Daily Reflection – Love People and Use Things
Minute Meditation – Saint Catherine of Siena, Open Our Eyes
St. Catherine calls us to be on the lookout for God. Each person will discover God in a unique way—an experience of beauty, love, forgiveness, generous sacrifice—the smile of a child, the first glimpse of the Grand Canyon, a donated organ, betrayal, persecution. In such circumstances, we stand in awe and feel infinitesimally small and unworthy. Life then truly becomes gift. Such experiences give access to Catherine’s theology. For her, God is great not simply because of God’s unimaginable goodness, but because God has chosen in love to share that goodness with creation and the human race. God pours out Godself in creation, incarnation, and Eucharist. God gifts us with every breath in every fiber of our being.
— from Accidental Theologians: Four Women Who Shaped Christianity
by Elizabeth Dreyer
Saint of the Day – April 29 – Saint Catherine of Siena
Saint Catherine of Siena’s Story
The value Catherine makes central in her short life and which sounds clearly and consistently through her experience is complete surrender to Christ. What is most impressive about her is that she learns to view her surrender to her Lord as a goal to be reached through time.
She was the 23rd child of Jacopo and Lapa Benincasa and grew up as an intelligent, cheerful, and intensely religious person. Catherine disappointed her mother by cutting off her hair as a protest against being overly encouraged to improve her appearance in order to attract a husband. Her father ordered her to be left in peace, and she was given a room of her own for prayer and meditation.
She entered the Dominican Third Order at 18 and spent the next three years in seclusion, prayer, and austerity. Gradually, a group of followers gathered around her—men and women, priests and religious. An active public apostolate grew out of her contemplative life. Her letters, mostly for spiritual instruction and encouragement of her followers, began to take more and more note of public affairs. Opposition and slander resulted from her mixing fearlessly with the world and speaking with the candor and authority of one completely committed to Christ. She was cleared of all charges at the Dominican General Chapter of 1374.
Her public influence reached great heights because of her evident holiness, her membership in the Dominican Third Order, and the deep impression she made on the pope. She worked tirelessly for the crusade against the Turks and for peace between Florence and the pope.
In 1378, the Great Schism began, splitting the allegiance of Christendom between two, then three, popes and putting even saints on opposing sides. Catherine spent the last two years of her life in Rome, in prayer and pleading on behalf of the cause of Pope Urban VI and the unity of the Church. She offered herself as a victim for the Church in its agony. She died surrounded by her “children” and was canonized in 1461.
Catherine ranks high among the mystics and spiritual writers of the Church. In 1939, she and Francis of Assisi were declared co-patrons of Italy. Pope Paul VI named her and Teresa of Avila doctors of the Church in 1970. Her spiritual testament is found in The Dialogue.
Reflection
Though she lived her life in a faith experience and spirituality far different from that of our own time, Catherine of Siena stands as a companion with us on the Christian journey in her undivided effort to invite the Lord to take flesh in her own life. Events which might make us wince or chuckle or even yawn fill her biographies: a mystical experience at six, childhood betrothal to Christ, stories of harsh asceticism, her frequent ecstatic visions. Still, Catherine lived in an age which did not know the rapid change of 21st-century mobile America. The value of her life for us today lies in her recognition of holiness as a goal to be sought over the course of a lifetime.
Saint Catherine of Siena is the Patron Saint of:
Europe
Fire Prevention
Italy
Verse of the Day – Blessed is the Man
Meditation of the Day – You Must Have Peace in Your Own Soul Before You Can Make Peace with Others
“You must first have peace in your own soul before you can make peace between other people. Peaceable people accomplish more good than learned people do. Those who are passionate often can turn good into evil and readily believe the worst. But those who are honest and peaceful turn all things to good and are suspicious of no one. … It is no test of virtue to be on good terms with easy-going people, for they are always well liked. And, of course, all of us want to live in peace and prefer those who agree with us. But the real test of virtue and deserving of praise is to live at peace with the perverse, or the aggressive and those who contradict us, for this needs a great grace. … in this mortal life, our peace consists in the humble bearing of suffering and contradictions, not in being free of them, for we cannot live in this world without adversity. Those who can best suffer will enjoy the most peace, for such persons are masters of themselves, lords of the world, with Christ for their friend, and heaven as their reward.”— Thomas á Kempis, p.72-73
Morning Offering – The Cross Stands Firm
“While the world changes, the cross stands firm.”
— St. Bruno
Daily Message from Pope Francis – Faith and Prayer Together. There is No Other Alternative
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 28, 2021
“Do I pray, certain that I am in the Church and that I pray with the Church? Or do I pray a bit according to my ideas and then make my ideas become prayer?… Without faith everything collapses; and without prayer faith is extinguished. Faith and prayer together. There is no other alternative.”
Pope Francis
Daily Reflection – If You Do Nothing Else Today…
Can You Have Mass Without Music?
Sacred music isn’t required for a valid Mass, so why is it so important?
For a Mass to be valid, there must be a priest, candles, a crucifix, bread and wine to consecrate, and various other objects that you see at every Mass you’ve been to. Music is not absolutely necessary for a valid Mass, which is why there isn’t always music at a daily Mass. However, the Church places a huge value on music in the liturgy because music adds so much to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
In her book Music and Meaning in the Mass, Annamaria Cardinalli shares her love for music and how it enhances the Mass. She explains that there is a certain level of mysticism that liturgical musicians bring to the sacred liturgy. According to Cardinalli, musicians help prepare the souls of the congregation for communion.
Since the graces that we receive from the Mass rely on our openness to accepting those graces, Cardinalli emphasizes that sacred music helps Catholics raise their minds to holy realities. Cardinelli encourages liturgical musicians:
When your music at Mass influences the readiness of our souls, by stirring within us a deeper grasp of what is taking place on the altar, your welcoming of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament has glorious repercussions! Imagine the increase in His grace that could be poured out on the whole world through those souls your music prepares to receive Him with love!
Sacred music plays a vital role in the Mass because it helps us focus on God’s gift to us—His Son in the Eucharist.
//The Catholic Company//
Minute Meditation – Is Your Work a Vocation?
It doesn’t take much looking in our economy to see that in fact there is a great deal of work that doesn’t pray, work that disconnects us from our sources of life rather than moves us toward wholeness. For work to pray, it must have a sense of vocation attached to it—we must feel some calling toward that work and the wholeness of which it is a part, that there is something holy in good work. Vocation is a calling and prayer is a call and response, deep calling to deep. For work to pray, to be vocation, it must be brought into a larger conversation. “The idea of vocation attaches to work a cluster of other ideas, including devotion, skill, pride, pleasure, the good stewardship of means and materials,” Wendell Berry writes. It is these “intangibles of economic value” that keep us from viewing work as “something good only to escape: ‘Thank God it’s Friday.’”
— from the book Wendell Berry and the Given Life
by Ragan Sutterfield
//Franciscan Media//