"Thy tears and thy sweat..."

It's been a long week, and a rough one, and next week will be even worse. I'm preparing for a talk, and for the same hostility I experienced last year. None of us, if we are giving authentic Catholic teaching, comes away unscathed.

But today I had to go to the doctor, so I brought along the book I've chosen for my paper in Spiritual Theology: The Dialogues of St. Catherine of Siena. What perfect timing, for I came across the following passage, so applicable to us all sweating and crying in the trenches:

"Therefore I give My servants hunger and desire for My honour, and the salvation of souls, so that, constrained by their tears, I may mitigate the fury of My Divine Justice. Take, therefore, thy tears and thy sweat, drawn from the fountain of My divine love, and, with them, wash the face of My spouse.

I promise thee, that, by this means, her beauty will be restored to her, not by the knife nor by cruelty, but peacefully, by humble and continued prayer, by the sweat and the tears shed by the fiery desire of My servants, and thus will I fulfill thy desire if thou, on thy part, endure much, casting the light of thy patience into the darkness of perverse man, not fearing the world's persecutions, for I will protect thee, and My Providence shall never fail thee in the slightest need."

Promises to ponder, from Our Savior to St. Catherine of Siena.
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