Love one another. It seems like a simple commandment on the
surface, but we know it is not so easy. How
do we follow the spirit of this commandment in the ordinary moments of our
daily lives, in the complicated real life situations we meet along our journey? Today, we celebrate one of the four female Doctors of the Church, Catherine of
Siena. She was born in 1347 in Siena,
Italy, the youngest of 25 children, although more than half of those children
did not survive childhood. Although she was very devout as a teen, she did not enter the convent as a nun,
but rather chose to stay a lay woman third order member of the Dominican order. She
dedicated her life to serving the poor and the sick. A mystic, a philosopher, theologian, and
advisor to popes, Catherine’s many profound writers were what earned her the
distinction of being named Doctor of the Church by Pope Paul VI. She and St Teresa of Avila were the first
women to be named Doctors of the Church in 1970. In all her profound writings, Catherine says
this about love: "You are rewarded
not according to your work or your time but according to the measure of your
love.” In other words, if we forget about love, all else is to no avail. May
we never forget Christ’s commandment to love.
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