Novena to St Catherine - Day 7
ON THE STORMY SEA WITH JESUSBut 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. They bravely endure the assaults of the devils and never collapse in battle, no matter what their state in life may be. If they are laypersons, they are good laypersons.
And if they are religious, they are perfect religious and navigate in the ship of true obedience, never leaving it. The mirror in which they look to see themselves is the rule with its customs and observances, and they are constantly trying to realise these in themselves. They don’t give in to the devil when he tries to take them on with slavish fear by saying, “You can’t put up with the hardships of the rule and the hounding of your brothers, or with the penances that will be imposed on you, or with difficult commands!” No, those who have the light laugh in the face of all this. They respond as people dead to their selfish will and enlightened by the light of most holy faith, “I can do anything through Christ crucified, for I know truly that he does not lay a heavier load on his creatures than they can bear. So I want to leave the measuring up to him and, for my part, bear these things with true patience. For in truth I know the truth. And I know that whatever God grants or permits, he does it for my good, so that I may be made holy in him.”
Oh how blessed are those who have come to such a light of perfection through sweet knowledge of the truth! For the see and surrender to the knowledge that whatever God permits, he does it out of special love. For God who is love itself cannot but love his human creatures. He loved us before we even existed because he wanted us to share in his supreme eternal good. So whatever he gives us is given for this purpose.
(From the writings of St Catherine of Siena)
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