St. Catherine of Siena's Call to Action

Matt Fradd carried the feed of Sr. Mary Madeline Todd's talk on St. Catherine of Siena. It's a wonderful talk that is a call to action for our troubled times.

Her talk focuses on a seven step process that she garners from St. Catherine's letters (I paraphrase):

1. Battles selfishness - recognize the needs and hurts of others

2. Enter into self-knowledge - know our own weaknesses and strengths

3. Prayerful Discernment - pray so that we may know what God is calling us to do and what we can do

4. Respect authority - when we approach change, we are called to do so in a respectful way. BUT still called to act.

5. Correct with humility - we must not correct with pride or an exaggerated sense of self-worth, but instead with an insistence on truth

6. Love in action - don't tell others to do what you wouldn't do

7. Persevere in patience and trust in providence.

Sr. Mary Madeline rightly points out that St. Catherine - a doctor of the Church and lay woman in an era of patriarchal administration - acted in this matter BUT still did not see change. In fact, she saw even deeper schisms and anguish.

The truth of the Church is that the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it. At the same juncture, we must act to recognize the injustices around us and correct them within our capabilities.

Please listen to the podcast.