Catherine of Siena

Qu'est-ce que l'Absolu ? Dieu existe-t-il ?

God is the eternal Trinity, a deep sea, mad with love

Un Dieu personnelIl le dit expressément

In The Dialogue, Catherine of Siena hears and transcribes the voice of a God who speaks to the soul in the first person: the eternal Father who explains, rebukes, promises and answers her petitions. This God is the first Truth and is, above all, love that precedes the creature: in the Dialogue's closing prayer she confesses that God loved her before she existed, «mad» for his creature. The closing prayer of the Dialogue calls the eternal Trinity a deep sea in which the more one enters the more one finds, and the more one finds the more one seeks. The Absolute is therefore personal, Trinitarian and inexhaustible: someone with whom one converses and whose knowledge never closes.

Qui suis-je ? Existe-t-il un vrai soi ?

The soul is an image of the Trinity, known in the cell of self

Une âme créée et immortelleIl le dit expressément

For Catherine of Siena, the soul is a creature made in the image of the Trinity: in The Dialogue she thanks God for giving it memory to hold his benefits, intellect to know and will to love. Self-knowledge is indispensable, and the book sets it out from its first page as dwelling in the «cell of self-knowledge». But this knowledge has two faces: the soul discovers itself as something that of itself is not, since it has received everything, and in that same cell it knows God's goodness, which love follows. The true self is therefore a created, immortal soul whose being depends on the love that created it.

Pourquoi souffrons-nous ?

The root of every evil is self-love that turns away from God

La séparation d'avec DieuIl le dit expressément

In The Dialogue, Catherine of Siena places in God's mouth a constant diagnosis: the root of all evils is sensual self-love, which makes the human being love itself apart from God. Whoever broke the road through sin drowns in the river of the world, and that is why God laid down the bridge of his Son. But not all suffering is punishment: the pains of this life, borne with patience and with desire for God, purify and make satisfaction, because what gives them value is not the pain itself but the infinite desire with which it is suffered. Pain separates when it springs from self-love and unites when it becomes charity.

Que se passe-t-il après la mort ?

At death each soul sees what it chose and receives what it loved

Vie éternelle et résurrectionIl le dit expressément

In The Dialogue, God explains to Catherine of Siena how the just, sinners and those who have lived in intermediate states die. At the moment of death, each soul sees clearly what it has loved: the just man dies in peace, because his will is united to God's and the devil finds nothing of his own in him; one who dies in self-love judges himself before being judged. Eternal blessedness is seeing God face to face and rejoicing in the good of the other blessed through charity. The letter of Barduccio Canigiani recounts her own death in Rome in 1380, amid prayers for the Church.

Comment atteint-on la libération ou le salut ?

One climbs the bridge that is Christ by three steps of love

Par la dévotion et l'abandonIl le dit expressément

The central image of The Dialogue is the bridge: the road between heaven and earth, broken by sin, has been rebuilt in the Son, and whoever wishes to be saved must climb it. One climbs by three steps, which are the body of the crucified Christ: the feet, representing affection stripped of self-love; the open side, where the soul discovers the secret of the heart; and the mouth, where it finds peace. The engine of the ascent is love: holy desire, kindled by the blood of Christ, which Catherine invokes ceaselessly in her letters. Grace is the foundation, but the way is a loving surrender proved in service to one's neighbour.

Faut-il un maître ?

Obedience to the Church, the confessor and truth known in the cell

La communauté et la traditionIl le dit expressément

Catherine of Siena was at once disciple and teacher. A laywoman of the Dominican Order of Penance, she submitted to confessors such as Raymond of Capua and called the pope, in her letters, the «sweet Christ on earth», to be obeyed even if he were a devil incarnate. But around her formed a famiglia of disciples, clerics and laypeople, who called her «mamma», and her letters are an immense work of spiritual direction. The Dialogue devotes a long section to obedience, the key that opens heaven. For Catherine one learns within the body of the Church, in a living community, but every soul must also dwell in the cell of self-knowledge.

Le monde est-il réel ?

Everything was made out of love and to serve humankind

Une création bonne et réelleCela se déduit de sa doctrine

Catherine of Siena does not develop a cosmology, but The Dialogue presents creation as the work of love: God created the human being moved by the fire of his charity, and all things were made to serve him, so that he might serve God. The world is good in itself; what makes it dangerous is the disordered use that self-love makes of it. Hence Catherine's image of the river: the world, when loved for its own sake, is a stormy river in which those who do not cross by the bridge drown. Created things should be held without attachment, as on loan. Real, good and dangerous at once: such is creation for her.

Qu'est-ce que l'amour ?

We cannot be useful to God: love is returned to him in our neighbour

L'amour de Dieu et du prochainIl le dit expressément

Catherine of Siena places in God's mouth, in The Dialogue, a precise reason for love of neighbour: God loved us first and without self-interest, and we cannot return that love in the same way, because we cannot be useful to him; that is why he has set our neighbour beside us, so that we may do for him what we cannot do for God. Every virtue is proved and exercised through one's neighbour, and every sin reaches him. Love springs from knowledge of self and of God's goodness, and has its model in the Christ «mad with love» who gave himself to the point of blood. Catherine lived it by tending the sick and the condemned and working for peace in Italy.

Sommes-nous libres ou tout est-il déterminé ?

No one can force the will: neither the devil nor any creature

Un libre arbitre réelIl le dit expressément

In The Dialogue, Catherine of Siena attributes to God a repeated assertion: the human being was created free, and neither the devil nor any creature can force his will to sin unless he consents. Temptations may besiege it, but the will is like a city whose gate opens only from within. That freedom is the condition of merit and responsibility: each person is saved or lost according to what his will loves. God's providence, to which she devotes a long section of the book, orders everything for the soul's salvation, but respects the freedom he himself gave. Free will and providence coexist without cancelling each other out.

Pourquoi méditer ou prier ?

Prayer is holy desire: a continual dialogue with God

L'amitié avec DieuIl le dit expressément

Catherine of Siena's main work is, literally, a prayer turned into dialogue: the soul asks and God answers. The Dialogue describes prayer as a path running from vocal to mental prayer, and from this to a continual prayer that is holy desire, present in every work done for love. Prayer is born in the cell of self-knowledge, where the soul recognises itself as creature and discovers God's goodness; and it flows into petition for others, for the Church and for the world. Her Prayers, taken down by her disciples as she spoke in ecstasy, show that bold familiarity with the eternal Father.

La raison peut-elle connaître l'ultime ?

The eye of the intellect sees through the pupil of faith

La foi et la raison s'entraidentIl le dit expressément

Catherine of Siena learned to read late and never studied theology, but in The Dialogue the intellect holds a central place: it is the eye of the soul, and its pupil is faith. Without that light the intellect is darkened by self-love; with it, it knows the truth of God and of itself. Hence in The Dialogue God explains that there are learned men who, without charity, understand Scripture less than the simple enlightened by grace, and that many unlettered saints received from him the knowledge of truth. Reason is not opposed to faith, but sees well only when faith illuminates it and love purifies it. In 1970 she was proclaimed a doctor of the Church.

Se retirer du monde ou le transformer ?

If you are what you should be, you will set all Italy on fire

S'engager dans le mondeIl le dit expressément

Catherine of Siena spent three years in seclusion in her family home, and from that solitude went forth into the most intense public life known to any woman of her century. She nursed plague victims and accompanied men condemned to death; she mediated between Florence and the papacy; she wrote to popes, kings, cardinals and condottieri, and went to Avignon to urge Gregory XI to return the see to Rome, which happened in 1377. In a letter to her disciple Stefano Maconi she writes that, if they were what they ought to be, they would set all Italy on fire. For her, the charity born in the inner cell is proved in service to one's neighbour and the Church.