The Church celebrates Saint Catherine of Siena’s feast day on April 29, and Father Dave welcomes Scripture teacher and veteran tour guide Joan Watson to discuss how this doctor of the Church can inspire us today. Joan is the pilgrim formation manager for Verso Ministries and the author of the new book “Coached by Saint Catherine: Lessons of Charity.”
Saint Catherine of Siena lived in the 14th century, but Joan notes how her writings provide a wealth of wisdom for us today. “She wrote over 400 letters that have now been translated into English. I went through those letters to see what Catherine has to say to us,” Joan says, noting that Saint Catherine famously helped reunite the Church by writing multiple letters to Pope Gregory XI. “She tells the pope, ‘Come home from Avignon, come back to Rome.’ She has this stern reputation for telling people what to do, but we gloss over the fact that she wrote to a lot of lay people, married people, priests, and just gave them really good spiritual advice.”
LISTEN: How a Pilgrimage Can Enrich Your Faith and Life With Joan Watson
“I wanted to make Catherine approachable, because she either gets this bad [reputation] as this person who tells people what to do, or she gets a bad rap as this mystical person who is completely unrelatable to me,” Joan continues. “The whole point of the book is how can she help me grow in holiness? I’m not levitating, having these mystical visions, or writing to the pope, but how can Catherine help me in my daily life?”
Joan dives into Saint Catherine’s advice for when we face difficulties in our faith lives. “One of my favorite chapters is what to do with the struggle for holiness and when it’s hard to be virtuous,” she says. “Maybe we have a conversion, and we think life is going to get easy because now we’re living a holy life, but then life gets really hard, and it’s hard to be patient. For example, I hear from young parents, ‘I used to be so patient before I got married and had kids,’ and it’s like, Were you or did you not have a chance to practice [the virtue]?”
“When we have these temptations, it’s actually God giving us a chance to grow in virtue. You only grow in virtue when it’s tested,” Joan continues. “[Saint Catherine] is full of consolation to the followers who were really struggling. She had this one follower who really struggled with so much scrupulosity and self-doubt, and she was so motherly, and told him to love himself and be patient with himself. Her letters are just so full of love for everybody, and I think that’s something we lack today.”
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Joan offers another example of Saint Catherine’s lesson to avoid judging others. “She writes a fantastic letter to two priests who were in a feud and angry at each other, and she just gives them what for. [She says], this is terrible, this is a scandal, and you have to forgive your enemies,” Joan says. “In today’s age, it’s so easy to rush to judgment and to really detract from people’s reputation with a simple tweet. She gives us practical advice that I think becomes even more practical to us today, where we do have to give people the benefit of the doubt.”
“What’s it look like to give people the benefit of the doubt, even when you see them doing something that you disagree with?” she continues. “How do we love the Church when people in the Church might hurt us? How do we stay obedient during difficult times? If she was able to do it at a time when there were two popes, when the pope was in Avignon, and when Florence was under interdict, I certainly can do it…I think she just has so much to say to us.”
