A Quote from St. Catherine of Siena

I would have you know that every good, whether perfect or imperfect, is acquired and made manifest in me. And it is acquired and made manifest by means of your neighbor. Even simple folk know this, for they often love others with a spiritual love. If you have received my love sincerely without self-interest, you will drink your neighbor’s love sincerely. It is just like a vessel that you fill at the fountain. If you take it out of the fountain to drink, the vessel is soon empty. But if you hold your vessel in the fountain while you drink, it will not get empty: Indeed, it will always be full. So the love of your neighbor, whether spiritual or temporal, is meant to be drunk in me, without any self-interest.  

St. Catherine of Siena (The Dialogue)

Having Holy Boldness in Prayer

The following comes from Msgr. Pope:

There are some who wince at the notion of praying boldly to God, especially if anger or exasperation are part of that boldness. And yet the Bible itself models and counsels that we should include in our prayers the times when we are angry, exasperated, or disappointed in God. The psalms are filled with such prayers and great figures like Moses, David, and Job cry out to God quite plainly, expressing their anger and disappointment. I have written more on that here: A Meditation on the Role of Anger in Prayer.

At any rate, in this brief blog today I offer this example of a prayer of holy boldness from a great Saint of the Church: St. Catherine of Siena. Here is the background: Catherine’s mother, Lapa, lay dying, but Catherine was convinced that Lapa was not yet ready to die, and so she told God as much. The Lord disagreed, but Catherine remained undeterred in her assessment. And now we pick up the story and prayer …

Lapa died, or so it seemed to all the women who stood around her bed. She had refused to confess and receive the last Sacrament. Catherine lay over her mother’s corpse weeping and praying aloud.

O my dear Lord, is this how you keep the promise you once made to me that none in my house should suffer eternal death? You promised me too that you would not take my mother from this world before she could leave it in a state of grace, and here she lies dead, without having confessed or received the Sacrament. My Beloved Savior, I call to you in your great mercy, do not fail me! I will not go alive from your feet until you give me my mother back.

Speechless and overcome, the women around the deathbed saw that life seemed to creep back into Lapa’s body. She breathed and made some slight movement, … After a short time Monna Lapa was quite well again. [Told by her confessor, Blessed Fr. Raimondo, and inscribed in the Biography Catherine of Sienna by Sigrid Undset, pp 94-95].

And so here is the image of a saint at prayer: reverent but bold, seemingly unwilling to take “no” for an answer. Surely, on account of her usual and deep reverence, Catherine was allowed a bit more leeway than many of us; but do not doubt that God is often listening for us sinners to pray with a little conviction and intensity!

Somehow, too, it reminds me of a place called Cana, where the Mother of Jesus said, “They have no more wine.”  And though Jesus seemed unwilling, I am convinced that Mary gave him a look that only a mother could, a look that wouldn’t take “no” for an answer.  And the next thing you know, Jesus is making dozens of gallons of the best wine imaginable!

Are you praying with me, Church? Really praying? There is a place for boldness in prayer, not a boldness that loses all reverence, but a boldness nonetheless.

Stigamta: 6 Interesting Facts about this Spiritual Mystery

The following comes from ChurchPop:

Stigmata is one of the strangest phenomenons in the Catholic Church in the last few centuries.

If you don’t already know, stigmata is a supernatural phenomenon in which the wounds of Christ from his passion and death miraculously appear on a person’s body. Some saints have also suffered what is called invisible stigmata, in which they feel the sufferings of Christ but without the bodily marks.

What should Catholics make of this?

Here are 6 things you may not have known about this incredible phenomenon:

1) The first stigmata dates back to the 13th century

There are no known accounts of stigmata prior to St. Francis of Assisi receiving it in the 13th century. You can read the amazing account of his stigmata from his first biography here.

For most of Church history, no one had heard of stigmata, and now it’s something many people claim to experience, which brings us to our next point…

2) Hundreds of people have claimed stigmata since then

Even though there are no known cases of stigmata prior to St. Francis of Assisi in the 13th century, since then there have been hundreds of people who have claimed to have miraculously received stigmata.

It’s hard to understand why God may start acting in a new way, and some people take this fact as an argument against the supernatural character of at least most stigmata (seeing most as copycats rather than miracles).

3) At least one stigmatist admitted to faking it

And yes, at least one significant stigmatist publicly admitted to faking it. Magdalena de la Cruz was a Franciscan nun in Spain in the 16th century who for years claimed to have miraculously received stigmata. She was famous and widely considered to a be living saint, though St. Ignatius of Loyola (founder of the Jesuits) viewed her with suspicion.

At the end of her life, though, after getting very sick, she admitted that her stigmata was fake. She was tried and found guilty by the Inquisition, which sentenced her to penance for the rest of her life in her convent.

4) Around 85% of stigmatists have been women

This number might be a bit dated (it’s hard to find up to date statistics on this sort of thing), but according to a study in the early 20th century, out of 321 known stigmatists from the 13th century until then, only 41 of them had been men.

Even so, some of the most famous cases have been men, such as St. Francis of Assisi and St. Padre Pio.

5) St. Padre Pio had stigmata for 50 years and was studied by multiple doctors

Probably the most famous modern case of stigmata, and one that was able to be examined in light of modern science, was the stigmata of St. Padre Pio.

He first received it as a young man in 1911 at the age of 24. Word began to spread worldwide about his condition in 1919. From the 1920s through the 1950s, multiple sets of doctors and scientists examined and studied his wounds, with differing conclusions. While everyone agreed the wounds were real, they couldn’t conclusively determine whether they were miraculous, natural, or simply self-inflicted.

The Church, however, was satisfied enough with the evidence for Padre Pio being honest that Pope St. John Paul II canonized him in 2002.

6) St. Catherine of Siena had invisible stigmata

The famous 14th century saint first received the normal visible stigmata when she was 28. But she humbly didn’t want to draw attention to herself, so she requested that God take away the physical wounds while keeping the same physical suffering. Other saints have also reportedly done this.