You have to make God number one in your life.
The above statement is so simple to say and yet so difficult to
live. In The Dialogue, St Catherine of Siena OP gives us the clue in how to
make God number one in our lives. Throughout the whole book it gives us
examples on how to live out the Spiritual Life, which is, the Real Life (Emphasis mine).
It is precisely this point that is not so clear (even ignored) in
the modern world today. With the advancement in technology (art) we tend to
think that we are in control of nature. More so, not only do we think we are in
control of nature but at the same time movements are passing by today telling
us to even worship nature[1].
Sadly, as the history of mankind has testified, this is not the reality at all[2].
Indeed it is because of our nature do we search (and continue to search since
we are rational animals) for answers to life questions. And yet, the answer is
given to us as stated in The Dialogue “Man is placed above all creatures, and
not beneath them, and he cannot be satisfied or content except in something
greater than himself. Greater than himself there is nothing by Myself, the
Eternal God. Therefore I alone can satisfy him, and, because he is deprived of
this satisfaction by his guilt, he remains in continual torment and pain.
Weeping follows pain, and when he begins to weep, the wind strikes the tree of
self-love, which he has made the principle of all his being”[3]
In his address on October 4th, 1970 Pope Paul VI in
declaring St Catherine as a Doctor of the Church[4]
said that the ‘masterpiece of her work’ was her success in inducing Pope
Gregory XI to go back to Rome[5].
This followed a previous remark that he (Pope Paul VI) elaborated on St
Catherine’s feast day on the 30th April 1964 in which he described
her as “the humble, learned, undaunted Dominican virgin who loved the Pope and
the Church with a loftiness and strength of spirit that no other is known to
have equaled…Catherine is the Saint whose dominant characteristic lies in her
love for the Church, and for the papacy in particular”[6]
and this is precisely shown in The Dialogue.
St Catherine was born on the 25th March 1347. As the 23rd
(or 24th) child of 25 she was the joy (and baby) of the Benincasa
family since her twin sister Giovanna had died at birth. Whilst growing up St
Catherine had a great admiration for the Dominicans and it is claimed that she
had a childish wish to disguise herself as a man so as it enter a community of
friars.[7] God intended and wanted her however as a Dominican Tertiary.
The Dialogue was actually dictated by St Catherine to her
secretaries when she was in a state of ecstasy sometime begun in October 1377
and finished by November 1378. Thus it is the dialogue that God The Father is having
with St Catherine (her soul).
It is broken into four treatises; A Treatise of Divine Providence, A
Treatise of Discretion, A Treatise of Prayer and A Treatise of Obedience. Each
of these Treatises focuses on a particular aspect of the Catholic Faith that St
Catherine treasured in her own heart.
The Treatise of Divine Providence highlights, as the name signifies,
that you have to make God number one in your life. It is the journey that the
soul has in the beginning, realizing that it is God that provides. Indeed, as
Fr Garrigou Lagrange says, “providence is the conception in the Divine
Intellect of the order of all things to their end. Divine Governance is the
execution of that order.”[8]
This parallels to the scriptural dictum “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and
His Justice, and all these things shall be added unto you.”[9]
This first Treatise then is really a summary as it were of this Gospel passage.
It is further elucidated with how the Gifts of the Holy Spirit Works. After
all, it is God the Father that St Catherine is speaking to. Thus when the Gifts
of the Holy Spirit act in us, it makes us do Divine Acts in a Divine Manner,
but for this to occur in the soul you need to cleanse the soul from all evils.
Thus this first treatise is looking at the social aspect of the soul, that the
hatred of one’s neighbor is really an injury to oneself and you have to let in
God and let Him do the rest. God The Father shows St Catherine how sin truly offends
Him and how it is because of sin that stops people from reaching to their
ultimate end.
It is of grave importance to
realize that when we pray we have to pray with our whole selves. We cannot hold
back at all (and yet we do). How many of us when we pray keep our mind on the
job as such? Prayer is communicating with God. Just like how we communicate
with each other is it not rude if we communicate with God but not listen? It is
this warning that God the Father tells St Catherine since there are many
lukewarm souls that are missing out on even greater gifts that the Father is
willing to share.
The Treatise of Discretion follows from the Treatise of Divine Providence inasmuch as the theme of trust comes into play. Trusting in God. This indeed is a very difficult thing to really do in the practical life and since the Spiritual life is the real life, the true life, the life of the Soul it means that the focus is on the Indwelling of the Blessed Trinity and how He wants to make that soul his own. This parallels to a book this writer read many years ago titled ‘The Mystical Evolution in the Development and Vitality of the Church” by Fr. John Arintero, another Dominican. Fr Arintero OP outlines that when our soul is in the state of Grace, what the Father sees in that created soul (us men) is His only Divine Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and that is Who He truly loves[10]. This concept is quite phenomenal and yet this is precisely what St Catherine is telling us. Abandon ourselves and put on Christ!
The third Treatise, that of Prayer in many respects tells us on how
to truly pray to God, Our Father. After all He is our Daddy, our Abba and the
journey of the soul is now looking to arrive as it were at a pure and generous
love. It is one thing to know that God loves you, but then it is quite another
in how to love Him in return. There is a special section especially for Priests
and the Sacraments. This is where you truly see St Catherine’s love for the
Pope and for the Church and her Priests. This section in particular shines out
like a beacon in a night-filled sky. St Catherine also finds the answer the
Donatist objection, which states that the dependence on the sacrament (or
rather the validity of the sacraments) depends on the personal sanctity of the
Priest (thus if he is in a state of mortal sin, the sacrament is not valid).[11]
The Fourth and final Treatise is that on Obedience. This treatise is
more for men and women of religious orders who take the vow of Obedience and
how God truly loves these people more since they are taking a vow that makes
them in complete and utter control by God. They must decrease so that God may
increase.[12]
As is throughout the whole Dialogue, the gems that come out are
truly astounding. As a not-so-good (or rather secumdum quid good) philosopher
the philosophical principles such as whatever is received is received according
to the manner of the receiptant (which explains the workings of Grace in the
soul), how love always follows knowledge (since every form is followed by some
inclination) or how of the Unknown there is no desire; even how God cannot
command the impossible and the range of Catholic teachings from Social
Doctrine, The Sacraments right through to Eschatology[13]
gives a taste of the majestic things that you discover when reading this book. It
even gives details in how each soul receives its reward depending on how much
it loved God in this life.
In terms of Catholic Social Doctrine I am reminded of a quote from
Chesterton in which he said “I am all for socialism, as long as it is social.”[14]
And this aspect of the Dialogue shows the great truth in what Chesterton
remarked and conveyed by Our Heavenly Father to St Catherine. We are rational
animals, thus we are social (precisely because we are rational).
It is such a wonderful read for those who are interested in
developing their own spiritual life. After all ultimately it is between you and
God. In the spiritual order there is no mistake that you have others to help
you. For this parallels to what the true social life is. We are to help one
another. Society is based on trust, so who more to trust than the perfect
society?[15]
You have to make God number one in your life and a great place to
start understanding in how to do this is to read ‘The Dialogue’.
The Dialogue is available free at: http://www.catholicplanet.com/ebooks/Dialogue-of-St-Catherine.pdf
[1] The Environmental Movement today highlighted by Al Gore’s ‘An
Inconvenient Truth, to give just one example, of the movements that would want
to see man worship nature. But this is just an example of the materialism that
has been at the forefront of human folly since the rise of Newtonian Science
(the Physic-Mathematical Science) in which the focus has been on Material
Causality. As Aristotle did rightly state, focusing on the Material Cause is
not wrong, it is just incomplete.
[2] As an example, Earthquakes and Tsunamis show that man cannot
control nature. But such is the problem with the advancement of technology that
it gives us the appearance of thinking we can control nature. It is certainly
true we can control aspects of nature on some level. However I am speaking
about the absolute control of nature, which is one of the major fallacies
committed by modern day science and scientists
[3] The Dialogue of St Catherine of Siena, Translated by Algar Thorold
[4] She is a Doctor of Mystical Theology. Her exact titles are The
Seraphic Virgin, Mystic of the Incarnate Word and Mystic of the Mystical Body
of Christ
[5] The 33 Doctors of the Church, Fr. Christopher Rengers OFM, Tan
Books and Publishers 2000, Page 397
[6] The 33 Doctors of the Church, Tan Books and Publishers 2000, Page
400
[7] The 33 Doctors of the Church, Tan Books and Publishers 2000 Page
390
[8] Fr Garrigou-Lagrange OP, “Providence: God’s Loving Care for Man and
the Need For Confidence in Almighty God”, Translated by Dom Bede Rose O.S.B Tan
Books and Publishers 1937, Pages157 – 162
[9] Matt 6:33
[10] This book is available at Amazon.
[11] The Donatist heresy is answered by St Catherine, and is also
answered by St Thomas Aquinas as well as the Church Fathers. The Donatist error
(and later heresy) was taught by the Bishop of Casea Nigrae, Donatus, and it
developed as a result of the persecution of Christians by the Emperor
Diocletian in 303. For a full treatment of this see http://carm.org/donatism
[12] But this is also true for us. In the Spiritual Order we must
decrease so that Christ may increase in us.
[13] Otherwise known as the Last Things – Judgment, Heaven, Hell,
Purgatory
[14] Taken from Quotations of G K Chesterton found at http://www.chesterton.org/quotations-of-g-k-chesterton/
[15] The Perfect Society is none other than the Divine God Head – the
Trinity Itself.
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