This week’s Pearls of the Interior Life video will come out tomorrow. Our focus is Christ’s Ascension and largely inspired by the great St. Catherine of Siena. As in the past, when we’ve looked to what other spiritual giants have had to share about the Ascension, St. Catherine’s message is largely that the Ascension is something we’re meant to be taken up into, and experience, to a degree in this life.
Pope St. Leo the Great agrees, “In the person of Christ we have penetrated the heights of Heaven… we are raised up to heaven in the Ascension of Christ … This vital participation in Christ’s mysteries is the essential consequence of our incorporation in Christ.”
To be sure we only have a partial experience of the Ascension in this life, but … a partial experience of the Ascension is way better than any experience or thrill the fallen world has to offer.
So, it’s worth reflecting on – as we will in our follow up emails and video.
For today, we have a few thoughts on St. Catherine. If you’re like Karen and I, it’s easy to turn the Saints into cartoon versions of themselves, or little more than a collection of anecdotes or the most “hearted” quotes on Pinterest or wherever.
Fr. Benedict Groeschel had the experience of keeping the company of a few individuals who he believed to be living Saints. He used the word “terrifying” to describe being in their presence. As if they were nearly wild animals. It calls to mind the wonderful description of the Christ-like Aslan from the Narnia chronicles – “Safe? ‘Course He isn’t safe. But He’s good.””
The Saints are just so radically different. They’re not just wise guides, or gurus, or talented Ted-talkers. They are like living, walking, talking, sacramentals – signs of Christ. They are given to the world to encourage us. To help us interiorize God’s teaching and love for us.
That said, they are truly amazing people even by worldly measures. In tomorrow’s video we touch on just a few of the astounding aspects of St. Catherine’s short life (she was just 33 years old when she passed from this world).
But the reason the Church values her writings is that the fruits of her life demonstrate she was living in unbelievably close union to Christ – and that she desired nothing less for all the people around her even to the point that she offered up her own salvation if it would save other souls. And she understood Christ’s Ascension to be an essential element of our success in this life.
The bottom line is that Christ’s Ascension, like every other aspect of His life, is eminently meaningful for our lives in the here and now. It is for us, then, to ask Jesus to show us exactly what it means to us – “Lord, show me what Your ascension means for me?”
We’ll do our best to convey a few inspirations from St. Catherine and others that, by God’s grace, might move us a little further down that path (or across that bridge, as we’ll see tomorrow).
Oh, about the image for this week – you probably already see where that’s going – but more on that come Monday!
Easter blessings –
Steve and Karen Smith