St. Catherine of Siena: Letter to a Layman (2024)

Today,April 29^th, is St. Catherine of Siena’s feast day. As you may know, she is the patron saint ofthis blog and my personal patron saint.

Themagazine Magnificat has a meditationwith today’s Mass readings by St. Catherine for her feast day. The meditation is an excerpt of one of herletters, one of 380 letters that have survived.The magazine does not give any details of the letter, so I lookedthrough my volumes of her letters and after an hour of searching I foundit! The letter can be found in Volume 1of the four volume complete collection of her letters titled, The Letters of Catherine of Siena,translated and annotated by Suzanne Noffke, O. P. It is a magisterial collection that is aprize in my library.

Sothe letter is identified as T60, written in the summer of 1375 from Catherine’sstay in Pisa. The addressee isunidentified and Sister Noffke deduces from the comments in the letter that heis a layman and a parent. Catherineexhorts him to keep the commandments and embrace the virtues. Her image two wings is as striking as is theimage earlier in the letter of the fountain sprinkling out the blood of Jesus. Here is the excerpt as published in Magnificat.

I long to see you a trueservant of Jesus Christ, an observer of his commandments. No one can have the life of grace who is notthe keeper of those commandments….Once we see that of ourselves we are nothingat all, we are completely humbled at the knowledge of what our benefactor hasdone for us. We so grow in love when werecognize God’s great goodness at work in us that we would rather die thantransgress our dear Creator’s command.This holy trembling brings us to tremendous love, a love we draw fromthe fountain of the blood of God’s Son, which was shed for our redemption justto wash away the guilt of sin….

I beg you then to makeuse of these two wings that will help you keep God’s commandments and, once youhave managed the commandments, will enable you to fly into everlastinglife. The first wing is hatred andcontempt for sin and for selfish self-love, the source of every vice. The second wing is being the lover ofvirtue. Once we see that virtue isessential for us, we love it; we see God wants us to be lovers of virtue and despisersof vice. Oh how sweet it will be for youto have this virtue! It frees you fromslavery to the devil and gives you liberty, delivers you from death and givesyou life, relieves you of darkness and gives you light. Sin is just the opposite: it leads one intoevery sort of misery.

I beg you, for love ofChrist crucified, let your soul’s eye be directed toward God in all that youdo. Oh what great joy and happiness youwill feel when the time comes for you to be called by First Truth, knowing youare in company of the virtues, supported by the staff of the most holy crossfrom which you have learned God’s holy commandments! And you will hear at the end those sweetwords: Come, my blessed son, and possessthe kingdom of heaven, because you conscientiously cast aside desire andaffection for conformity to the world, and reared and nurtured your family inholy fear of me. Now I am giving youperfect rest, for I am the one who repays you for all you have suffered for me(cf. Mt 25:34).