4^th Sunday of Easter, C – Catherine of Siena          April 29, 2007

Let’s start with a brainteaser.  A father and his son were in a terrible auto accident.  Both were taken to a hospital in critical condition.  A surgeon comes to operate on the boy, takes one look at him, and says, “I can't operate on him.  This boy is my son.”  How can that be?  Of course, the answer is, the surgeon is the boy's mother.  It has taken a while to realize that a woman can be a doctor.  Only in 1970 did the Church first bestow the title of doctor on a woman.  Theresa of Avila and Catherine of Siena were proclaimed Doctors of the Church for the depth of their spiritual writings.

Today, if it weren’t a Sunday of Easter, would be Catherine’s feast day.  Catherine was a rather atypical woman of her era.  Society then was perceived as stable and constant, so much so that people could pray, "As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever," and think this referred to the eternally unchanging world order.  In such a milieu Catherine certainly stood out.  She was born the last of 25 children.  Such a fate could easily nurture a rebellious spirit.  I imagine in her a desire to be different, to express her individuality, to not get lost in the crowd of her siblings. 

And so, at age 12 she put aside the bright gowns and jewels her mother insisted she wear to attract a husband, and declared that she would never marry.  When her parents persisted in their talk about finding her a husband, she cut off the golden-brown hair that was her prime physical asset.  Her parents relented, and in a small, dimly lit room now set apart for her use, a cell nine feet by three, she embraced prayer and fasting.  She scourged herself three times a day with an iron chain and she slept on a board.  At first she wore a hair shirt, later replacing it with an iron-spiked girdle.  Soon she obtained what she most wanted, permission to assume the black habit of the third order Dominicans, which was customarily granted only to older married women or widows.  She now increased her asceticism, eating and sleeping very little.

We are tempted to dismiss such extreme practices as weird and pathological.  Yet, here we are in our affluence and abundance of creature comforts, likely paying little or no attention to the place of physical discipline as a spiritual practice in our lives.  Does the Church’s invitation to do some minimal fasting on two days a year cast a pall of dread and foreboding over us?  What is the result of such avoidance?  Spiritual stunting.  Catherine reminds us that we might be missing something important on our faith journey, a little less self-indulgence and a little more self-discipline.  I doubt Catherine would have accomplished as much as she did for mystical theology and for the reform of the papacy without the spiritual strength she opened herself to through her asceticism.

Because of her life Catherine is now one of that great multitude of which the Book of Revelation speaks, from every nation, race, people, and tongue, who stand before the throne and before the lamb, wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands.  I will excuse you if you conclude that Catherine got to the resurrected life of heaven by enduring a hell on earth of self-discipline and penance, that her mortifications must have turned her into a real sourpuss.  This is, in fact, a very common notion, that it’s hell all the way to heaven, that to get to heaven, to keep the commandments, to follow Christ on this earth is really no fun at all.  Also quite common is the parallel notion that it’s heaven all the way to hell.  In other words, a life of sin would be such fun, such a good time, so enjoyable, but, alas, too bad, when it’s all over, we end up in hell.

Well, let’s listen to Catherine herself on this topic.  Catherine wrote, “It’s heaven all the way to heaven; it’s hell all the way to hell.”  Wrap your brain around that. “It’s heaven all the way to heaven; it’s hell all the way to hell.”  Catherine was no killjoy.  Her extreme physical disciplines didn’t sour her on life or leave her unhappy.  Instead, through them she experienced heaven all the way to heaven.  Her life was full of joy.  She was very much at peace.

So, now the ball is in your court.  Do you yearn for the same Easter joy?  Would you like more of it, more inner peace, more happiness in this holy season?  If you do the illogical, if you refrain from self indulgence, from satisfying all sorts of creature comforts, if you, like Catherine, adopt some voluntary physical self discipline, you will get what you seek, more of heaven on earth.  You will find for yourself that “It’s heaven all the way to heaven!”