June 15, 2026 – Personal messages – St. Catherine of Siena

I’ve been sick for about three weeks.  I’ve been resting at home and doing as little as possible, just studying Spanish and reading about St. Catherine of Siena.

Last night when I couldn’t sleep at 3 am I had another visit from St. Catherine.  The first one was a few nights ago when she was leaning over, patting my body to help heal me, as she tended to the sick when she was alive. She was speaking in Italian which I couldn’t understand but the gist of it was “be patient, you’re so impatient.”  (Impatient to get better and impatient to write about her life and work but not allowing the time for that.)  She was speaking as a mother to a child.

Last night I didn’t catch all of it, it was more on the mental level so language was not an issue. She was talking about when you have a vision sent from God like a vision of Jesus in whatever form, sometimes not the standard iconography and sometimes accompanied by saints. And not that many people have those visions of unique iconography that they are able to receive visually, but she did and I do.  And then you want to stay in that beautiful space but it ends for the moment. You want to always be available and tuned in to whatever Jesus has to tell you. She talked about that tension that a receiver feels between being always available to receive but not being able to sustain it continuously. Being from the Middle Ages, she tried to fast, pray, and do ascetic practices to suffer as Jesus did and to stay always attentive to him, and to do penance for inattention, but now she realizes she went too far in these practices of self deprivation. She basically starved herself until she couldn’t absorb food like with severe anorexia and died at 33. Now she feels it would have been better to keep her health and care for her body, so she could have served on earth longer. She was sympathizing with the tension or demand I feel to be writing and getting worn out by it.

She also seemed to be in a space of still suffering for the world, on behalf of people, not hanging out in the heavenly realms. I read that she prayed to take on the pains of pergatory for her father so he wouldn’t suffer, whereupon a pain shot through her body and some pain remained for the rest of her life. Or perhaps she is still suffering on behalf of all humankind. Suffering is part of her spiritual path. And it is the nature of human beings to suffer sometimes due to having a human body and mind. We share that in common with Jesus.

And again she said not that many people are receiving these vivid visions these days so keep at it and know that the world won’t necessarily understand what you are going through. And that this is a period of time to study St Catherine and her long book, The Dialogue, which can’t be rushed so give it time.  It may take a few months.

She also said that during her lifetime, when she was going through all that, she had no thought of being a saint, being called a saint at all. She was focused on the teachings and images she was receiving, and she felt commanded to share these with the world and in some cases with particular people. That was all. She was just a young woman from an ordinary family who was raised without education, without learning to read or write until adulthood, when she learned some. But she always had to dictate her letters and her book to her helpers. She said her life is an example of how God sometimes chooses the least expected people to speak through for a time, as I well know. The most lowly, the least qualified by worldly standards, or the most unexpected. And that is his way.

She also said that theology can be learned directly from prayer, directly from conversation with God. It is after all learning about God, and God is the source. It does not have to be from book learning. As we know, theology can be learned from listening to Jesus. Her book The Dialogue is an example of this, which was received in prayer yet was recognized later by popes as a great work of theology. It reinforced, confirmed, and elaborated on theology that was already accepted, yet she did not learn it from a book but rather from prayer. Such it is with God. Amen.