the same or greater sins. They sense that the same guilt envelops them, so they cast aside fervor and confidence and, chained by slavish fear, pretend they do not see. Even what they do see they do not correct, but let themselves be won over by flattery and bribes, using these very things as excuses for not punishing the offenders. In them is fulfilled what my Truth said in the holy Gospel: ‘They are blind and leaders of the blind. And if one blind person leads another, they both fall into the ditch.’
Those who have been or would be my gentle ministers did not and would not act this way. I told you that these have taken on the qualities of the sun. Indeed, they are suns, for there is in them no darkness of sin or ignorance, because they follow the teaching of my Truth. Nor are they lukewarm, because they are set ablaze in the furnace of my charity. They have no use for the world's honors and ranks and pleasures. Therefore, they are not afraid to correct. Those who do not hanker after power or ecclesiastical rank have no fear of losing it. They reprove [sin] courageously, for those whose conscience does not accuse them of sin have nothing to fear."
(Jesus to St. Catherine of Siena from The Dialogue)
Let us never cease praying for our priests and Bishops!
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