Catherine de Sienne
Catherine de Sienne (25 mars 1347 – 29 avril 1380) était une mystique italienne, défenseuse du pape et de l'Église. Elle était une incarnation antérieure d'Elizabeth Clare Prophet.
Enfance et jeunesse
À l'âge de six ans, lors d'une expérience religieuse intense, Catherine vit la figure rayonnante du Christ-Roi lever la main et la bénir. Il était assis sur un trône, couronné d'une mitre et entouré des apôtres Pierre, Paul et Jean. Convaincue que sa vocation était d'être dans le monde sans être du monde, elle devint à l'âge de seize ans sœur pénitente, membre du tiers ordre dominicain qui porte un habit mais n'est pas confinée dans un couvent.
Pendant les trois années qui suivirent, Catherine resta cloîtrée dans une petite pièce de la maison de son père, menant une vie d'austérité, de solitude et de silence, se retirant dans la « cellule intérieure » de la connaissance de Dieu et d'elle-même, comme elle décrivait sa communion avec le Seigneur. Elle eut de nombreuses visions et conversations avec Jésus, qui culminèrent dans le mariage spirituel avec le Christ. Au cours de cette période, Catherine reçut l'enseignement de Jésus : « Moi, rien ; Dieu, tout. Moi, non-être ; Dieu, Être. » Cette vérité fondamentale lui inspira l'humilité et la conviction qui lui permirent d'affronter les forces qui menaçaient l'Église et la société au cours du XIVe siècle turbulent.
Défendre l'Église
Sur les conseils de Jésus, Catherine reprit une vie publique à Sienne, où elle s'occupa des pauvres et des malades. Sa réputation de spiritualité se répandit, et elle fut entourée d'un cercle d'adeptes issus de tous les horizons qui l'appelaient leur « douce mère sainte ». Catherine agit en tant que pacificatrice et diplomate afin de ramener la paix en Italie et de réformer l'Église. Elle voyagea beaucoup et adressa des centaines de lettres aux prélats et aux souverains de l'époque, leur donnant des conseils et des avis, tout en dénonçant directement leurs méfaits. Partout où Catherine allait, prêchant, enseignant et guérissant, elle apportait un renouveau spirituel et ramenait des milliers d'âmes vers l'Église.
In her absolute devotion to the papacy Catherine, accompanied by twenty-three devotees (friars, nuns and laymen), traveled to Avignon, France, where the popes had resided for the previous seventy years, in order to convince Pope Gregory to return the papacy to Rome. In 1377 the pope returned to Italy, but a year later with the election of his successor, Urban VI, certain cardinals set up a rival, or “anti-pope,” Clement VII. Thus began the “Great Schism,” which absorbed the remainder of Catherine’s life as she attempted to gain for Pope Urban VI the recognition that was rightfully his.
Final years
In November 1378 she moved to Rome to devote herself to the cause of the papacy. During the last months of her life Catherine went daily to Saint Peter’s basilica where she spent hours in prayer before the mosaic of “la Navicella,” the ship of the Church. Just before Lent in 1380 she had a vision of the ship being lifted out of the mosaic and placed upon her shoulders. Three months later, on April 29, 1380, at age 33, Catherine died, exhausted by her penances and efforts in the service of the pope and the Church. “O eternal God,” she had prayed upon her deathbed, “receive the sacrifice of my life for the sake of this mystical body of holy Church.”[1]
The Dialogue
Her greatest work, the “Dialogue,” a spiritual treatise in the form of conversations with God the Father, was dictated by Catherine to her secretaries during a five-day state of ecstasy. About four hundred of her letters have survived as well as twenty-six of her prayers.
In the Dialogue, the Father taught: when “the will of the soul unites itself with me in a most perfect and burning love” the soul “is another me, made so by the union of love.”[2] “You will know me in yourself,” he told her, “and from this knowledge you will draw all that you need.”[3]
The path of the mystic
Catherine understood the true meaning of imitating the life of Christ, and in 1375 she received the stigmata, which was visible only to herself, enabling her to share in Christ’s passion. At her request, they remained invisible until after her death.
Jesus taught Catherine that her bonding to him had to bear fruit not only for herself but for other souls as well. He said that she had to fly to heaven on “two wings”: “love of me and love of your neighbor.”[4]
For Catherine, “love of your neighbor” consisted of both action and intercessory prayer. “Let not a moment pass without crying out with constant prayer,”[5] God told her. One of Catherine’s recorded prayers reads:
Your Son is not about to come again except in majesty to judge.... But, as I see it, you are calling your servants christs, and through them you want to relieve the world of death and restore it to life.
How? You want these servants of yours to walk courageously along the Word’s way with concern and blazing desire, working for your honor and the salvation of souls....
O best of remedy-givers! Give us then these christs who will live in continual watching and tears and prayers for the world’s salvation. You call them your christs because they are conformed to your only-begotten Son.[6]
Thus Jesus revealed to Catherine that there must be many Christs. We are all Christs in potential. And the level to which our Christ is seated in the body where we sit entirely depends upon each of us and what action we take from this profound understanding.
The mystical path is truly a practical path. It is practical because we learn how to contact God and find our way back to his heart. It is practical because it deals with the needs of the hour on planet Earth.
Legacy
In recognition of her “infused wisdom,” an “inebriating assimilation” of the mysteries of sacred scripture, Pope Paul VI proclaimed Saint Catherine of Siena a Doctor of the Church on October 4, 1970. The teachings of this Angelic Doctor are revealed in her hundreds of letters addressed to kings, popes, abbots, theologians, and soldiers during the turbulent fourteenth century as well as in the excellence of her life as “one of the most vigorous and virile women in history.”
Catherine was canonized in 1461; she was declared the patron saint of Italy in 1939. Her feast day is celebrated on April 30.
Sources
Pearls of Wisdom, vol. 31, no. 46.
Pearls of Wisdom, vol. 23, no. 41, October 12, 1980.
Elizabeth Clare Prophet, June 28, 1992, “Roots of Christian Mysticism.”
- ↑ Edmund G. Gardner, Saint Catherine of Siena: A Study in the Religion, Literature, and History of the Fourteenth Century in Italy (London: J. M. Dent, 1907), p. 343.
- ↑ Harvey Egan, An Anthology of Christian Mysticism (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, Pueblo Book, 1991), p. 361.
- ↑ Mary Ann Fatula, Catherine of Siena’s Way, rev. ed. (Wilmington, Del.: Michael Glazier, 1989), p. 80.
- ↑ Raymond of Capua, The Life of Catherine of Siena, trans. Conleth Kearns (Wilmington, Del.: Michael Glazier, 1980), p. 106.
- ↑ Catherine of Siena, The Dialogue, trans. Suzanne Noffke (New York: Paulist Press, 1980), 32.
- ↑ The Prayers of Catherine of Siena, ed. Suzanne Noffke (New York: Paulist Press, 1983), pp. 178, 179.