Today we recall with jubilation what grace can do to a soul that is receptive. How God can transform one into a beautiful instrument of his love on earth.
Catherine of Sienna was this bit of divine beauty on earth, because of God's gift to her and her gift to God.
Saints are saints because they let God win the battle for their soul; they die again and again to self love and rise again and again in true love.
Catherine exhorts us to remember, "there is no condition of the soul in which it ceases to be necessary for a man to put his own self-love to death."
For St. Catherine the foundation of her whole life was in opposition to self-love, which she called the stone of self knowledge. To paraphrase there are three stones that lead to purity of love:
1)consideration that she was created; her existence was a gift dependent on the magnanimity of God, his mercy and grace.
2)consideration of redemption, how through the generous bestowal of his blood for the life of the world, the world could taste redemption which was unmerited on man's part and rooted in fervent love.
3)consideration of her own sins, the many times she rejected the invitation of God in her life; though deserving damnation yet out of eternal goodness of God she remained with the opportunity to repent and begin anew.
From these three considerations there a rose a desire to seek the will of God fervently. All that she encountered was seen as a gift to be given back, whether it was tribulation, trial, or joy.
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