This work offers a selection of passages from Catherine of Siena as a basis for a path of spiritual growth with the theme of growth in capacity to love. There is an introduction and fifteen chapters, no additional front or back matter. Each chapter will include a couple of very short passages from Catherine; a couple of scripture readings about the theme of Catherine's passages; a meditation and guide to Catherine's wisdom; and exercises based on Catherine's wisdom.
The book invites engagement with the content of the passages through the suggested prayer exercises that seek to help persons apply Catherine's wisdom to their own journey. These prayer exercises are suitable for a beginner or someone already on a spiritual journey. They contain methods of prayer that are active and use the imagination, as well as more contemplative ones.
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"St. Catherine of Siena is often known for her challenging the religious authorities of her time. But that understanding of this multifaceted saint is too narrow. This lovely new book helps us all understand the foundation of her spiritual life, which is love. This love, which comes from God, and which is for God, is a beautiful invitation for the reader to enter into a world of God's embrace.
—James Martin, SJ, author of Learning to Pray
"In her beautifully scripted guide to the spirituality of Catherine of Sienna, Diana Villegas makes four significant offerings. First, she tells us the story of an important spiritual leader in the context of her time and place. Second, she highlights the essential theology and meaning of this leader for our time and place; namely, the conviction of God as loving presence at work in all people at all times to include and involve us in the unfolding of love. Third, she highlights the vision of Catherine for the feminine divine. Fourth, she scaffolds for the reader a pathway into the spirituality that Catherine represents, namely a journey into the loving and peaceful wisdom of God that is accessible to each human being through attention to the inner life. Diana's writing is intelligent, crystal clear, grounded in extensive scholarship and personal familiarity with the writing and spirit of Catherine, yet remarkably accessible and practically applicable to the everyday person open to learning from one of Christianity's great mystics. This book is a treasure!"
—Dr. Phil Daughtry, spiritual director and founder of Fruitful Mind Consultancy, Adelaide, South Australia
Diana L. Villegas, studied spirituality at the Institute of Spirituality of the Gregorian University, Rome, and obtained a PhD in theology, specializing in the history of spirituality, from Fordham University. Her dissertation compared discernment in Catherine of Siena and Ignatius of Loyola. She is a trained spiritual and retreat director with over thirty of years of experience. After many years in the Boston area, she now lives in her native Colombia.
Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) has been a doctor of the church since 1970. History recalls that she was outspoken, as well as being a mystic, visionary, and prophet. During her brief life she involved herself in religious, political, and social issues of her time, and made her voice heard among world leaders. This is a portrait of a driven women who never ceased giving her life for her faith and the well being of her fellow man. What results is a real life portrait of a woman who experienced monumental crises such as the black plague, the Hundred Years' War, internecine fighting in Italy, and papal exile in Avignon. This tertiary Dominican, who did not know how to read or write, became the confidant and critic of the powerful: princes, kings, bishops, and popes. The author, an eminent medievalist, brings this extraordinary woman alive in this riveting spiritual and historical biography.
Andre Vauchez FBA is a French medievalist specialising in the history of Christian spirituality. He has studied at the Ecole normale superieure and the Ecole francaise de Rome. His thesis, defended in 1978, was published in English as Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages in 1987 and has become a standard reference work.
This volume offers a fresh translation of St. Catherine of Siena's letters that are faithful to the oral, metaphor-filled language of an uneducated woman.
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"Diana Villegas has done English-language readers of Catherine of Siena a real service by providing a more literal translation in this selection of Catherine's letters. This translation reproduces the rhythm and structure of Catherine's original text better than other versions in English. By staying closer to Catherine's original expressions and terminology, Villegas is particularly effective in conveying Catherine's ideas. And she assists the reader in this respect by providing a concise but thorough introduction to major themes in Catherine's spirituality. This volume is a very welcome addition to the literature on this important fourteenth-century saint and spiritual master."
—F. Thomas Luongo, PhD, associate professor, Department of History, Tulane University
"While the depth of her mystical teaching has long been appreciated, Catherine of Siena's letters illuminate that she was also deeply grounded in the concerns of her times and the concrete lives of her correspondents. Her letters amply demonstrate that her spirituality is both active and contemplative, mystical and political, in ways that are deeply integrated with one another. Villegas's selection and translation of Catherine's letters opens a rich and fresh understanding of Catherine for scholars and students alike."
—Amy Maxey, PhD, assistant professor of spirituality and Rolheiser Chair in Spirituality, Oblate School of Theology, San Antonio, Texas
Steve Mueller, through his teaching, books, articles, and editing, has developed Bible study resources for high school and university classrooms as well as for parish and diocesan liturgical, catechetical, and biblical programs.
Catherine of Siena (1347-1380), mystic and doctor of the church, wrote The Dialogue, her crowning spiritual work, for "the instruction and encouragement of all those whose spiritual welfare was her concern.
