St Catherine Of Siena Quotes

Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.

Proclaim the truth and do not be silent through fear.

Nothing great is ever achieved without much enduring.

All the way to heaven is heaven, because Jesus said, "I am the way.

If you are what you should be, you will set the whole world on fire!

We've had enough exhortations to be silent. Cry out with a thousand tongues - I see the world is rotten because of silence.

Every step of the way to heaven is heaven.

Love follows knowledge.

The soul is in God and God in the soul, just as the fish is in the sea and the sea in the fish.

Be who you were created to be, and you will set the world on fire.

If you are what you should be, you will set the whole world on fire.

If you are what you should be, you will set the world a blaze.

Love follows knowledge.

She [Catherine of Siena] found a place of refuge in a lonely wood, where some hermits lived. It is generally thought that this brotherhood was the community of hermits in Vallombrosa, founded by St. John Gualbert, the man who had spared the life of his deadly enemy because it was Good Friday, and later rushed into the nearest church and fell before the feet of the crucified Christ, as though drunk with this adventure - the adventure of forgiveness. And the Saviour leaned down from the cross and kissed the boy.

Everything comes from love. All is ordained for the salvation of man. God does nothing without this goal in mind.

humility proceeds from self-knowledge.

There is no sin nor wrong that gives man such a foretaste of Hell in this life as anger and impatience.

It seems to her [Saint Catherine of Siena] that the devil has this world in his power, not by his own will, for he is powerless, but through our help because we obey him. The evil aroma rising from the ... wars which are waged by Christians against Christians, are the same as war against God. ... Peace, peace, for the sake of the love of the crucified Christ, and not war; that is the only solution.

St. Catherine of Genoa's life combined the noblest forms of Christian service with the highest levels of contemplative prayer. May her life and her doctrine help us, too, to live out our Christian discipleship, inspired by the love of God she taught and exemplified.

A woman has never been able to become a priest—she cannot even be a deacon, nor yet a chorister—but a woman can with the authority of the spirit reprove a priest who falls short of the dignity of his office, even if his office be that of the Vicar of Christ on earth. A widow from an outpost of the Europe of her day—St. Bridget of Sweden—or dyer’s daughter from Siena, St. Catherine—they bow humbly before the dignity with which the man is invested, while at the same time speaking their minds mercilessly and unafraid to the human side of him who has proved himself unworthy of his vicarship; and they do this by virtue of the spiritual authority they possess as favored souls and as courageous souls.

Also in America, the Redemptorist priest and founder of the Paulist order, Fr. Isaac Hecker, was a great admirer of St. Catherine, seeing in her the perfect foil to those who claimed that Catholicism promotes a mechanical piety or fosters a sanctity unconcerned with the real needs of suffering humanity in society. To the latter charge he replied forcefully: "Read the life of St. Catherine, and in imagination fancy her in the city hospital of Genoa, charged not only with the supervision and responsibility of its finances, but also overseeing the care of its sick inmates, taking an active, personal part in its duties as one of its nurses, and conducting the whole establishment with strict economy, perfect order, and the tenderest care and love!

Silence is not emptiness but that general attitude of inwardness that enables us to have an “inner cell” in our heart, to use an expression of St. Catherine of Siena’s, where we are in God’s presence and converse with him.

St. Catherine of Siena once said, ‘If you are what you should be, you will set the whole world ablaze.’ But,” I turned to him urgently, “how can I even light a single candle if someone blocks off the first step?

Prayer is a pasturage, a field, wherein all the virtues find their nourishment, growth, and strength.—ST. CATHERINE OF SIENA.

St Catherine of Siena spent three years in seclusion in her little room in the Via Benincasa during which she underwent a series of mystical experiences before entering upon an active life of teaching and preaching.

The self-starvation cycle has been documented across time and cultures, including non-Western ones. In modern Western societies, concerns with fat and thinness are the main reason for weight loss and probably explain the moderate rise of Anorexia Nervosa incidence across the second half of the 20th century. However, cases of self-starvation with spiritual and religious motivations have been common in Europe at least since the Middle Ages (and include several Catholic saints, most famously St. Catherine of Siena). In some Asian cultures, digestive discomfort is often cited as the initial reason for restricting food intake, but the resulting syndrome has essentially the same symptoms as anorexia in Western countries.

Be who God wants you to be and you will set the word on FIRE!

For I will only your well-being, and whatever I give, I give it so that you may reach the goal for which I created you. — Our Lord to St. Catherine of Siena, The Dialogue It is easy to see God’s hand in the good things of our lives, but it is often a struggle to see it in the difficult. How do these words of Our Lord to St. Catherine of Siena give me deeper insight? In what way does this help me to reexamine past events or a current situation?

O eternal Mercy, You cover Your creatures’ faults! . . . You say to those who leave deadly sin behind and return to You: “I will not remember that you had ever offended me.” O unspeakable mercy! . . . You say of those who persecute You: “I want you to pray for them so that I can be merciful to them.” . . . Your mercy is life-giving. It is the light in which both the upright and sinners discover Your goodness. . . . In mercy You cleansed us in the blood; in mercy You kept company with Your creatures. —ST. CATHERINE OF SIENA (1347–1380)

has three steps, of which two were made with the wood of the most Holy Cross, and the third still retains the great bitterness He tasted, when He was given gall and vinegar to drink. In these three steps you will recognize three states of the soul, which I will explain to thee below. The feet of the soul, signifying her affection, are the first step, for the feet carry the body as the affection carries the soul. Wherefore these pierced Feet are steps by which thou canst arrive at His Side, which manifests to thee the secret of His Heart, because the soul, rising on the steps of her affection, commences to taste the love of His Heart, gazing into that open Heart of My Son, with the eye of the intellect, and finds It consumed with ineffable love. I say consumed, because He does not love you for His own profit, because you can be of no profit to Him, He being one and the same substance with Me. Then the soul is filled with love, seeing herself so much loved. Having passed the second step, the soul reaches out to the third—that is—to the Mouth, where she finds peace from the terrible war she has been waging with her sin. On the first step, then, lifting her feet from the affections of the earth, the soul strips herself of vice; on the second she fills herself with love and virtue; and on the third she tastes peace.

We must bear in mind that renewal of the Church has often come through the laity. Who are the three great patron saints of Europe? St Benedict, St Francis of Assisi and St Catherine of Siena.

The truth will set you free from falsehood. It will dissolve all shadows, giving you light and knowledge in God’s mercy. In this truth, you will be freed. — St. Catherine of Siena Hegel

When we are who we are called to be, we will set the world ablaze. —St. Catherine of Siena

The popes detested one another, and made no efforts in hiding their disdain for the other. Following Antipope Clement's coronation, the popes excommunicated each other with no hesitation. On one end, Clement branded Urban as the “Antichrist.” St. Catherine of Siena made light of the French cardinals' hypocrisy, naming them “devils in human form.” Pope

When we are who we are called to be, we will set the world ablaze.

The things done, the victories gained over circumstances by St. Bernard or St. Joan of Arc, by St. Catherine of Siena, St. Ignatius Loyola, St. Teresa, George Fox, are hardly to be explained unless these great spirits had indeed a closer, more intimate, more bracing contact than their fellows with that Life "which is the light of men.

St. Catherine of Siena teaches: “Start being brave about everything. Drive out the darkness and spread light. Don’t look at your weaknesses. Realize instead that in Christ crucified you can do everything.”20