“Don’t worry about being effective. Just concentrate on being faithful to the truth.”
“You will know your vocation by the joy that it brings you. You will know. You will know when it’s right.”
“Tradition! We scarcely know the word any more. We are afraid to be either proud of our ancestors or ashamed of them.” .. “Tradition” says GK Chesterton “is democracy extended through time. Tradition means giving the vote to that most obscure of all classes, our ancestors.”
Born in 1347 a year before the plague would devastate the city of Siena, Catherine’s was an age of extremes. It was Tuscan beauty scarred by violence and the plague. The duality manifested itself in Catherine as well. An uneducated woman and prolific writer. A pragmatist and mystic.
When the fame of her holiness spread, she became the protagonist of an intense activity of spiritual guidance for people from every walk of life: nobles and politicians, artists and ordinary people, consecrated men and women and religious, including Pope Gregory XI.
When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the Mortal puts on Immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”
“O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
Those who sincerely say ‘Jesus, I trust in You’ will find comfort in all their anxieties and fears.There is nothing that man needs more than Divine Mercy – that love which is benevolent, which is compassionate, which raises man above his weakness to the infinite heights of the holiness of God.
( Pope St John Paul II )
You always console Me when you pray for sinners. The prayer most pleasing to Me is prayer for the conversion of sinners. Know, My daughter, that this prayer is always heard and answered
My child, life on earth is a struggle indeed; a great struggle for My kingdom. But fear not, because you are not alone. I am always supporting you, so lean on Me as you struggle, fearing nothing. Take the vessel of trust and draw from the fountain of life for yourself, but also for other souls.
Daughter, when you go to confession, to this fountain of My mercy, the Blood and Water which came forth from My Heart always flows down upon your soul and ennobles it. Every time you go to confession, immerse yourself entirely in My mercy, with great trust, so that I may pour the bounty of My grace upon your soul. When you approach the confessional, know this, that I Myself am waiting there for you.