Pints With Aquinas - 161: Catherine of Sienna on Responding to Church Crises With/ Sr. Mary Madeline Todd, OP

Episode Date: June 4, 2019

Today I want to share with you a power and beautiful talk given by Sr. Mary Madeline Todd, OP, about the current crisis in the Church and what we can learn from St. Catherine of Sienna about how to deal with it. SPONSORS EL Investments: https://www.elinvestments.net/pints Exodus 90: https://exodus90.com/mattfradd/  Hallow: http://hallow.app/mattfradd  STRIVE: https://www.strive21.com/  GIVING Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mattfradd This show (and all the plans we have in store) wouldn't be possible without you. I can't thank those of you who support me enough. Seriously! Thanks for essentially being a co-producer coproducer of the show. LINKS Website: https://pintswithaquinas.com/ Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/matt-fradd FREE 21 Day Detox From Porn Course: https://www.strive21.com/ SOCIAL Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattfradd Twitter: https://twitter.com/mattfradd Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattfradd MY BOOKS  Does God Exist: https://www.amazon.com/Does-God-Exist-Socratic-Dialogue-ebook/dp/B081ZGYJW3/ref=sr_1_9?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586377974&sr=8-9 Marian Consecration With Aquinas: https://www.amazon.com/Marian-Consecration-Aquinas-Growing-Closer-ebook/dp/B083XRQMTF/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586379026&sr=8-4 The Porn Myth: https://www.ignatius.com/The-Porn-Myth-P1985.aspx CONTACT Book me to speak: https://www.mattfradd.com/speakerrequestform

G'day, g'day. Welcome to Pints with Aquinas. My name is Matt Fradd. How are you going? I just got back from Australia and New Zealand. I've been traveling there. Melbourne, Brisbane, Auckland. It was absolutely amazing. If you're one of the many, many, many people that I met while I was down there with my family, hi to you and thank you so much for your beautiful hospitality. I'm now back in the States and happy to be here. If you want to learn more about this trip that my wife and I and our family just went on, you should subscribe to my wife's podcast. It's called Among the Lilies. It's for women, but this next podcast, anyone could listen to. We share about our entire trip to Australia

and New Zealand. We went to Hobbiton where they filmed the Shire and it was incredible. The lady who led our tour shared with me that Pints with Aquinas helped bring her to the Catholic Church in a fuller way. So, she was Catholic. I guess she drifted away. She started watching my videos on YouTube. It led her to Pints with Aquinas and she said that Pints with Aquinas helped bring her back into the fullness of the faith. Glory to Jesus Christ, huh? But anyway, if you want to listen to my wife and I talk for like an hour about that trip, go and listen to the Among the Lilies episode. It'll be releasing this coming Thursday, and I think you'll enjoy that. And today, I wanted to share with you a powerful talk given by Sister Mary Madeline Todd, who is a Dominican sister of the Congregation of Saint

Cecilia, on how we ought to respond to the current crisis in the Catholic Church. So, we're going to be drawing less upon Thomas Aquinas today, but we will be hearing from a Dominican sister, and she will be drawing upon the wisdom of a Dominican saint, namely St. Catherine of Siena. So, I hope that this is a tremendous blessing to you. I beg you to listen to it, and I beg you to listen to it the whole way through, and then to share it with people you know and love. Let's stop pretending, shall we? We as a society are in a crisis. We as a church are in a crisis. How should we respond to that crisis in a way that is trustful of the Lord Jesus and his promise that the gates of hell

shall not overcome the church? That's what Sister Mary Madeline Todd speaks about today. Now, I interviewed Sister Mary Madeline Todd after hearing this talk that she gave at Harvard University. And I'll make that available to my patrons. So if you're one of my patrons, thank you. You are what makes Pints with Aquinas, the Matt Fradd Show, possible. If you're not yet a patron, go to patreon.com slash Matt Fradd. Become a patron for five bucks a month, 10 bucks a month. You'll see all of the free stuff I will send you in return. And one of those things that you'll get is this conversation that I had with Sister Mary

and Todd. But today is not going to be that conversation. Again, that'll just be for the patrons later on. Today is a talk that she gave, and I found it tremendously uplifting and helpful, and I know that you will too. A big thanks to my friends at the Thomistic Institute who gave me permission to play this recording. Who's in your house And I haven't seen you yet Thank you. Can you all hear me? Is this picking up? Okay. First, just thank you for the invitation to be with you. It's good to return to Harvard. A couple years ago I spoke here on the Thomistic understanding of friendship.

And it's good to come and really reflect with you on the thought of Catherine of Siena. And what I'm hoping is that this talk is very helpful to you. It ended up being much more spiritual in nature than I would have thought. But we're dealing with a mystic and a doctor of the church. So if I'm going to be true to the thought of Catherine of Siena, really it's going to be quite a personal challenge to us. The mystics don't give easy answers, but they give truthful answers.

So I hope that this talk is inspiring for you personally, as well as a little bit of help for navigating the current situation politically and religiously. So hopefully it is applicable even in its present form, but I also invite you during the time of Q&A to, I hope you'll have some questions where I can expound even more on any point that wasn't clear or that just stirs something in you that you want to ask more. I'm trying to be true to Catherine's thought, but I'm very happy to kind of entertain

questions that might be a little more applied. So hopefully this is helpful to you. Political and ecclesial factions leading to division and sometimes even violence civil leaders more willing to serve themselves than concerned with the common good church leaders whose personal weakness is a scandal to believers and an obstacle to evangelization multi-leveled corruption and a seeming inability to live out one's commitment and responsibilities in the state, the church, and the family. This might sound like the average American newscast on any given evening, but I was actually describing Siena in the 14th century. St. Catherine lived in a time that may on the surface look very different than the time you and I are living in.

But it has that unique commonality to every era, which theologians would attribute to the universality of human woundedness after the fall we call original sin. Evidence abounds that truth is not easily known and that goodness is not easily pursued. Like every true mystic, Catherine of Siena was a profound realist. After the so-called Enlightenment, there's a strange notion that a person of prayer is somehow out of touch with the reality of the day-to-day world. But the exact opposite is true. Authentic charity, that is the love for God as the ultimate good, always

includes deep concern and willingness to act for the good of humanity. We can look to St. Catherine as a model of a response to crisis that is informed by charity. I don't need to prove the point that we're facing a crisis in American society and political leadership, in the church universal, and particular in the United States, as well as in the lives of families and individuals in the broader cultural context. Saints are canonized by the church in order to offer us hope, and to offer us examples of ways that we can respond to. St. Catherine, although one of the

doctors of the church, did not gain wisdom principally from formal study, but rather from prayer and from life experience. While there are many points that we could state as examples of her wisdom, it might be helpful to summarize a few of the key principles that are most applicable to responding to crises of any kind, societal or personal. So I've chosen seven particular points that Catherine makes repeatedly in her writings. Most of my examples are going to come from her letters. If you've read Catherine of Siena, if you've tried to read the dialogue, it's rather difficult. It's better read with a guide who understands the overarching themes of it. I'm not going to try to do that right now. It's a whole other conference on how to read the

dialogue. But her letters are the most direct access to the thought of Catherine. And there is no situation she leaves untouched in her letters. So the seven principles I outline here, I'm going to mostly be illustrating with examples from her letters. So point one is that the first line of battle is in our own hearts. You know, we can look out and we can say, oh my gosh, the world is in so much trouble, all these awful things in politics, all these awful things in the church. But Catherine, like every mystic and every saint of the church, will point first and foremost to our own hearts. And she sees that the first battle we have to fight, and each and every one of us, this is true, is against what she calls selfish self-love. You know, we are supposed to love

ourselves. The gospels say we're supposed to love ourselves. But there's a kind of self-love that's selfish. And she also terms it as selfish sensuality. So whether she's writing to popes, which she did, or princes, abbesses, or queens, Catherine is insistent that the first enemy we have to fight is this tendency within ourselves to seek our own good rather than the good of others. This selfishness that takes the form often of sensuality, wanting pleasure and ease in life. In the 1370s, the Italian peninsula was dominated by two powers, the northern power of the Republic of Milan and the southern power of the Kingdom of Naples. Catherine wrote several times to the leaders of both of these areas, but she especially wrote to Queen Giovanna of Naples. In her first letter to Giovanna, she warns her against the selfishness that can poison even good works.

Augustine would write about this too, the selfishness can poison even good works. Augustine would write about this too, the selfishness that poison even good works, which Catherine describes as insinuating the world's disordered delights and pleasures, status, wealth, honors, and selfish love for ourselves. She writes, this is a pernicious worm that invades and spoils everything we do. That is why those who love themselves apart from God, who look only to their own glory,

never accomplish anything good. If they are in authority, they never reward or punish fairly, but to please other people for their own selfish purposes. I don't want you to be guilty of this, she wrote to the queen. Rather, as Catherine points out, if one seeks to love and honor God and serve well one's neighbor, then that person is able to act in true justice. In a second letter, Catherine distinguishes this justice as twofold. The first she, regards yourself, that you give God the glory and honor he deserves, recognizing that every grace you have is from him and for his sake. The second is the justice that extends to others. Of this justice, Catherine

exhorts Queen Giannavanna, see to it that everyone is given his or her just due, the lowly as well as the great, the great as well as the lowly. Take care that no human respect diverts you from this. So for Catherine, the principal obstacle to doing what is right is that we seek ourselves, and it makes us so afraid to do the right thing, that if I do what's really just, what's really fair, then some people are going to go against me and some people aren't going to like me and I might lose position in leadership. And Catherine was forever writing to people saying,

don't be afraid, do what's right. And the way that you're going to do what's right is by putting God first and serving the good of your neighbor no matter what people think and what people say of you. Easier said than done, but Catherine lived it, so she could say it. The second point goes with this point. All the seven go together.

The second is that we're only going to really be deeply converted ourselves if we learn how to dwell in the cell of self-knowledge in Christ. This is a very deeply Catherineian phrase, the cell of self-knowledge in Christ. This is a very deeply Catherineian phrase, the cell of self-knowledge. So I'm going to explain a little bit about what she writes about entering into and living from this cell of self-knowledge. In order to recognize and uproot our deeply rooted tendency to selfishness, Catherine repeatedly caused her readers to enter into an interior space which she calls the cell of self-knowledge. For Catherine, without interiority, without reflection on life, one can easily be swept along by worries, pressures, and the chaos of our own emotions. When she asks people to enter

into the cell of self-knowledge, she makes an important distinction. She notes that we don't want to stop at knowing ourselves only in our own weaknesses because this can lead to discouragement. So if you just start looking interiorly and all you see is your own inability, your own ability to overcome your own weakness, your own inability to address the problems in the world, you can become so discouraged that it actually cuts off your capacity to be of any help to others. Rather, she invites people to enter into the cell of self-knowledge in Christ. She writes to a woman named Alessa, one of her spiritual daughters, that within the cell of self-knowledge, you will find knowledge of God's goodness to you. She writes, this cell is really two rooms in one. And while

you're in the one, you must at the same time be in the other. Otherwise, your soul would end up either in confusion or in presumption. For if you stayed in self-knowledge only, apart from God, spiritual confusion would be the result. But if you stay only in the knowledge of God, you end up in presumption. So the one has to be seasoned by the other and the two made to be one. From knowledge of yourself issues the spring of humility, which Catherine writes, never acts on assumptions,

never takes a scandal in anything, but bears with joyful patience any injury any loss of consolation any suffering from any source whatever and it sees itself conform with jesus christ crucified who is the way and teaching of truth this is really central in catherine and i just want to reiterate it just in simple terms that if we just try to know ourselves apart from God, it's just discouraging. We see a lot of weakness, inability. But if we only think of God, we may get a kind of presumption. God's just going to take care of everything.

It's all going to be fine. She says you have to know yourself in Christ. Because when you know yourself in Christ, you're going to know, apart from God, I can't do anything. What can I do about the problems, even in myself, let alone the world around me? But if I see myself in God, in Christ, then what I see is that there is grace, that Christ conquered evil when he gave his life on the cross,

when he rose from the dead. And so we have a realistic take on both the limitations of our own weakness, but also on the potential of God's grace at work in us to actually affect changes in ourselves and in the world around us. So one thing I want to just kind of say as an aside to this is this emphasis on interiority, on knowing yourself in Christ, knowing yourself in truth. There is a contemporary book that I cannot recommend enough to back up this. When I'm reading it right now, and as I'm reading it, I'm thinking it's exactly

what Catherine was saying, but in modern terms. Cardinal Serra's book, The Power of Silence. You've probably heard of it. If you haven't, put it on your must-read list, because this book, I think, is taking this principle that everyone in the great saints and mystics will talk about, but putting it in very concrete and very contemporary terms. So The Power of Silence Against the Dictatorship of Noise, it is one of the best books I've ever read. And I think goes very much with this point in Catherine, that we have to have this interior space where we can even hear the voice of God. And this goes to tie with point three, which point three is the most effective work for change, whether it's personal change or societal change, begins with prayerful discernment.

Discernment is a key word in Catherine's spirituality. For Catherine, one who comes to a depth of self-knowledge in Christ will be given the light of discernment, a virtue closely allied to the traditional virtues of prudence and justice. Catherine well understands that good works in themselves are not what God asks of us. God didn't ask you to fix every problem in yourself, the church, or the world. Jesus Christ didn't fix every problem in the church and in the world. But rather, obedience to God's will. That's actually what he asks of you. It's not that you have to fix everything, but you do have to obey God's will. There are works that don't correspond, in Catherine's thought, and I agree, to our strength of intellect, to our strength of will,

or our strength of body. You know, we might want to do great things, and sometimes the obstacle is just in our own limitation. We can't do it, okay? Or they may not be a particular, they may not go with our particular state in life. You know, sometimes good people want to do every good outside, and they forget the very good that's right in front of them. You know, very often in the church with this temptation to do these great things and forget our family members, our religious communities, the people that are right in front of us that we have to serve. I think it's one of the devil's tactics to kind of discourage us and kind of distract us from what we're actually meant to be doing. So writing to one of her own spiritual daughters, Daniela, Catherine described discernment as a virtue we must have if we want to be saved.

describe discernment as a virtue we must have if we want to be saved, one that necessarily flows from knowing ourselves and God. She later continues, the principal thing discernment does is this. Once we have seen by the discerning light what we owe and to whom, perfect discernment makes us give it right away. So when we've actually taken time to pause and say, what is my real obligation, my real responsibility, my real calling from God, then discernment also gives us the strength to actually pursue this. By the light of discernment, Catherine notes that we will first and foremost glorify God. That will be our number one motivation in everything, to give glory to God. But we'll also come to love ourselves enough to despise vice and love virtue. Good discernment will make us start loving virtue, not just saying, oh, I've got to do the right thing

because it's the right thing, but actually loving virtue. And to treat our neighbors with unfailing charity, seeing them in the light of their creation by a loving father. You know, in Catherine's idea, we don't just love our neighbors just to do a generic, altruistic kind of thing, but we actually see that every person that is around us was loved by God into being. That because everyone around us is a creature of God, I mean, whether we agree with them, whether they're in the same way of thinking, the same background as us, to love all is a real calling. And the people that God puts right in front of you are the ones you're supposed to especially love. She metaphorically speaks of the virtues that flow from discernment as various fruits, explaining that the ways different people enjoy them will

depend on their state in life. She points out that those living in the world will need discernment to obey God's commands and hold worldliness and contempt. She recognizes that it's easier to keep your heart from worldliness if you're in a cloister, which she was not actually. She lived at home with her family and she served in the world. But she says you need this discernment to how to live in the world and serve in the world, but not become worldly in your own values. She observes that rulers will need the fruit of justice to give to each person what is due, but also the fruit of reason in order to know how to reward the just and punish the offenses of the unjust without fear of public opinion, like she had written to the queen earlier. Discernment

will also show those who are under authority how to show proper obedience and respect without compromising their consciences. This is not easy to know how do you obey and yet keep your conscience strong. Look at somebody like St. Thomas More, right? You know, how do you obey and yet live according to conscience? The person who has good discernment will know how to serve others without offending God, and because this virtue gives a proper ordering to our love, she writes, discernment makes us ready to lay down our material positions, our comfort, our well-being, in order to rescue our neighbor physically, while never compromising the spiritual good of either the one who gives or the one who

receives. Catherine concludes her discussion of discernment saying that ultimately it is only by prayer that we'll continue to discern how to act for the true good of God, self, and others because prayer is what keeps alive true love within us and a desire for virtue. So on this point of discernment, I think she's saying we're not only discerning how we're gonna act and respond

in all the different situations that come our way, but I think for us, living in the kind of contemporary situation we're living in, another piece of discernment is how much information I even need to take in about the crises in the church and in the world. I mean, I think right now, if we don't exercise good discernment about what we read, how much we read, how much of our time and attention is given to problems, we could get utterly overwhelmed. I can't keep up with the number of crises that people send me information about every day. And even though I think staying informed is part of being prayerfully attentive to the world I live in and being a teacher of the faith as I am, you're really going to have to exercise good

discernment. And Ignatius of Loyola had awesome principles of discernment. I mean, look at what happens to your soul based on what you read and what you take in. And a good friend of mine who's a priest said to me one time, for every hour of media you take in, especially news media, you need to have a counterbalance hour of Eucharistic adoration to actually do something about it. Now, if you took that principle seriously, you don't have time to be taking in more than, say, 15 minutes of any kind of media

because that's 15 minutes on your knees in front of the bus sacrament. And I think the principle holds. Because if all we do is fill our minds with all this information about crises, but we never do anything about it, what does that do? In Thomistic terms, it stirs up the irascible appetite. It gets you all caught in fear and anger,

which are given to you to strengthen you to act. But if you feel impotent to act, what's happening with all that energy? It's just there, but it's not going towards a concrete good. So discern how much do you need to know to stay informed, to be interceding for the good of the world? How much responsibility do you have over these various crises? There are a lot of things that really are not in your realm except to know about them generically to pray, but not to go into the detail. And some things, the way the detail is reported is an actual harm

to your soul. So I think not only our discernment about action on how to follow up on things, even how much we take in, I think as a principle of discernment that right now we need to be exercising. I mean, I have to pray about it. Lord, should I read this next column, this next email? Is this actually going to help me?

And you'll know. What did Ignatius of Loyola teach? If your soul is in constant turmoil, this is a sign you're not on the right track. When you're taking in information and you're actually interceding, you're acting in ways that are actually trying to make concrete solutions to help,

you'll have peace in your soul. Even though the thing is disturbing, you'll have peace in your soul. But if you're losing your concentration on the God who actually can handle these situations, it's a good sign that you need to kind of cut back on how much you're taking in until your soul is more ready for that.

But I'm going to go into four more points that will help with this too. Yeah, that's prayerful discernment, point three. Point four, real reform of any kind, personal or social, has to be rooted in authentic love and respect, both for leaders and for those whom they serve. You know, we live in a very anti-authoritarian kind of society, and we have to recognize that's the air we breathe.

So if we're going to have real respect for authority and for those who are being served by authority, that's got to underlie any work for real reform. St. Catherine had a remarkable love and respect for leaders in civil society and in the church, not because she saw leaders as spotless examples of moral uprightness. That was not what her respect was based on. People were very corrupt in the civil society of her day, and also in the ecclesial circles in many cases. Rather, she had a profound understanding of the authority and ministry entrusted to them. She wrote frequently, especially to priests, she wrote to civil leaders as well, but in

this part I want to focus on her love for the clergy, in all levels of authority, whether they were parish priests, whether they were bishops, whether they were cardinals, she wrote to popes as well. And she loved to remind them that they are ministers who hold what she called the keys to the blood. This is, again, another very typically Catherineian phrase. She likes to talk about this as, like, every priest, no matter what his own personal moral condition, has the keys to the blood. This man is able to minister to the rest of the church.

The Eucharistic sacrifice is able to minister reconciliation, sacramental reconciliation. So apart from his own goodness, I mean, in the early church, they already had this debate centuries ago. Could the priest still validly celebrate the sacraments if he himself were not living in grace? And the answer is yes. Now, he should try to live in a state of grace. There will be more sacramental fruitfulness, Thomas Aquinas says, when the priest is holy.

But the validity of a sacrament is never dependent on the moral condition of the priest. So she loved to talk about this, the keys of the blood. Catherine did not believe that anyone could become what he or she was meant to be apart from the saving power of the blood of Christ. Everyone, she thought, depends on the salvation one in Christ. Poured out for us on the cross and ministered to us in the Eucharist.

It was the sacramental ministry of the priest, that of consecrating especially the body and blood of Jesus, and therefore offering to the whole world the grace of salvation that informed Catherine's reverence for the priesthood. It was this reverence that made her so zealous in writing to and praying for members of the clergy. She understood that if priests did not become all they're called to be, the whole body of Christ, the whole church, would suffer. In 1379, when the church was deeply divided, Catherine wrote to the people of Siena begging their allegiance to Pope Urban VI, one of the three claimants to the papacy at that time, and the one she believed was validly elected. In her letter, her reverence for the priesthood and especially for the papacy is seen.

It is evident that it is not dependent on the one who holds the office, but rather on the grace of God who acts through the office. Catherine writes to the people of the city of Siena, our respect is not paid to him, Pope Urban VI, for his own sake, but to Christ's blood, and to the authority and dignity God has given him for our sake. That authority and dignity are not lessened by any deficiency in him. We therefore must not lessen our respect or obedience. We should be grateful and appreciative and should do what we can for the good of the Holy Church and for the love of the keys God has given to the Pope. This does not mean that Catherine was in any way less insistent that those who held authority

should live up to the honor of their position. So that she says our respect doesn't depend on whether they are living moral integrity does not mean she didn't think they should live moral integrity. She very much caught people. She wrote to Pope Urban personally, urging him to live by the graces he had received in his office. She writes, these are her direct words, take courage, be absolutely brave with a holy fear of God, be thoroughly exemplary in your works and ways and all of your actions. Let them shine before God and before all humankind as a lamp set on the lampstand of holy church. She continues, scandal is getting worse by the day. Recall the devastation that came upon all of Italy because nothing was done about the evil rulers who were governing in such a way that

they caused the sacking of God's church. I know that you know this. Now let your holiness see what needs to be done about it. Catherine gives a model of not only calling those under authority, those of us who are under authority, to an obedience that is rooted in our faith, us who are under authority, to an obedience that is rooted in our faith, but also speaking directly to those in authority. She never stooped to endless gossip about problems or to mere staring up the emotions of fear and anger, but she had the courage to speak the truth with love. And I really believe that saints like Catherine, there others like her Francis of Assisi whose feast day we celebrate today they had a moral authority because they were first trying to live everything they were they were asking others to live they never saw themselves as perfect

but they were really I mean if we're going to be a voice for reform in the church we have to take seriously our own call to holiness and we have to be courageous enough to say to others what we see and what we hear, but with great respect, which is the next point. Point five, when others fail in ways that are very visible to us, we can only correct if we have both humility and courage. If you have just courage, if you just have bravado and you just go forward, may or may not accomplish much good. But if you have humility with courage, you actually will have a great capacity

to make a difference. And I think Catherine's real capacity to influence was this wonderful combination. Catherine of Siena is perhaps most famous for her interventions with Pope Gregory XI, which contributed to his decision to return to Rome from Avignon. During the Avignon papacy, she was very influential.

Others were too, but in trying to encourage the pope to return to Rome. It is the profound blend of humility and courage that is most striking in the letters Catherine wrote to the pope. In a letter from January 1376, Catherine writes, If we know ourselves, this is a letter to the Pope, okay, if we know ourselves, we are humble, for we see nothing to be proud about, and aware of our own nothingness, we attribute whatever being we have to the one who is God. So it seems we have no choice but to love what God loves and to hate what God hates. After a discussion of how selfishness

is the root of all the poisonous fruit in the church and in the world, she courageously calls the Pope to move beyond fear and a desire to preserve a false peace. This preservation of false peace she targets often in her writing. In order to correct the abuses in the church, piece she targets often in her writing. In order to correct the abuses in the church, she states to the Pope, those who are in authority, I say, do evil when holy justice dies in them because of their selfish self-centeredness and their fear of incurring the displeasure of others. You hear the same thing I read earlier in her letter to the Queen, to Queen Giovanna. She says the same thing to everyone. She says it to regular priests. She says it to everyone. If you're so afraid of what other people think of you, that you won't do real justice, there will be evil and people will suffer.

She posits that the church is suffering because of the appointment of leaders who serve themselves rather than the people. And with boldness and courage, she exhorts the Pope, don't be afraid. This is her exact words. She was very strong and encouraging the Pope because she could see that he was faltering because all his human fears were getting in the way of doing what he knew he needed to do for the sake of the church. After further exhorting him to have the courage to return to Rome, although he will face many enemies, she's very open about it. You are going to have a lot of enemies if you come back to Rome. Okay. She knew it. Catherine's final paragraph ends on a note of humble charity, which I think is real and not just a put on, where she cites a passage of Matthew's gospel.

She writes to the Pope, forgive me, father, for talking to you like this, but out of the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaks, you know. know i mean why was she heard she was heard because she loved she had this great capacity to love the church and to love the people in the church even when they weren't living well and this made a difference as is catherine's constant custom she closes asking for his blessing and asking for forgiveness if she's been too presumptuous in her boldness and explicitly calling on the name of Jesus, who is the only one who can reform the church. Sixth point, great leaders do not ask others what they themselves are willing to undertake. If you want to really lead, you can only call other people to the virtue you

are willing to live yourself. So the example of love in action is absolutely key. I don't think Catherine would have made a bit of difference in the church or in the world if she wasn't living a really concrete charity in the day-to-day life that she lived. She had moral authority because of the way she lived. Look at somebody like Mother Teresa in the contemporary world. Why could that woman give the prayer breakfast speech to the United States Congress and people actually listened when she talked about the dignity of every human life? Because of the way she lived.

I mean, she had moral authority. And Catherine of Siena was the same. Words are not enough. Even though the Dominican priest, Raymond of Capa, whose feast day is tomorrow, was the spiritual director of Catherine, she was not slow to give him advice. She was not slow to give anyone advice. She frequently urged him to be more courageous in his preaching, unafraid even to the point of martyrdom. She used to say, what's the worst people can do to you? Kill you. And if they kill you because you preach the gospel, you're a martyr. You'll go straight to heaven. Catherine was, she was just, she was just tough. She didn't let Raymond off the hook on anything. Perhaps because he was so immersed in study and

preaching, as most Dominicans are, she often exhorted him to be sure that his knowledge of truth was put into action in works of charity to others. In a beautiful passage, in a letter she wrote to Raymond, she called him to remain faithful to prayer as a means of growing in love, saying, in prayer, we attract the mercy of the Holy Spirit who guides our souls to a well-ordered love. Such love draws into itself heaven and earth, and in our love, we should be faithful for God's honor and seeking the salvation of souls and as much as we can, helping our neighbors physically in their need. That Catherine didn't just give advice but actually lived it is evident everywhere in the accounts of those who testify to

her dynamic love in action. In Raymond of Capua's biography of Catherine, he records countless examples of her generous serving with the poor, all that she could. She was a lot like Frances of Assisi. Her father was a cloth dyer, a merchant, and she would give away all these things from her father's workshop to all the poor, very similar to Frances. Actually she and Frances are the co-patrons of Italy, and I think they actually had a very similar spirit, Catherine and Francis.

But she was constantly giving things away. And at first her father corrected her, but he finally realized he couldn't stop her. That this was just the way that Catherine was. But she also loved to care personally for the sick. She nursed many people who were very ill. And she especially sought out those whose diseases were the most repulsive,

that no one else wanted to care for. Because one of the things Catherine wrote that was in her book, The Dialogue, which is actually a revelation directly from the father to Catherine, is the following that the father said to her, your neighbors are the channels through which all your virtues are tested and come to birth. I tell you, moreover, when you return good for evil, you not only prove your own virtue, but often send out coals ablaze with charity that will melt hatred and bitterness from the heart and mind of the wrathful, even turning their hatred to benevolence. I think one of the best examples of Catherine living this principle was that for years she took personal care of a woman who had horrible cancerous tumors that were running constantly

they were so horrific that no one else wanted to come near her and Catherine nursed this woman personally the woman for some reason was very aggravated against Catherine and she started spreading horrible rumors about Catherine. Actually, she spread rumors that Catherine was sexually promiscuous. I mean, Catherine, she was a Dominican, but she was a Dominican third order layperson. So she lived in the family's home, and she went out and did good works. And because she was such a dynamo, she was always engaging in the public. I mean, she was around men and women of all different walks of life all the time. So her way of life

was very open to suspicion. In fact, to become a lay Dominican was hard for her. Because at the stage when she did this, only elderly women usually did it. Because it would be a scandal if something happened. This woman going into the homes of all these people. So she was kind of a prey, kind of open to suspicion. And this woman that she took care of spread horrible rumors about her and said that she was living just an unethical life. And in the midst of all that, Catherine kept taking care of her when no one else would. And Catherine treated her like she was one of her closest friends. And this woman had a profound conversion before her death.

And it was through Catherine's constant love and her constant ability to give, even when this woman was completely against her. You know, this call to love your enemies, I mean, it's something that separates Christianity from almost every other system of ethics. Because, you know, this is where I think the integrity of Catherine is so evident that it gave power to the influence she exercised by her words. And if we're going to make a difference in

our church and our world, this kind of integrity is key. So finally, we come to the seventh point, which is really kind of three in one, which is with the grace of God, we have to persevere in patience, trusting in divine providence and totally trusting the power of the blood of Christ crucified. This patience is something that Catherine wrote about a lot, both in the dialogue and in her letters. I don't know if you ever spent some time in Italy.

I lived for five years in Italy and living in Catherine's hometown, I mean, I went and visited her hometown, but living in her home country, I recognized that Italians have a certain kind of patience that's very different than Americans. And as an American, I found myself constantly challenged by the way life is in Italy. There are other cultures, apart from our own, that are quite patient by nature. Now, you might not think that if you watch the kind of street brawls that ensue after any kind of traffic incident. But there's this kind of principle of act on the anger immediately and it dissipates and you go for cappuccino five minutes later.

So it just works. But this idea of patience, I think we have to really revisit this. Because I think part of the American strength is that we're kind of dynamic and we like to act. But go back to what I said about prayerful discernment. If we're going to know how to act well, we need to kind of be a little bit patient. And we want problems in our country, problems in our church to be solved now. And one of the things that I learned working in a diocese once in the Chancellery of a diocese for a short time was that when you're in a position of leadership the things that come across your desk are not what the whole

public is going to know. I couldn't believe working in just a regular diocese that at that moment wasn't in a terrible crisis the number of complaints and difficulties that came across our desk every single day from very small to very big. And trying to prayerfully discern how to respond, when to respond, what needed action, what needed you to wait was no small thing. And I think we have to remember this when we're looking at the crises in our personal lives, in our families, in our workplaces, in our country, in our church, that solutions that are drawn up too quickly are often not the best solutions. So in a letter to her own brother, which is one of my favorite of her letters because it's to

her brother, so it's got a very familiar warmth to it. Catherine reminded him repeatedly that he must have patience in his interior and exterior battles. In very tender words, she writes, consider how short your life is that you cannot be sure of tomorrow. We can truly say that we aren't bearing the sufferings of the past or those of the future, but only the moment we're living right now. And since time is so short, we surely ought to suffer patiently. She goes on to quote St. Paul, who says that there is no comparison

between the sufferings of the present and the glory that will be revealed in heaven. She also points out that if we suffer in anger to the point where we let ourselves become impatient, we lose the graces that come to us through patient suffering. This is a theme that she will take up in a later letter when she writes to a grieving widow, quote, if we're not patient, we have lost our freedom and are not in the possession of the city of our own soul because we let ourselves be dominated by anger. Not so with those who are patient. They are in possession of themselves.

For Catherine, this liberty, this freedom is a great gift of God and one that has to be preserved in order for us to act in freedom and therefore be capable of love. in order for us to act in freedom and therefore be capable of love. I think this is really key. I mean, we should feel anger when things are done that are wrong. We should. I mean, it's a healthy emotional response to be angry when you see injustice. God gave us the gift of our emotions in order to help us to respond to the goods and the evils around us.

We're supposed to be drawn. We're supposed to be drawn to what is good and true and beautiful. We're supposed to have aversion to what is harmful and evil. And we're supposed to have anger when there is injustice because that anger is supposed to move us to act. But if we're impatient and we let ourselves be dominated by anger, then we lose that liberty, that freedom, Catherine says, to actually be able to really clearly determine what should be done. She's not saying that we just back off and let everything bad just happen. But she's saying, you know, we have to step back, go back to the point on prayerful discernment. Look at what's going on. What is my role in this? What is my contribution?

What is God asking of me? How can I address the problems in the church and the world and the family? Well, go back to point one by starting with my own kind of battle against selfishness. So where do we get the strength from this for to have this kind of patience? According to Catherine, from seeing all things in the light of faith. Catherine insists repeatedly on putting our faith and our hope in God and not in the constantly changing events of our world. To a noble man in Florence who had civic position of responsibility, Catherine wrote the following, Open your mind's eye in the light of most holy faith, that you may recognize how inconstant and unstable the world is,

and how great is God's goodness, constant and stable and unchanging. If one puts total hope and trust in God and does everything possible to help one's family and one's neighbors, then she continues, we do what we can and we leave the rest to divine goodness in whom we have set our hope. Very realistic, Catherine. Do what you can. You cannot do all the goods of the world. You cannot fight every evil. But what's right in front of you? How is living your faith in your family, in your workplace, in your studies? How is living that well your part of the battle right here, right now? She says, for by the light of faith, we've come to know God's goodness and providence.

The last thing we want to do is get so stuck in all the problems that we lose sight of how God is actually at work in our world, how God really is. I teach biblical history. I mean, if you look at salvation history, it's a mess, okay? If you think we got problems, there's nothing new under the sun, okay? There are worse things, okay? Read King David if you want to look at corrupt problems, and he's the man after the Lord's own heart. Why? Because God's mercy is greater. God's mercy is greater than all the evils in the world. And if we lose sight that God is at work, if we lose sight of the goodness of God, we really will not be able to address the problems in the world. We have to keep faith. We have to keep hope in order to know how to live in this world. So we, in conclusion, if we're called to be like St. Catherine, we may very well never see a stable political or religious reform. She did not live to see any kind of peace

in the warring factions in her society. She did not live to see the church become reformed. She actually saw one problem lead to another. One of the events Catherine's most famous for is being instrumental in ending the Avignon papacy through encouragement to Pope Gregory XI to return to Rome, and within a few short years, Catherine would see the papacy even further harmed by what history has called the Great Western Schism, in which three different men claimed to be the pope. Yet she never stopped praying. She never stopped offering her tears and her penance for the good of the church. In fact, she discerned in prayer that she should offer her very life for the church. Her death at 33 years of age, the same age as Jesus

Christ at his death, may very well have been the answer to her prayer to give of herself completely for the reform of the church. For most of us, fidelity will not cost us our very lives, but we will have to battle long and hard and pray fervently to continue hoping when it's easy to despair. We must continue to beg for the grace of faith to keep believing in God and hope to keep trusting in his promises even when it seems that evil is getting the upper hand. hope to keep trusting in his promises even when it seems that evil is getting the upper hand. And as a review of the seven principles, if we're willing to battle selfishness, to enter into the cell of self-knowledge in Christ, to exercise prayerful discernment,

we will learn respectful justice and know when and how to correct with humility and courage. Not only speaking but acting in love and truth, we will open ourselves to the grace to persevere in seeking the good with patience, trusting that God is providing and guiding even when the darkness seems overwhelming. Almost every one of the hundreds of Catherine's letters ends with the same closing, a call to look to our one and only true hope in every crisis. And I quote Catherine, keep living in God's holy and tender love, gentle Jesus, Jesus love. Thank you. I believe we have time for Q&A,

so hopefully something stirred in you by this talk, and I can take some of your questions. I'm a little bit slow and I'm distracted. I don't think you'd like to numerate the seven, because I missed after four and five, and I think you said there were seven. Okay. I can re-enumerate the seven. Okay.

The first was to battle against selfish self-love. The second, to enter into the cell of self-knowledge in Christ. The third, to be, when there are failures, we seek to correct with humility and courage together. The fourth, the real reform has to be rooted in authentic love and respect for those who are in leadership and those they serve. Sorry, my own papers got mixed up. The fifth, when one fails, that we correct, oh, excuse me, that was the fifth, sorry. I got my own papers in the back.

The fifth was correcting in humility and courage. The third was prayerful discernment. The fourth was authentic love and respect. The sixth is love in action is key. Don't ask of others what you aren't willing to do yourself. And the seventh is to persevere in patience while trusting divine providence. Yes?

Is it possible that sex abuse victims have stayed quiet because they were encouraged to stay humble and to forgive? Okay, so the question, is it possible that part of the covering up of the sex abuse scandal was a kind of misinterpretation, I would say, of humility and the call to forgive. I do think we can understand what Christian virtue looks like.

Humility is a very misunderstood virtue. Because humility, I think sometimes people think is, oh, I just put myself down and I kind of hide myself and don't do anything good. Humility is actually truthfulness about who we are before God and others. So actually, because humility involves truthfulness, humility in its true and most intense form would actually involve truthful handling of a situation, including report of an abuse.

But forgiveness, now forgiveness is an interesting dimension to why would there be cover-up of abuse? I do think forgiveness can be misunderstood on many levels. The first and most foremost one I find is that people misunderstand that forgiveness, they think it's an emotion.

So they think if I feel bad about this thing that happened that somehow I'm not really Christian because I haven't forgiven. And one thing I have to say about that is forgiveness is at the level of the will, okay? It's a choice. So you're never gonna feel good about someone who's treated you badly. I mean you shouldn't actually feel good about somebody who's treated you badly. But but or about that situation. You don't want evil. But to will to forgive is to will that there be truth and grace and healing. So I do think that there's been a misunderstanding that forgiveness means just writing off things that are problematic. In the contemporary world, we tend to have an avoidance tactic for evil,

you know, as long as we all just keep quiet and keep going, everything's fine, you know. But in any kind of an evil situation, it's not against forgiveness to see that justice is done. So can I forgive a person but still pursue what is the just consequence of their action? Yes. Yes. I mean, I think sometimes we forget that mercy builds on justice. Justice is the foundation for mercy. Say, for example, you're in a fight with a friend, and there's been a conversation where harsh words were exchanged, and they really were harmful words. And the friend comes to you later and says, oh, I'm sorry for what I said, and you say, oh, it's nothing. That's not true, and it doesn't allow for real forgiveness. Actually, what you need to say is, thank you for apologizing. I really was

hurt by what you said. And you acknowledge the reality of the problem and on that foundation of the just reality is where you can determine what's the right restoration of this relationship. Now, there are lots of different forms of abuse and lots of different levels of consequence that under the law of our country, that under international law, are seen as appropriate. A person may have reasons why prayerful discernment is so important, why a particularly abusive situation they were in may or may not be brought into the public light. I can't make a blanket statement about how you should handle every injustice. But I do think the misunderstanding of forgiveness can be part of why there was cover. I actually think, I've talked to people who were in leadership positions at various stages regarding sex abuse, whether in the church or outside of the church, who said to me that there

really was a time when people were told that if you received a kind of report of somebody that was credible, and you sent that person to a treatment program where they received certain kinds of psychological treatment, and then were told that this problem has been addressed, this person is fine, they really did believe that the person was safe in situations of further leadership. That advice has shown very unproven over time. So the great challenge of case-by-case discerning what is truth, how that truth should be best addressed is not easy, but I do think we can forgive and pursue justice as one in the same movement of true charity

I read a word today that I had never seen before and I read the article it had to do with what it said was a sin that has been sort of lost, acedia. It seems to me as though that explains why a lot of people have kept their mouth shut. Acedia, it is kind of something that's kind of gone by the wayside, mainly because it's been translated in English as sloth, and people think it's just laziness. And I'm like, well, laziness is a problem. But it's actually more than that. It's resistance to the effort

that the spiritual life demands. I mean, if you're going to live what I just said as these seven points, it's going to demand some effort. And where people are assessing that one of the aspects of spiritual crisis in any institution, in any individual, can be acedia, is kind of coming back into vogue.

There's a wonderful book, Lukewarmness, The Devil in Disguise, or The Noonday Devil. And it's all about acedia. And in the intellectual tradition of the church, there used to be a strong emphasis on this. And what is this really about is that if we become just complacent and comfortable, if, if the church becomes, you know, a gentleman's club, you know, if, if the, if living our faith just becomes a, you know, I, I punch the clock on Sundays and get my one hour mass in, but I don't really pray. And it doesn't really impact the way

I live my day-to-day life. For any of us, if we don't take the real effort it takes, now I'm not saying we earn our salvation, we're not trying to get into neo-Pelagianism either, okay, but that to live the moral life is not just a little comfort, a little comfortable thing, you know. Anybody in any realm of the church's membership and authority should know that if we're going to live our baptismal grace, this is an ongoing way of living that requires spiritual effort. I mean, just to pray. Why I recommended the book of the power of silence is you and I are not going to just become holy by accident in this world. We're not, I don't know that you ever could, but you certainly can't today. And just the effort to really pray, to really hear the voice of God, you're going to have to carve out intentionally silence and solitude. I mean, look at our world. Like the second,

I mean, when I walked down, when I was in the airport today, flying to come here, you know, I'm not trying to judge anybody, but I look around myself and go, what are we all doing? We're all on our phones, we're all on our laptops, we're all kind of constantly on, we're wired for sound, right? But do we ever just be in the presence of whatever

experience we're having? Do we cultivate an attentiveness to the people around us, to the God who loves us? And if the church is going to be everything Catherine was hoping it would be, everything Christ created it to be, everything we're called to be, no matter what position we have in the church, we're going to have to exercise some moral effort. And there is a force at work against us that says, don't make the effort. You know, just kind of go with the flow.

The comfortable Christianity, which isn't real Christianity at all. Because really, I mean, I've had to awaken to this in my own spirituality too, that Christ never gave false advertising in being his disciple. He didn't say, if you want to follow me, take up your pillow, okay? He said, take up your cross. Take up your cross. And we live in a world of great physical and material comforts, you know? Um, but we all have to face challenges. If we're going to fight this battle that Catherine's talking about against our own selfishness and self-centeredness, we're going to have to fight. Now God is fighting for

us. Grace is fighting in us. But we have to put forth an effort. And I think if the church becomes too comfortable, it does lead to all kinds of abuses, all kinds. I mean, even on the material level, if we're so comfortable that we're not recognizing even like, where is there real poverty? How can we help people? If our time is so precious for our own relaxation that we don't actually give to others? How are we going to respond when real crises come, when big problems come? So I think a CD is something we need to be talking about because it's not just laziness. It's that kind of gravitational pull away from the things of God.

You know it. You know it. of gravitational pull away from the things of God. You know it. You know it. Every time you're about to do something that's really for God, you're going to spend some real time in silence or meditation, Lectio Divina. You're going to go to Eucharistic Adoration. You're going to go

to a Mass that's not required. You know what happens. The second you think of doing it, 15 other things come to your mind. I'd rather do this. I'd rather do that. It would be more enjoyable to do that. Whatever. I think we have to do that, whatever. I think we have to kind of, not that every minute is on our knees. Catherine wasn't every moment on her knees, okay?

But that point she made about having the cell of self-knowledge within, if you're going to actually know yourself in God and therefore hear what is God's will for you, how are you going to help build a better world, a better church? You're going to have to hear God and you're not going to hear him unless you really work to find a space of silence and solitude, because it's not even just shutting out all the noise, you know, turning off the iPod and not listening. It's actually giving yourself enough space that you're really attentive to God who is within you. And I think that this is not only necessary for our prayer life, but it will spill over into how we interact with each other.

I really believe that one of the biggest human crises is that we've lost real human contact, real interpersonal communication. You know, if we aren't communing with God, we're probably not learning how to commune with each other. And we're so busy and so kind of connected technologically, but very little connected, very little attentive in the day to day. And, you know, some of the things that are leading to, some of the distortions of the human heart that are leading to all kinds of bizarre behaviors in people. You don't have to look in the church, look anywhere. Why is sexuality so out of control? It's a beautiful gift, a beautiful gift of God.

That man and woman are called to come together, to express their love in marriage and to welcome a family. This is one of our greatest gifts as human beings. So of course it's going to be attacked by evil, of course. But when you look at all this distortion of human relationship, all these false ways and how empty and how unfulfilling they are for people, and then you look at all these abusive uses of power and sex. What's going on? That we've lost what real communion is. But I think we can only rediscover it in relation to the communion we have with God and then our real communion with each other. Because if we really

are present to the people around us and actually your capacity to be present to the people around us, and actually your capacity to be present to the people around you will be deepened by your capacity to be present in the presence of God. The moments you invest in prayer are actually an investment in your human relationships as well. Because cultivating attentiveness is something that we really need in the modern world. It's really lacking. And if you cultivate attentiveness, it will deepen your prayer, but it will also deepen your relationships with other people. And when you have real friendships, you don't actually need all

these aberrant forms of relationship. I mean, it's a real sign of like something phenomenally wrong that, for example, pornography is really widespread. What in the world? Human intimacy is now a screen and by yourself for the sake of a momentary pleasure that's very demeaning and it harms the soul deeply. And a lot of the abuses we're seeing are linked to these other problems.

The abusive use of alcohol. Why are people drinking so much that they're selling away their freedom and their capacity to have really deep human relationships well there's a kind of bankruptcy of the soul right now and I think we're only going to discover real riches when we enter into real communion with God and real communion with each other

but we're going to have to fight we're going to have to not. We're going to have to like not let ourselves be drawn to so many, so many situations that we're not able to be present to each person, each situation, to our God. I really believe that the answer to all levels of crisis lies in real communion. Because that's what we were made for. You know, when theology tells us we were made in the image of God, it's not just some little passing statement. You were made to image God. You are made that the only thing

that can really satisfy your human heart is interpersonal communion. So to the extent that we're really connecting, think about your studies and your work. Discern what God is asking you to do, and there's going to be an actual contribution to the human community through that don't let popular opinion

don't let society's view of you or even other people who like you's view of you listen to what the gifts God has given you and I think if we actually started to live and cultivate and live this attentiveness

to God and to others it is part of the answer to the crisis. When you're present to other people, they can trust you if they're in a difficult situation to come and talk to you. You'll notice. But also if people are more fulfilled in their real communion with one another, they don't seek it in all these wrong ways. another they don't seek it in all these wrong ways you know I mean what are I mean under every one of even the worst scandals is a really broken human being you know in the 12-step programs they say hurt people hurt people and it's true hurt people hurt people even the worst criminals even the worst abusers are human beings made in God's image,

redeemed by Jesus Christ. And there's something foundationally wrong there. And so I don't think mercy means we just ignore the problem. But I think we're going to have to, as a church, as a society, be very strong in legal structures and systems that do protect people. I think the church is learning from its own mistakes. That there are ways, in fact, that we have to, I mean, you wouldn't believe what training I have to go through to be a teacher of young people. What background checks I have to

go through to every diocese I visit. I mean, I go through strict scrutiny of my background, of my life, of my ongoing training in order to be able to work with young people because the church has learned from its mistakes. It's a great privilege that I teach young people. It's a great privilege that I get to do youth work. And every time I have to do another background check, I'm actually happy because I want the church to look carefully at me. I want them to say, are you someone who can be trusted with our young people

who are the great treasurer of our church? So, yeah. Any other questions? Yes. I really like what you're saying. Relative to the period in which she was active, as a female in the third order lay, none, does that put her status relative to the non-hierarchy rather low? Not in a demeaning sense, just sort of level sense. But at the same time she seems totally bold in how she approaches the male hierarchy.

I mean, no female popes, maybe there can be someday, but there never, I don't know. There may have been wives of popes at one point, but there's certainly no female popes. So, she's, is she, was she running a risk of being too vociferous and, you know, overly bold in this kind of context at the risk of being a 14th century feminist? The question concerning Catherine and her role in the society as a woman and even within the church, it was really unusual that Catherine was in this third order laity. I think had there existed the kind of life that I live, which is an active religious life that's rooted in the contemplative monastic framework,

it's kind of what Catherine was living. It's just this didn't exist at the time. She bore the Dominican habit, so she had a certain connection to the authority of the Dominican order in that sense. the Dominican habit, so she had a certain connection to the authority of the Dominican order in that sense. I mean, it's because she had a visible, tangible connection to the order. That did give her a kind of voice that's a little different, but it's definitely true that the average woman of the 14th century was certainly not an advisor to princes and popes. Actually, in no time in history was a laywoman typically in this kind of an advisory role normally. But that's why I kind of at one point spoke about moral authority,

like why was this woman who was in a sense, you know, not in any way, I mean not even in the, if she had been in a monastery, she wouldn't have been as visibly engaged in the month and if she had she been in a monastery she wouldn't have been as visibly engaged in the public okay um so her discernment that her call was actually in the society was a particular discernment of Catherine's um but before she before she actually went out and did the very dynamic um years of work she was doing and the correspondence she actually spent three years in complete seclusion in her own family's home. And for those three years, Catherine just prayed. And at first, her family was totally against this. They were like, what is she doing?

Is she just trying to get out of helping in the household? She was one of 25 children, okay? So Catherine had plenty to do in her home. But she really felt that God was asking her to just step aside and listen. So for three years, she dedicated herself to constant prayer. And it was her dad who actually stepped in with the rest of the family and said, I think this is authentic. Like Catherine had some very extraordinary graces, even from childhood. And her dad kind of stood up for her with her family and said, I think she's for real. I don't think she's just trying to get out of things. Catherine needs to spend this time in seclusion. She needs to be given a room of her own, which was

hard in their home with that many kids. And she needs to be given the space and time to pray. So for three years, she just immersed herself in prayer. And after that time, she discerned that God was actually asking her to go out. And I don't think she just wrote to people or talked to people because she just was like, I am woman, hear me roar. I mean, I think she actually was given by the Holy Spirit insight. I mean, she would go stand outside the palaces of these civil leaders, and she would yell out from down below. If they wouldn't come out, she'd, like, start saying their consciences. Like, she'd say this in their hearts, and they'd be like, oh, my gosh, shut her up.

So they'd go out to, like, listen to her. So this is not something you can do apart from the holy spirit okay and Catherine actually had prophetic gifts okay so but what I think is kind of amazing about this is what I said about moral authority she for all for all intents and purposes shouldn't have really had much authority but even during her very short little lifetime and in the couple of years where she was actively serving people started to form like a circle around her because I mean this is before you could you know social media broadcast your ideas Catherine just people started being drawn to her they started to realize that she

actually really was the real deal we might might say, prayer-wise and spirituality-wise. Her own mother became one of her disciples. And she had men and women, young people and old people, who followed her. And I think because in every age, there's a hunger for integrity and authenticity. And I think because Catherine was so authentic, because she was so really one with Christ, because Catherine was so authentic, because she was so really one with Christ, that she was able to say these truths and be listened to, because she spoke the truth. Now, the good news is we're living in a moment in history where I believe one of the good positive effects of the scandals we've seen in our church and the questioning of authority is to awaken us to the fact of something the church has been teaching for a very long time and really emphasized at the Second Vatican Council, which is the role of the

laity in the church. That by your baptism, you have the call to be priest, prophet, and king. And your kingly vocation as a baptized member of the lay faithful is real. It's an exercise in leadership to build the civilization of love, the culture of life that our popes ever since the Second Vatican Council have been saying, please, let's work together to build this. And clericalism isn't just a problem

coming from the top down. Sometimes we have a kind of acedia that we hand over all the moral authority in the church and expect the clergy to just run everything and do everything. And we aren't kind of exercising the priesthood of our own baptism. And I think Catherine was a woman in whom baptismal grace was alive and well. She was exercising her priestly, prophetic, and kingly roles as a woman who is baptized, consecrated to Christ, living in the church.

And I think we need to wake up. I think Catherine's a great wake-up call. And say, not I have to do everything. Catherine did not see herself as doing everything in the church. And I think we need to wake up. I think Catherine's a great wake-up call and say, not I have to do everything. Catherine did not see herself as doing everything in the church. She loved the people right in front of her, nursed the sick who were right there in her own town, took care of needs in her own family. And because she was living in Italy and the context she was seeing was the city-states of her day and the papacy, that's where she saw that God was calling her. If she hadn't discerned this from God, she would have had no effect. I don't think she just was able to go do this just because she decided, I'm going to change the church and the world.

That prayerful discernment piece is absolutely key, that we have to know who we are, know how God is calling us. When we recognize how God is calling us, live the courage and the humility, they go together to actually do whatever the Lord is asking of us. And I think that's what Catherine did. I think at each step she did what the Lord was asking of her. I don't think she worried about how does this look as a woman? How does it look as a lay person? How does she just did what the Lord sent her to do. And I think for each of us, that's the grace we need to trust in and walk in as well. It looks like we might be out of time. Please join me in thanking Sister Madeline.

All right, thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of Pints with Aquinas. Next week, we're going to be discussing with a Dominican friar about what Thomas Aquinas had to say about chastity and about how our desires, our lower desires, can lead us to sanctity. Then in the following week, we're going to be talking about how Thomas Aquinas was educated and what we can learn about that. So be sure, if you haven't already, to subscribe to Pints with Aquinas. And if you haven't listened to the last episode that I just did on the Matt Fradd Show, it's here on the Pints with Aquinas. And if you haven't listened to the last episode that I just did on the Matt Fradd Show, it's here on the Pints with Aquinas feed.

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