The Dialogue of St. Catherine of Siena. Translated by Algar Thorold from Catherine's dictations to her secretaries while she was in a state of ecstasy. Originally completed in the year 1370.

Born in 1327, the youngest in a family of twenty-five children, Saint Catherine of Siena was a lay person and a mystic. Having a deep spirituality from childhood, Catherine upset her parents by refusing to marry. To deal with the discord she caused, God taught Catherine to create a small refuge in her heart where she could commune freely with the One Whom she loved with all her heart. Catherine became a member of the Third Order of St. Dominic and was favored with a spiritual espousal to Christ. This fortified her to care for the poor, prisoners, and the sick, especially those struck by plague. Extremely successful in settling feuds, Catherine attempted to have the Pope return to Rome from Avignon and, in time, her efforts succeeded. The Pope then called her to Rome to be his advisor, but Catherine was ill and did not live long in that city. She passed away at the age of thirty-three.

Catherine's Dialogue is a mystical conversation with God, covering the four broad topics of divine providence, prayer, discretion, and obedience. Catherine begins by asking God for self-knowledge, for only if she really knows herself can she come to love God and love of God is source of union with Him.

Catherine asks for four gifts from the Lord: "The first was for herself; the second for the reformation of the Holy Church; the third a general prayer for the whole world, and in particular for the peace of Christians who rebel, with much lewdness and persecution, against the Holy Church; in the fourth and last, she besought the Divine Providence to provide for things in general, and in particular, for a certain case with which she was concerned." The Holy Spirit instructed Catherine on each of these points, teaching her first to be humble and patient and to grieve for her own sins and those of the world.

He showed her how He leads wayward souls back to Himself. "The fruit which I destine for them, constrained by the prayers of My servants, is that I give them light, and that I wake up in them the hound of conscience, and make them smell the odor of virtue, and take delight in the conversation of My servants. "Sometimes I allow the world to show them what it is, so that, feeling its diverse and various passions, they may know how little stability it has, and may come to lift their desire beyond it, and seek their native country, which is the Eternal Life. And so I draw them by these, and by many other ways, for the eye cannot see, nor the tongue relate, nor the heart think, how many are the roads and ways which I use, through love alone, to lead them back to grace, so that My truth may be fulfilled in them."

The Lord showed Catherine the link between patience, love, and suffering. "Consider that the love of divine charity is so closely joined in the soul with perfect patience, that neither can leave the soul without the other. For this reason (if the soul elect to love Me) she should elect to endure pains for Me in whatever mode or circumstance I may send them to her. Patience cannot be proved in any other way than by suffering."

The Lord revealed to Catherine the importance of love of neighbor. "I wish also that you should know that every virtue is obtained by means of your neighbor, and likewise, every defect; he, therefore, who stands in hatred of Me, does an injury to his neighbor, and to himself, who is his own chief neighbor, and this injury is both general and particular. It is general because you are obliged to love your neighbor as yourself, and loving him, you ought to help him spiritually, with prayer, counseling him with words, and assisting him both spiritually and temporally, according to the need in which he may be, at least with your goodwill if you have nothing else. A man therefore, who does not love, does not help him, and thereby does himself an injury; for he cuts off from himself grace, and injures his neighbor, by depriving him of the benefit of the prayers and of the sweet desires that he is bound to offer for him to Me."

These are only a very few of the countless gems of spiritual insight in this book. It is rare to obtain a treatise on spiritual perfection, and all at such a low price!

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