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St Catherine of Seina poetry

“Strange that so much suffering is caused because of the misunderstandings of God’s true nature. God’s heart is more gentle than the Virgin’s first kiss upon the Christ. And God’s forgiveness to all, to any thought or act, is more certain than our own being.”

Catherine of Siena Doctor of the Church

….for what is the mind to do
with something that becomes the mind’s ruin:
a God that consumes us
in His grace….

I see that you have endowed your vicar
by nature
with a fearless heart;
so I humbly, imploringly beg you
to pour the light beyond nature
into the eye of his understanding.
For unless this light,
acquired through pure affection for virtue,
is joined with it,
a heart such as his tends to be proud.

Today again let every selfish love be cut away
from those enemies of yours
and from the vicar
and from us all,
so that we may be able to forgive those enemies
when you bend their hardness.

For them, that they may humble themselves
and obey this lord of ours,
I offer you my life
from this moment
and for whenever you wish me to lay it down
for your glory.

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