Letters of Catherine BenincasaCatherine, of Siena, Saint
Religion
Letters of Catherine Benincasa
Catherine, of Siena, Saint
Catherine, of Siena, Saint, 1347-1380 -- Correspondence; Christian women saints -- Italy -- Siena -- Correspondence
Dearest brother and son in Christ sweet Jesus: I Catherine, servant and
slave of the servants of Jesus Christ, write to you in His precious Blood:
with desire to see you a lover and follower of truth and a despiser of
falsehood. But this truth cannot be possessed or loved if it is not known.
Who is Truth? God is the Highest and Eternal Truth. In whom shall we know
Him? In Christ sweet Jesus, for He shows us with His Blood the truth of
the Eternal Father. His truth toward us is this, that He created us in His
image and likeness to give us life eternal, that we might share and enjoy
His Good. But through man's sin this truth was not fulfilled in him, and
therefore God gave us the Word His Son, and imposed this obedience on Him,
that He should restore man to grace through much endurance, purging the
sin of man in His own Person, and manifesting His truth in His Blood. So
man knows, by the unsearchable love which he finds shown to him through
the Blood of Christ crucified, that God nor seeks nor wills aught but our
sanctification. For this end we were created; and whatever God gives or
permits to us in this life, He gives that we may be sanctified in Him. He
who knows this truth never jars with it, but always follows and loves it,
walking in the footsteps of Christ crucified. And as this sweet loving
Word, for our example and teaching, despised the world and all delights,
and chose to endure hunger and thirst, shame and reproach, even to the
shameful death on the Cross, for the honour of the Father and our
salvation, so does he who is the lover of the truth which he knows in the
light of most holy faith, follow this way and these footsteps. For without
this light it could not be known; but when a man has the light, he knows
it, and knowing it, loves it, and becomes a lover of what God loves, and
hates what God hates.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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