The Dialogue of the Seraphic Virgin Saint Catherine of Siena: Book Review

The Dialogue of the Seraphic Virgin Saint Catherine of Siena relates a dialogue of love, mercy and holiness between God and St. Catherine. The work itself was dictated by the saint to her secretaries as she was in a state of ecstasy. It was completed in 1370 AD. Algar Thorold translated the work from Italian into English in 1974.

St. Catherine of Sienna was born March 5, 1347, a Palm Sunday, in Siena, Italy. She was the youngest of twenty five children of Giacomo and Lapa Benincasa. Her family was known for its piety. Since her childhood, the Lord favored St. Catherine with visions and visits of angels who came to play with her.¹ As a tertiary in the Dominican Order, she lived with ardent fidelity her identity and mission as daughter of the Church sustaining with her wisdom and prayers the Holy Father. Through the struggles faced by the Church in the middle ages, St. Catherine “experienced the great weight of the Church fall on her shoulders, and she offered herself and her suffering as a "victim" for the renewal of the Church.”² The Lord used St. Catherine as an instrument of reconciliation and peace in the time of the Great Schism; by her intercession, Pope St. Gregory the Great returned to Rome from Avignon in 1377.  

"Oh eternal God, 

receive the sacrifice of my own life on behalf of the mystical Body of Holy Church. I have nothing else to give except what You have given me."2

St. Catherine was canonized by Pius II, declared patron of Italy by Pius IX and Doctor of the Church on October 4, by Paul VI.³

The image on the cover of the book is a fresco from the Capella delle Volte in Siena painted by Andrea di Vanni around 1390.⁴ The fresco depicts the saint in her Dominican habit holding a lily (purity), marked by the stigmata. At her feet kneels a young woman kissing her hand; people of her time would do so with reverence recognizing the gift of God in her.

The Dialogue is a nonfiction work of the dialogue between God and St. Catherine, His “best-beloved, dearest and sweetest daughter, my spouse!”^5. The Lord communicates to Her His greatest desire: to “increase the fire of [His] love in [her] soul”^6. and responds to her four requests: to be illumined by His truth, to ask for mercy upon the world, to remove darkness and persecution from the Church, and to respond to a request for an individual.

The Introduction is written by Viareggio in 1906, who describes briefly the life of the Church and Italy in the middle ages, and the life of St Catherine.⁷ The Dialogue is written in early modern English, and is considered “one of the classics of the age and land”.⁸  The book is divided into four portions: A Treatise of Divine Providence, A Treatise of Discretion, A Treatise of Prayer, and A Treatise of Obedience.

Throughout The Dialogue, the Lord communicates spiritual realities to St. Catherine through analogies that enflesh these mysteries. I painted the image above to depict one of the analogies presented by God of “the Bridge, Christ Crucified”⁹ who is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life”(Jn 14:6 NABR). Jesus promised “when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself” (Jn 12:32 NABR) for “no one comes to the Father except through me” (Jn 14:6 NABR).

“He who goes over the Bridge goes to life, while he who goes under It goes to perdition and death.”¹⁰ “In the river where there are no stones, only water, and since there are no supports in the water, no one can travel that way without drowning […]if the affection is not placed on the stones, but is placed, with disordinate love, on creatures, loving them, and being kept by them far from Me, the soul drowns,[…] and, because they pass by the door of falsehood, they receive eternal damnation. So then you see, that I have shown you both Truth and Falsehood, that is, My road which is Truth, and the Devil's which is Falsehood."¹¹

The Bridge reaches to the heights by the wood of the cross and yet is cemented upon the earth. This represents the hypostatic union of Jesus Christ, whose “divine nature remaining joined to the lowliness of the earth of your humanity.”¹² The Bridge’s walls are the “stones of true and sincere virtue,”¹⁰ “built upon Him the foundation, walled and roofed with the mercy of His Blood,” which is the “key that unlocked heaven.”¹³

The Bridge is a three step journey of the three states of the soul that require of the three powers of the soul: the intellect, memory and will. First, the person must “lift her feet from the affections of the earth [and] strip herself of vice” leaving the currents of the water and arriving at His pierced feet, the entrance to the Bridge.⁸

Second, the affections of the soul being ordered through detachment of self-love, the person continues to walk the Bridge until he arrives at the pierced Side. It is through the wound from which “blood and water flowed out” (Jn 19:34 NABR) that one receives “the baptism of water, which has virtue through the Blood, and where I dispose the soul to receive grace, uniting and kneading her together in the Blood; where […] the soul know of this her dignity […] and the fire of divine Charity.”¹² Third, the person arrives at the end of the Bridge, the mouth of the Crucified Lord, where finally the person “tastes peace” and experiences union with God. “The pilgrims which embark on the journey are sustained by His Body and Blood.”¹⁴

In The Dialogue, the Lord continually speaks through analogies that depict the spiritual life and the Christian journey. Before each discourse, St. Catherine provides a brief sentence to synthesize the Lord’s message to help guide the reader’s  includes the Lord uses to communicate with St. Catherine throughout the book are the tree of self love, the description of tears, and the boat of religious orders upon which the oars represent obedience.

The Dialogue  is available online through EWTN at https://www.ewtn.com/library/SOURCES/CATHDIAL.HTM

and can be located by its ISBN: 0-89555-037-7.

 Sources   

^1.  Of Siena, Catherine. The Dialogue of the Seraphic Virgin Catherine of Siena. Trans. Algar                             Thorold. Rockford: Tan, 1974. Print, 11.

^2. St. Catherine of Siena Doctor of the Church at Catholic Online,                                                                        http://www.catholic.org/news/saints/story.php?id=41236

^3. Santa Catalina de Siena Doctora de la Iglesia Universal at Fe y Razon,                                                            http://www.feyrazon.org/Catalina.htm.

^4. Drawn by Love, http://www.drawnbylove.com/Vanni%20portrait%20of%20Catherine.htm.

^5. Of Siena, Catherine, Dialogue of the Seraphic Virgin Catherine of Siena, 206.

^6. Of Siena, Catherine, Dialogue of the Seraphic Virgin Catherine of Siena, 326

^7. Of Siena, Catherine, Dialogue of the Seraphic Virgin Catherine of Siena, 14.

^8. Of Siena, Catherine, Dialogue of the Seraphic Virgin Catherine of Siena, 24.

^9. Of Siena, Catherine, Dialogue of the Seraphic Virgin Catherine of Siena, 77.

^10. Of Siena, Catherine, Dialogue of the Seraphic Virgin Catherine of Siena, 80.

^11. Of Siena, Catherine, Dialogue of the Seraphic Virgin Catherine of Siena, 83.

^12. Of Siena, Catherine, Dialogue of the Seraphic Virgin Catherine of Siena, 78.

^13. Of Siena, Catherine, Dialogue of the Seraphic Virgin Catherine of Siena, 81.

^14. Of Siena, Catherine, Dialogue of the Seraphic Virgin Catherine of Siena, 82.