The presence of Saint Dominic in our chapel—in the painting by Fra Angelico—encourages me throughout the day to listen deeply once again to the Word of God.

With his left hand,Dominic gently touches the pages of Scripture. In reality, we cannot touch an object without being touched by it ourselves. A person touches God because God touches us first.

As we continue our novena in honour of St. Dominic, I hope that our most Holy Father would excuse me for shifting the attention slightly away from him and focusing briefly on his elder brother Bl. Mannes de Guzman.

This somewhat hidden yet important figure of the early beginnings of the Dominican Order, humbly lay aside his ‘elder sibling privileges’ and generously followed his much younger brother, Dominic, on an uncharted journey starting from the tireless preaching against the Albigenses in Southern France to the establishment of the Order of Preachers.

St Dominic - Light of the Church

During the past week at Mass, we have been hearing parables of Jesus about the kingdom of heaven, as recounted by St Matthew. It is a treasure more valuable than all earthly possessions; a priceless pearl; a tiny mustard-seed that grows to become a great shrub where birds of the air can build a home.

It seems very fitting that we celebrate St Catherine’s feast during the Paschal season, when we remember with joy and thanksgiving all that our Saviour has done for us through his Passion, Death, Resurrection and sending the Holy Spirit and the gift we receive in Baptism when we are grafted onto the True Vine and become his branches with the same life sap coursing through Head and members

As we continue our Novena to St Catherine, I will read a short extract from a letter she wrote to Pope Gregory, calling on him to end the conflict with Florence:

In the name of Jesus Christ Crucified and of Sweet Mary Most Holy, holy and reverent father in Christ sweet Jesus, your unworthy daughter Catherine, servant and slave of the servants of Jesus Christ, writes your Holiness in His precious blood with desire to see you achieve peace, having peace yourself and your children around you.

But when people have the light, they become true servants of their Creator. Though they are living in the night of this darksome life they walk with the light, and though they are on the stormy sea they receive and experience interior peace. They are always running on toward perfection, constant and persevering right up to the moment of their death.

From a very young age, Catherine felt a strong attraction to prayer and service to others. At the age of sixteen, she entered the Dominican Third Order and dedicated her life to prayer, penance and caring for the sick and needy. .... Like St. Dominic what most characterized St. Catherine’s life and spirituality was her love of Christ and her passion for the Cross. For her, the Cross was the way to union with God and the source of salvation.

In The life of St. Catherine of Siena, the saint’s biographer and confessor, Blessed Raymond of Capua, recounts a time in which while sharing a lengthy conversation with the saint on God and various spiritual matters, he found himself, “being weighed down by the weight of flesh”, and eventually succumbing to sleep.

From a letter of St Catherine, in which she treats of the illusion of dominion / lordship and earthly power.

“For humanity is nothing of itself; what we have, we have from God by grace, not because he owes it to us. This is why no man who knows himself will ever mortally offend God or become proud because of his position or greatness or power. If he were lord of the whole world, he would consider himself nothing. ...