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 APRIL 29, 2014  ST. CATHERINE OF SIENA

[Acts 4:32-37 and John 3:7b-15.  Scriptures may vary at Dominican locales.]

 

     The community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common.  With great power the Apostles bore witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great favor was accorded them all.

 

     Dominicans around the world celebrate today one of the great saints of our Order: Catherine of Siena.  Any student of church history of the 14th century will note that Catherine was a remarkable woman for her times.  There were many holy women in that time but very few were ever politically active in church life, confronting both popes and secular rulers, as was Catherine.  Alongside this political activism, she engaged in a ministry to the poor and the sick through her membership in a lay Dominican group of women and also composed her DIALOGUES which have become a great spiritual classic.  She managed to pack all this into a very brief life, born in 1347 and died in 1380.

 

     St. Dominic was inspired by the passage from the Acts of the Apostles that I quoted above in establishing the Order of Preachers in the early 13th century.  Catherine lived that apostolic ideal to the fullest!  The principle is a simple one:  one's lifestyle should preach before one sets foot in the pulpit!  The Albigensian heretics in southern France in St. Dominic's time were making as many converts by their poor and communal lifestyle as they were by their beliefs.  Both Dominic and Francis of Assisi tapped into a great desire for a church less ornate and less corrupt. 

 

     The apostolic community inspired other religious movements like the Amish and the Shakers.  As we celebrate the achievements of Catherine of Siena today, we share the same desire to live together in one mind and one heart (as the Rule of St. Augustine puts it) in community and to preach by our lives before we preach by our words.  AMEN