The Dialogue
34
There are others who are so bloated with the power in their hands that the standard drey carry is injustice. They indict their injustice on God and their neighbors and even on themselves.
They are unjust to themselves by not being virtuous as they owe it to themselves to be. They do not give me the honor that is my due, nor praise my name as is their duty, but like thieves they steal what is mine and put it to die service of their own sensuality. So they are being unjust both to me and to themselves, for like blinded fools they do not recognize me in themselves.
And it is all because of selfishness, like those Jews and ministers of the Law who were so blinded by envy and selfishness that they did not recognize the Truth, my only-begotten Son. Therefore they did not, as they should have, recognize eternal Life when he was in their midst. My Truth told them, ” The Kingdom of God is within you.” But they failed to recognize it. Why? Because they had lost the light of reason and so they did not offer due honor and glory to me or to him who is one with me. And so they blindly committed die injustice of persecuting him shamefully even to death by crucifixion.
Such as these are unjust to themselves and to me and to their neighbors as well. They are unjust dealers in die flesh of their subjects and of anyone else who may fall into their hands.
62
But why did he not say, ” I will show you my Father” ? F or three distinct reasons.
First of all, he wanted to show that I am not separate from him, nor he from me. So when Saint Philip said to him, ” Show us die Fadier and it is enough for us,” he said, ” Whoever sees me sees the Fadier, and whoever sees the Father sees me.” He said this because he was one witii me, and whatever he had, he had from me, not I from him. This is why he told die Jews, ” My teaching is not mine, but it comes from my Father who sent me.” For my Son proceeds from me, not I from him. Still, I am one with him and he with me, and so he did not say, ” I will show you die Father,” but, ” I will show myself to you,” diat is, ” because I am one with the Fadier.”
77
So you see, most beloved daughter, what are die gende signs (the most preeminent is the virtue of patience) by which the soul shows that she has in truth risen from imperfect love and come to the perfect, and is following the gentle spotless Lamb, my only-begotten Son. When he was on the cross, held there by nails of love, he did not draw back because the Jews said, ” Come down from the cross and we will believe you.” Nor did your ingratitude make him pull back from persevering in the obedience I had placed upon him. [No, he suffered] widi such patience that not a sound of complaint was heard from him.
100
After the soul has come to know my will she clothes herself in it and attends only to how she may keep and intensify her perfection for the glory and praise of my name. In the light of faith she fixes her mind’s eye on Christ crucified, my only-begotten Son, loving and following his teaching, which is rule and way for the perfect and imperfect alike. She sees how the Lamb my Truth is in love with her and instructs her in perfection, and seeing it, she falls in love with him. Perfection is what she came to know when she saw this gentle loving Word, my only-begotten Son, finding his nourishment at the table of holy desire by seeking honor for me his eternal Father and salvation for you. In this desire he ran eagerly to his shameful death on the cross and fulfilled the obedience that I his Father had laid on him. He did not shun toil or shame, did not hold back because of your ingratitude and foolish failure to recognize the great favor he had done you. The hounding of the Jews could not hold him back, nor the jeering insults and grumbling, nor die shouts of the people. He went through it all like a true knight and captain whom I had put on the battlefield to wrest you from the devils’ hands. He freed you from die most perverse slavery there could be. This is why he instructed you in his way, his teaching, his rule. And diis is why you can approach the gate to me, eternal Life, with the key of his precious blood that was poured out with such burning love, with hatred and contempt for your sins.
137
In general I provided for you in die Law of Moses in die Old Testament, and in many other holy prophets. In fact, I want you to know diat before the coming of the Word my only begotten Son, the Jewish people were never without a prophet to strengthen them and give them hope in their prophecies that my Truth, Prophet of prophets, would release them from slavery and make them free, would unlock heaven for diem with his blood after it had been locked for so long. But once the gentle loving Word had come, no odier prophet rose up among them. Thus they were assured diat the one they had been waiting for had come, and there was no further need for prophets to announce him. But they did not recognize him and still do not recognize him because of their blindness.
Source. Isidore.co – Translated by Suzanne Noffke, O.P. Catherine of Siena, The Dialogue. New York : Paulist Press. 1980.
Letters
TO BROTHER WILLIAM OF ENGLAND OF THE HERMIT BROTHERS OF ST. AUGUSTINE
Perfection is this: that the Word, the Son of God, fed at the table of holy desire for the honour of God and for our salvation; and with this desire ran with great zeal to the shameful death of the Cross, avoiding neither toil nor labour, not drawing back for the ingratitude and ignorance of us men who did not recognize His benefits, nor for the persecution of the Jews, nor for mockery or insults or criticism of the people, but underwent them all, like our captain and true knight, who was come to teach us His way and rule and doctrine, opening the door with the keys of His precious Blood, shed with ardent love and hatred against sin. As says this sweet, loving Word, “Behold, I have made you a way, and opened the door with My blood. Be you then not negligent to follow it, and do not sit yourselves down in self-love, ignorantly failing to know the Way, and presumptuously wishing to choose it after your own fashion, and not after Mine who made it. Rise up then, and follow Me: for no one can go to the Father but by Me. I am the Way and the Door.”
TO THE KING OF FRANCE
The third matter is, to observe the doctrine which that Master upon the Cross gives you; which is the thing that my soul most desires to see in you: that is, love and affection with your neighbour, with whom you have for so long a time been at war. For you know well that without this root of love, the tree of your soul would not bear fruit, but would dry up, abiding in hate and unable to draw up into itself the moisture of grace. Alas, dearest father, the Sweet Primal Truth teaches it to you, and leaves you for a commandment, to love God above everything, and one’s neighbour as one’s self. He gave you the example, hanging upon the wood of the most holy Cross. When the Jews cried “Crucify!” He cried with meek and gentle voice: “Father, forgive those who crucify Me, who know not what they do.” Behold His unsearchable love! For not only does He pardon them, but excuses them before His Father! What example and teaching is this, that the Just, who has in Him no poison of sin, endures from the unjust the punishment of our iniquities!
Source. Archive.org – Translated by Vida D. Scudder. Catherine of Siena, SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA AS SEEN IN HER LETTERS. New York : E. P. Dutton & CO. 1911.