Wisdom from St Catherine of Siena

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

I pray this finds you and your loved ones well and safe during this time of pandemic. We have been and will continue to keep you in our heartfelt prayers before our Eucharistic Lord.

Let us pray to St Catherine of Siena whose feast day was yesterday, April 29 and who is with us and will indeed intercede for us and let us take her as a model on this journey toward heaven.  

We realize that this is a great privilege that we Missionaries still have, and that many no longer have, that we still have the gift of the Mass and can receive our Blessed Lord in Holy Communion and we can come before His True and Holy Presence in Eucharistic Adoration. We know that this is a very real trial for many of you as you are accustomed to receiving our Blessed Lord daily in Holy Communion and often spend time with Him in Eucharistic Adoration and cannot now do so. But thanks be to God for what is available. As I understand it, Eucharistic Adoration is still available in some churches. Also, Holy Mass is being livestreamed from many different parishes as is Eucharistic Adoration. This is truly wonderful, and we give thanks to God for this!  

But something which is available to all of us during this time is the grace to embrace the Holy Will of God. This grace is always ours if we want it.
“You must believe in truth that whatever God gives or permits is for your salvation.” (St. Catherine of Siena)

This embrace of our Father’s will keep away the spirit of negativity and complaint. We should practice spiritual distancing from such things.
We are not therefore discouraged because we know that, “God is closer to us than water is to a fish.” (St. Catherine of Siena)

We cannot attend Holy Mass and receive the precious Body and Blood of our dear Lord. Because we have a great desire to serve Him at Mass and especially when He is within us in our Holy Communions, we feel the trial of this in our spirit. Yet we hear the words of our Savior quietly within ourselves, “Do not presume…but choose the way of serving I have made for you.” (Jesus to St. Catherine of Siena)

There may be the temptation lurking to question or criticize the Church’s guidelines regarding the sacraments during this time. However, with the Holy Spirit and in confidence, we acknowledge that “We should always be disposed to believe that that which appears white is really black, if the hierarchy of the Church so decides.” (St. Catherine of Siena)

Many of us have been quarantined in the same place for a considerable length of time. And we are resigned knowing that, “To the servant of God…every place is the right place and every time is the right time.” (St. Catherine of Siena)

We find ourselves not able to do many of the things we want to do, and the Lord penetrates our hearts with His Light; and we know that, “There is nothing we can desire or want that we do not find in God.“ (St. Catherine of Siena) 

We realize that we can make do without many things, but there is one thing we must have as, “A soul cannot live without loving. It must have something to love, for it was created to love.” (St. Catherine of Siena)

And so rather than suffer from the excuse of boredom we acknowledge that, “love does not stay idle.” (St. Catherine of Siena)

We consider what would God have us do and “Ponder the fact that God has made you a gardener, to root out vice and plant virtue.” (St. Catherine of Siena) so that you will, “Be who God meant you to be, and you will set the world on fire.” (St. Catherine of Siena)

Therefore, we apply ourselves to the Lord and His Holy Will and knowing that, “We are not rewarded according to our work or our time but according to the measure of our Love.“ (St. Catherine of Siena) 

We recognize that our opportunities to love have not decreased during this trial but may have increased, and as, “God provides the way and the means, such that we could never have imagined.” (St. Catherine of Siena)

We say,

“Leave it all to Him, Let go of yourself, Lose yourself on the Cross, and you will find yourself entirely.” (St. Catherine of Siena)

Please be assured of our prayers for you and all your loved ones!

In the Loving Will of our Savior,

Fr. Declan