Info from this site:
http://www.thedivinemercy.org/library/article.php?NID=2240
😇Prayer and Asceticism
"Catherine was clearly a mystic of the highest order, and she lived a life saturated with prayer. For example, in 1370, when she was 23 years old, Christ answered her earnest prayer that He take her heart and give her His own instead. She insisted to her confessor that a mystical exchange of hearts with Christ really happened after that, and her companions testified that they had seen the wound in her side as a sign and testimony of what Christ had done for her. Obviously, this outer sign of the wound was symbolic of a deeper, mystical union with God that Christ had given to her (not a sign of a physical heart-transplant).
😇Catherine's spiritual teaching can be summed up in a few lines that she wrote to one of her disciples (as quoted in Thomas Maynard, Saints for Our Times, Image Books, 1955, p. 77):
Build yourself a spiritual cell, which you can always take with you, and that is the cell of self-knowledge; you will find there also the knowledge of God's goodness to you. There are really two cells in one, and if you live in one you must also live in the other, otherwise the soul will either despair or be presumptuous; if you dwelt in self-knowledge alone you would despair; if you dwelt in knowledge of God alone you would be tempted to presumption. One must go with the other, and thus you will reach perfection.
😇St. Catherine was also a remarkable ascetic. She wore a hair shirt until she found it impossible to keep it clean; then replaced it with a still more painful iron chain around her waist. During her adult life she usually slept less than one hour every night, and took almost no food at all: Holy Communion was often her only sustenance throughout the day. To some extent, she did all this out of penance for her sins, and in order to be the master of her bodily appetites and passions. However, her minimal food and sleep seem not to have been voluntary penances at all: rather, she seemed to be guided by God to withdraw herself from the flesh in this way, and in any case, by His grace she did not seem to want or need much of either. She writes in a letter to a friend in Florence: "I have prayed constantly, and do pray God and shall pray Him, that in this matter of eating He will give me grace to live like other creatures, if it is His will " for it is mine" (Maynard, p. 72).
😇It may be that these deprivations hastened her death (she died at only age 33), but it is also a fact that she was a woman of remarkable energy, humility, tenderness, and even, at times, holy imperiousness (i.e. "tough love"). She also crowded more "achievements" into her short life than most people who live twice as long. Today we might focus more on interior mortification of the will, and on keeping our bodies healthy for the service of the Lord, rather than on bodily mortifications. Nevertheless, it may be that the Lord used extraordinary means with Catherine to produce a saint of extraordinary gifts " including a personality of extreme toughness, who could courageously stand up to Popes, emperors and kings with the gospel truth. Moreover, the fact that her soul was obviously so freed from bodily distractions may have helped her to receive special guidance from the Holy Spirit in the mysteries of the spiritual life. More on this point later.
😇 Literary Output
In addition to a few hundred personal letters, St. Catherine is also noted for writing a great spiritual masterpiece, The Dialogue, which she dictated to three secretaries while she was in a state of mystical ecstasy over a period of five days (from October 9-13, 1378). One of her scribes who was witness to all this, and participated in the event, gives us the following description of what transpired (Maynard, p. 68):
😇She dictated now to one, now to another, now hiding her face in her hands, now looking up to heaven with her hands crossed, and at every moment she was rapt in ecstasy, yet she continued dictating. But now it happened that she said some words addressed to only one of us, and each of us thought they were addressed to ourselves in particular, and we all wrote them down.
😇It is utterly remarkable that such document could have been "dictated" at all, given the richness and complexity of its teachings and metaphors " and remarkable too that it could have been accomplished in only five days, since the work is over 300 pages long! The Dialogue is distinctive in two additional ways: First, it is a dialogue mostly between her soul and God the Father (rather than with Christ, who is the usual "dialogue" partner for Christian mystics), and second, the whole work is centered on the theme of Divine Mercy."
From The Dialogue On Divine Providence by Saint Catherine of Siena, virgin (Chapter 167, Thanksgiving to the Holy Trinity)
"O Eternal Deity! O Eternal Trinity, who, by the union of the divine nature gave so much value to the blood of Your Only-begotten Son! You, Eternal Trinity, You are like a deep sea within which, the more I seek You, the more I find, and the more I find, the more I seek. You satisfy my soul in a way that is almost insatiable, since Your unfathomable depth fills the soul in such a way that it always remains hungry and thirsty for You, Eternal Trinity, with the anxious desire to see You, the light, within Your own light.
With the light of Your intelligence I tasted and saw in Your light the abyss, Eternal Trinity, and the beauty of Your creature, since, clothing myself with You, I saw that I would be as Your image, since You, Eternal Father, makes me participate in Your power and Your wisdom, wisdom that is proper to Your Only-begotten Son. And the Holy Spirit, which proceeds from the Father and the Son, has given me the will that makes me capable of love.
You, Holy Trinity, are the Maker and I Your handiwork, by which, illuminated by You, I know, in the re-creation of me that You made through the blood of Your Only-begotten Son, that You are in love with the beauty of Your handiwork.
O Abyss, O Eternal Trinity, O Deity, O Deep Sea! Could You ever give me something even more precious than Yourself? You are the fire that always burns without being consumed; You are the One who consumes with Your great heat the selfish loves of the soul. You are also the fire that dissipates all coldness; You illuminate minds with Your light, in which You have made me know Your Truth.
In the mirror of that light I know You, supreme good, good above all good, blissful good, incomprehensible good, inestimable good, beauty above all beauty, wisdom above all wisdom, as You are wisdom; You, the bread of angels, who for ardent love has delivered yourself to men.
You are the garment which covers my nakedness; You feed us, who are hungry, with Your sweetness, You who are sweetness with no bitterness, O Eternal Trinity!
Let Us Pray
Lord God, who made Saint Catherine of Siena burn with divine love in the contemplation of the Passion of Your Son and in her giving of herself to the service of the Church, grant, through her intercession, that we may live closely bonded to the Mystery of Christ so that we may fill ourselves with joy in the manifestion of His Glory. Through Our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen."
Info from Franciscan Media:
"The value Catherine makes central in her short life and which sounds clearly and consistently through her experience is complete surrender to Christ. What is most impressive about her is that she learns to view her surrender to her Lord as a goal to be reached through time.
Though she lived her life in a faith experience and spirituality far different from that of our own time, Catherine of Siena stands as a companion with us on the Christian journey in her undivided effort to invite the Lord to take flesh in her own life. Events which might make us wince or chuckle or even yawn fill her biographies: a mystical experience at six, childhood betrothal to Christ, stories of harsh asceticism, her frequent ecstatic visions. Still, Catherine lived in an age which did not know the rapid change of 21st-century mobile America. The value of her life for us today lies in her recognition of holiness as a goal to be sought over the course of a lifetime".