Very few people in the history of the Catholic Church have prayed and worked for unity as hard as Saint Catherine of Siena did. She called the pope, Successor of Saint Peter, symbol of the Church’s unity, to return to Rome and labor and die in that city where the Fisherman labored and died. For seventy years, the popes had lived in southern France, which offered abundant material comfort and greater political calm. Saint Catherine spoke, always with respect and charity and firmness, reminding the pope that the comfort and calm of Avignon was not the work to which the Holy Spirit was calling him, and the pope listened.
How could this young woman (Catherine died at the age of 33) have such an impact on the Church and the world of the 1300s? She believed what our Lord cried out (as some of His final words of public preaching before the Last Supper): “Whoever believes in me believes not only in me but also in the one who sent me, and whoever sees me sees the one who sent me” (John 12:44-45). In her letters and spiritual writings, Saint Catherine reveals a a life of constant prayer that is focused unwaveringly on Christ Crucified, who leads her to commune with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Listening to Christ in the prayer of the Church and in her personal prayer, Catherine knows what to say. Seeing Christ in the Eucharist, in the poor whom she served, and in the Pope to whom she addressed her words, Catherine knew what to do.
May this formidable Doctor of the Church pray for us, that we may keep our gaze fixed on Christ, that we may follow the voice of our Good Shepherd and so be instruments of unity with God and with neighbor, for all the Church and the world.