QUOTATION: Obedience to the Pope

He who rebels against our Father, Christ on earth, is condemned to death, for that which we do to him, we do to Christ in heaven – we honor Christ if we honor the pope, we dishonor Christ if we dishonor the pope… I tell you that God will and has so commanded that even if the priests and the pastors of the Church and Christ on earth were incarnate devils, it is seemly that we are obedient and subject to them, not for their sake, but for the sake of God, out of obedience to Him, for He wills that we should act thus.

--St. Catherine of Siena

QUOTATION: The Pope

He is insane who rises or acts contrary to the Vicar who holds the Blood of Christ crucified. Even if he was a demon incarnate, I should not raise my head against him, but always grovel and ask for the Blood out of mercy.... God wants neither you nor anyone else to set themselves up as a righter of the wrongs of His ministers.

--St. Catherine of Siena, Letters, Vol. 1, letter #28

QUOTATION: Be Brave

Start being brave about everything, driving out darkness and spreading light as well. Don’t look at your weakness, but realize that in Christ crucified you can do everything.

--St. Catherine of Siena

QUOTATION: God's Love

With whatever love I am loved, with that love I respond. 

--God to St. Catherine of Siena, The Dialogue 

QUOTATION: Self-Knowledge

As the soul comes to know herself she also knows God better, for she sees how good he has been to her. In the gentle mirror of God she sees her own dignity: that through no merit of hers but by his creation she is the image of God. And in the mirror of God’s goodness she sees as well her own unworthiness, the work of her own sin. For just as you can better see the blemish on your face when you look at yourself in a mirror, so that soul who in true self-knowledge rises up with desire to look at herself in the gentle mirror of God with the eye of understanding sees all the more clearly her own defects because of the purity she sees in him.

--God to St. Catherine of Siena, The Dialogue

QUOTATION: Fear

The only ones who are afraid are those who think they are alone, who trust in themselves and have no loving charity. They are afraid of every little thing because they are alone, deprived of me. For it is I who give complete security to the soul who possesses me in love.

--God to St. Catherine of Siena, The Dialogue

QUOTATION: Self-Reflection

We can see neither our own dignity nor the defects which spoil the beauty of our soul, unless we look at ourselves in the peaceful sea of God’s being in which we are imaged.

--St. Catherine of Siena, Letter 226 to Blessed Raymond of Capua

QUOTATION: Various Kinds of Tears

First of all, there are the tears of damnation, the tears of this world’s evil ones.

Second are the tears of fear, of those who weep for fear because they have risen up from the sin out of fear of punishment.

Third are those who have risen up from sin and are beginning to taste me. These weep tenderly and begin to serve me. But because their love is imperfect, so is their weeping.

The fourth stage is that of souls who have attained perfection in loving their neighbors and love me without any self-interest. These weep and their weeping is perfect.

The fifth stage (which is joined to the fourth) is that of sweet tears shed with great tenderness.

I will tell you, too, about tears of fire, shed without physical weeping, which often satisfy those who want to weep but cannot. And I want you to know that a soul can experience all of these different stages as she rises from fear and imperfect love to attain perfect love and the state of union.

--God to St. Catherine of Siena, The Dialogue, quoted in Catherine of Siena, Passion for the Truth, Compassion for Humanity: selected spiritual writings, Mary O’Driscoll, Ed. 2005.

QUOTATION: Carrying One's Cross

You must follow Him along the way of the cross, choosing to be crucified in His way, not yours.

--St. Catherine of Siena

QUOTATION: God's Love for Us

Consider God's charity. Where else have we ever seen someone who has been offended voluntarily paying out his life for those who have offended him?

--St. Catherine of Siena

QUOTATION: Love

Love transforms one into what one loves.

--St. Catherine of Siena

QUOTATION: The Soul

The Soul is in God and God is in the soul, just as the fish is in the sea and the sea is in the fish.

--St. Catherine of Siena

QUOTATION: God's Sacrifice

What father ever gave up his son to death for the sake of his slave!

--St Catherine of Siena

QUOTATION: Speaking Out

We’ve had enough of exhortations to be silent! Cry out with a hundred thousand tongues. I see that the world is rotten because of silence.

--St. Catherine of Siena

QUOTATION: The Blessed Virgin Mary

Mary is the most sweet bait, chosen, prepared, and ordained by God, to catch the hearts of men.

--St. Catherine of Siena

QUOTATION: Devotion to Mary

God: My goodness, in deference to the Word, has decreed that anyone at all, just or sinner, who holds [Mary] in due reverence will never be snatched or devoured by the infernal demon.

--St. Catherine of Siena

QUOTATION: Prayer and Virtue

By humble and faithful prayer, the soul acquires, with time and perseverance, every virtue.

--St. Catherine of Siena

QUOTATION: Mortification

For mortification does not consist in macerating or killing the body, but in killing our perverse self-will.

--St. Catherine of Sienna

QUOTATIONS: Impatience

There is no sin nor wrong that gives a man such a foretaste of hell in this life as anger and impatience.

--St. Catherine of Siena