Saint Catherine of Siena: some homework

Here’s a five minute spiritual exercise you can do with your Bible and your guardian angel:

• Look up the passages! Imagine, a Catholic priest encouraging Catholics to pick up the bible and actually open it up and read it! Saint Paul, in 1 Corinthians 2:9, does interpret Isaiah 6:4-10 – cited in Matthew 13:15, in Acts 28:27, etc. (throughout the Old and New Testaments) – by saying it is by way of the love of God, by way of the crucified Lord of glory, that we see and hear and understand, not by ourselves. It’s not that we, under our own power and cleverness, ever convert, being our own saviors. No. We don’t do that. It is God who converts us to Him. Get that?
• Paul is accurate, says our Lord – as Saint Catherine relates – so much so that, in Jesus’ own words, “questo parbe che volesse dire Paulo” (in the original archaic Italian of Catherine’s day) so much so that “this seems to be what Paul wanted to say,” that is, as if it were Paul’s own revelation, Paul’s own knowledge, Paul’s very own desire. But a blasphemer might say that our Lord Jesus was Himself simply making an attempt to guess what Paul meant, because, you know, Jesus really didn’t know: that’s why Jesus said “seems”…
• Instead, Paul was so transformed by grace, that it was as if Paul spoke on his own authority. Yet, in this very passage, the most erudite of all academic Pharisees himself happily admits that he is speaking by the power of God and the revelation of the Holy Spirit. Jesus was not conjecturing about what it seems to Him that Paul wanted to say, as if Jesus were Paul’s student: “In my opinion it seems to me that Paul wanted to say this…” Jesus was rather confirming just how correct Paul’s words were, for they were actualized in Paul’s life with the grace of Jesus, the power of God, and the revelation of the Holy Spirit, as Paul himself says. Paul was perfectly attuned to the grace of God that opened his eyes, unstopped his ears, pierced open his heart. Paul didn’t convert. He was converted by Jesus.

Is the vocation of Isaiah witnessed throughout the Sacred Scriptures to make hearts heavy and ears stopped up and eyes blind and minds dull so that no one whomsoever will of themselves turn to be saved? Yes. There are, instead, to be converted by God. Get it? We’re not to be our own saviors, thinking we don’t need any Savior whom we call Jesus, because we can convert and be saved all on our own. No.

Jesus is the One, the only One. And Catherine is a saint because she was brought to Jesus by Jesus.

By the way and just to say, if you’re reading your Bible right through, look for all the subtle references to this vocation of Isaiah. You’ll find it everywhere throughout the Old Testament, the Gospels, the New Testament. Everywhere. God wants that we stare hard at this. Just five minutes.