St Catherine Of Siena - Tumblr Posts

christ taking his heart out of his side wound to hand it to st. catherine of siena

in a hagiography of st. catherine of siena, alsace, early 15th c.

source: Paris, BnF, ms. allem. 34, fol. 54r

Wisdom from St Catherine of Siena

“If everyone knew how to use the grace God gave them, they would benefit from everything that happens to them. This is what I would like you to do whenever something happens to you, whether you like it or not - think to yourself & say “I intend to get some benefit from this.” If you really did this, you would be rich in no time.”

Blessed Raimondo writes of St Catherine that she could hardly stand to eat or drink anything, and that eating often made her ill and caused her a great deal of physical pain. She seemed to get all of her nourishment from the Blessed Sacrament, often experiencing ecstasy for hours after receiving the Body & Blood of our Lord, and in mystical experiences even received his precious blood directly as it poured from his side. Her biography is tremendously inspiring, and we all have a lot to learn from her about purity & zeal for Christ

wrote a dissertation on this painting of catherine of siena so i got it tattooed

“Oh Abyss of Love” -St Catherine of Siena

Perfect Prayer

"Oh, how sweet & pleasant to that soul and to Me is holy prayer, made in the house of knowledge of self & of Me, opening the eye of the intellect to the light of faith and the affections to the abundance of My charity, which was made visible to you through My visible Only-begotten Son, who showed it to you with His blood!

...Perfect prayer is not attained to through many words, but through affection of desire, the soul raising herself to Me, with knowledge of herself & of My mercy, seasoned the one with the other. Thus she will exercise together mental & vocal prayer, for even as the active & contemplative life is one, so are they."

-Excerpt from St. Catherine of Siena's A Treatise on Prayer as part of her mystical Dialogues with God

Supreme & Eternal Fire, Abyss of Charity

=============================================== Then this soul, as if being inebriated, tormented, and on fire with love - her heart wounded with great bitterness - turned herself to the Supreme & Eternal Goodness, saying:

"Oh! Eternal God! Oh! Light above every other light, from whom issues all light! "Oh! Fire above every fire, Because thou art the only Fire who burnest without consuming, And consumest all sin & self-love found in the soul, Not afflicting her, but fattening her with insatiable love, And though the soul is filled she is not sated, but ever desires Thee, And the more of Thee she has, the more she seeks, And the more she desires, the more she finds & tastes of Thee - Supreme & Eternal Fire, Abyss of Charity. "Oh! Supreme & Eternal Good, Who has moved Thee, Infinite God, To illuminate me, Thy finite creature, With the light of Thy truth? "Thou, the same Fire of Love art the cause, Because it is always love which constrains & constrained Thee To create us in Thine image & likeness, And to do us mercy, Giving immeasurable & infinite graces to Thy rational creatures, Oh, Goodness above all goodness! "Thou alone art He who is Supreme Good, And nevertheless Thou gavest the Word, Thy Only-begotten Son. To converse with us filthy ones & filled with darkness. What was the cause of this? Love. Because Thou lovedst us before we were. "Oh, Good! Oh, Eternal Greatness! Thou madest thyself low & small To make man great. "On whichever side I turn, I find nothing but the abyss & fire of Thy charity" ===============================================

-St Catherine of Siena speaking to God in mystical ecstasy as recorded in A Treatise of Prayer of her Dialogues. Formatting is mine, added to make it easier to follow (hopefully)

St Catherine of Siena experienced mystical visions in which she received our Lord’s Precious Blood directly from his Pierced Side similar to this! And she was very much grieved when such a vision would end

take this, all of you, and drink of it

Imagine Catholic saints as modern Christian music artists—what would their signature song sound like?

* Catherine is said by her confessor and biographer Raymond of Capua's Life to have had her first vision of Christ when she was five or six years old: she and a brother were on the way home from visiting a married sister when she is said to have experienced a vision of Christ seated in glory with the Apostles Peter, Paul, and John. Raymond continues that at age seven, Catherine vowed to give her whole life to God. But I left the first verse of the song to artistically represent the color gold as His rightful place in heaven.

St Catherine of Siena, by Jennifer Beam