Homily, 4-29-24; Feast of St, Catherine of Siena:
Today we have two examples that tie in to yesterday’s parable of the vine and the branches. In our first reading, we see how closely Barnabas and Paul are connected with Jesus. They are able to do great works in His name. Paul heals the cripple, and the Lycaonian people think they are gods who have come down in human form. But Paul and Barnabas insist that they cannot do these good works on their own, that it is Jesus’ power working through them. We hear in the Acts of the Apostles how the early disciples followed Jesus’ command to go out and spread the good news. And this they did heroically. But God rewarded their good works with persecutions and sufferings to prune them to produce even greater fruits. In the next chapter of Acts, after they were treated like gods, we read the account of how Paul was stoned and left for dead. He recovered to continue producing fruit.
And today we celebrate the memorial of St. Catherine of Sienna. She too was closely attached to Jesus, the vine. She claimed to have a mystical marriage to Him and refused the demands of her parents who tried to arrange marriage for her. And when she refused, they made life miserable for her. She eventually joined the Dominican convent when she was about 18 years old and spent her time in prayer and mortifications. She pruned herself, but God allowed even greater sufferings to make her even better. I found an account of her life on the EWTN website. It talks about her experience. The article states: “The old serpent, seeing her angelical life, set all his engines at work to assault her virtue. He first filled her imagination with the most filthy representations, and assailed her heart with the basest and most humbling temptations. Afterwards, he spread in her soul such a cloud and darkness that it was the severest trial imaginable. She saw herself a hundred times on the brink of the precipice, but was always supported by an invisible hand. Her arms were fervent prayer, humility, resignation, and confidence in God. By these she persevered victorious, and was at last delivered from those trials which had only served to purify her heart. Our Savior visiting her after this bitter conflict, she said to him: ‘Where west thou, my divine Spouse, while I lay in such an abandoned, frightful condition.’ ‘I was with thee,’ he seemed to reply. ‘What!’ said she, ‘amidst the filthy abominations with which my soul was infested!’ He answered: ‘They were displeasing and most painful to thee. This conflict therefore was thy merit, and the victory over them was owing to my presence.’”
The conflicts Catherine endured were her merit, and she could only endure them because she was so strongly connected to Jesus. Let us strive to follow her example, and that of the early disciples, to gain merit from our sufferings, but know we will only endure those sufferings if we work to keep our relationship with Jesus strong, being securely attached to the vine. Remembering we can do nothing on our own.