Have you read some of St Catherine of Siena's Dialogue?

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I was wondering who has read some, if not all, of it? What do you think about it? Hard to understand in parts? Was it valuable to you? Does anyone have recommendations on commentaries etc. regarding the book? I do like the book immensely but it’s not easy to understand sometimes… It would be nice to find a few souls on CAF who have done some studying and meditation on this classic of Catholic Wisdom from an amazing woman Doctor of the Church. Thankyou!
 
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Yes, I had to. After struggling with the flowery language for about half the book, I really enjoyed the second half. I don’t think that was because of the context, but because after a little while you start to learn how she thinks. I also found it helpful to map out or draw the many symbols and how they relate to each other. Maybe that helps.
 
I have read parts of it and struggled with the old English. There is, however, a modern English online free translation on CCEL http://www.ccel.org/ccel/catherine/dialog/dialog.html
The Dialogue is a beautiful profoundly theological document. Although St Catherine lived and died in the 14th century, she is not made a Doctor of The Church until 1970 apparently. St Teresa of Avila (16th century) one month earlier in 1970.

St Therese of Lisieux was declared Doctor of The Church in 1997.
 
I’ve read parts, in studies of Catholic spiritual theology of “the three ages/stages/ways” of the interior life of grace. In her Dialogue, she presents an explanation of how Jesus formed and “discipled” His faithful followers - especially the Apostles - in three main stages of discipleship. These three are called today the purgative (the stage of beginners), the illuminative (the stage of the proficient, or the progressing), and the unitive (the stage of the perfect).

This astounded me! To learn that this traditional, ancient Catholic spiritual understanding of how, exactly, we are to (and can) grow in grace - in charity - in the interior life - in the one thing necessary! - was the same path of spiritual development used by Jesus (and His Spirit) in forming His Apostles.

And yet today, most Catholics have never heard of such an understanding - or if they have, they misunderstand it in such a way as to be dismissive of its crucial importance and value. Today, we have “spiritualities du jour” which come and go, fruitlessly (except to the marketers of the latest “sure-fire” way of parish renewals).

By all means - go to the masters! Go to the Fathers and Doctors and Saints! There are treasures of holy truth.
 
Thanks! Good advice. I would hope that you Dominicans have some familiarity with Catherine’s writings. 😎 I can intuit from the number of replies here that she is not read much by your average Catholic, which is not too surprising. It is highly elevated spiritual revelation in one sense and written in a way that the modern reader would not be accustomed to, I suppose.

It’s a rare gem, though, that can be quite enlightening and useful in one’s spiritual life. But it’s a book that has largely been forgotten.

I have not read it in its entirety. Now, I’m trying to absorb and hopefully apply small passages from her writings.
 
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It does indeed give excellent spiritual insight and advice. A monastic person, well, any of us, could spend years, pondering and making use of the great spiritual teachings contained in this private revelation, a dialogue between Catherine and God the Father.
 
Excellent response, Fide. Thankyou. I wish Catherine were still here with us. I could use her guidance in a super tangible manner.

(I just got scolded by this overly smart new interface we have to reply to people in one post rather than multiple so I will close for now. : D )
 
I started it, but didn’t get as far as I would have liked. The part that I remember most was that at first, it sounded like she was arguing for one point, and then turning around and arguing for the opposite point. I was reading ISBN 978-0809122332; I wondered if I needed to find something to help me understand what I was reading as I read it. It had notes, but I’m open to suggestions for an edition that has much more comprehensive sidenotes/commentary/etc?
 
I will look for a commentary. It can indeed be hard to move through the text in parts. Dominican House of Studies website might be a good place to start. Possibly. Then there is Amazon, of course. : ) I will look later tonight if I don’t forget.
 
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I looked in the DHS library online and found none. Amazon searching was not very fruitful either. Alternatively, this book might be helpful for students of Catherine’s spiritual teaching:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005F1Q7QK?ref_=k4w_embed_details_rh&tag=kpembed-20&linkCode=kpd
Hopefully, CAF will not mind if we link to Amazon for resources.

A good spiritual director would be helpful, perhaps, in enlightening us on some of her words. Maybe. Her biographies also bear strong witness to her spiritual teachings. They are a sort of commentary in themselves, I suppose.

We can hope, or trust, that God will give us what we need from reading her Dialog in a spirit of humble prayer.

It’s a great book, the Dialog, for those of you who are not familiar with it: (read the reviews)

https://www.amazon.com/Catherine-Si...5&sr=1-1&keywords=catherine+of+siena+dialogue
 
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There are a few very good sources of (classic, traditional) Catholic spirituality - or spiritual theology - but at the top of the stack in my experience has been and is Fr. R. Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. “The Three Ages of the Interior Life”. It is a two-volume masterpiece (IMHO) in which Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange cites many of the spiritual masters of our history, in describing the journey to our common call and destiny: the Beatific Vision with the Lord and His people.

This book can be read many, many times and yields fresh fruit each time, by the light of the Holy Spirit. But the overview of the journey that he describes (in detail), places the many writings of the holy saints within a more understandable synthesis. His book, in other words, makes the writings of the saints clearer and more consistent.

There are other such writers - including Fr. Jordan Aumann and Fr. Arintero, both also Dominicans - but I found Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange to be most helpful, at least in the beginning.
 
I have “The Three Ages of the Interior Life” on my phone from kindle. It was quite a bargain, only $2. I’ve amassed far more such wonderful books than I can read right now. But, to be sure, it’s a most excellent and classical work on the spiritual life. I’ve enjoyed lately reading Ralph Martin’s “Fulfillment of All Desire” which is a little more accessible and easily readable for the everyday Cahtolic. It’s from Audible actually, so I listen to it.
 
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I was pondering on this quotation from God the Father to Catherine…

“and you further ask the will to know and love Me, who am the Supreme Truth. Wherefore I reply that this is the way, if you will arrive at a perfect knowledge and enjoyment of Me, the Eternal Truth, that you should never go outside the knowledge of yourself, and, by humbling yourself in the valley of humility, you will know Me and yourself, from which knowledge you will draw all that is necessary.”

How do you all interpret this passage in bold?
 
Looking at the context— I’d say it relates to, when push comes to shove, God’s not going to judge us to how we did in comparison to how Fred did. Or versus Tom. Or how we did versus Sally. God’s going to compare us to Christ, and we all will come up short. So instead of bogging down with Fred or Tom or Sally’s relationship with God (“I may have my problems, but at least I’m not as bad as that guy!”), we need to focus internally on ourselves, on our knowledge of our own failures, for which we are directly responsible, and use that for humility and contrition-- and thereby access grace and advancement.
 
Hello Jamal, I believe that Midori is correct in his focus on humility as the reason why the teaching (on arriving at perfect knowledge of God) calls for never going “outside the knowledge of yourself.” I would not use his language of “focus on” ourselves, however: our focus must habitually on God, His perfections, His holiness and all His holy attributes. With that near-continual looking toward Him, however, we must never “go outside of” ourselves - because once we do, we presume a fiction about ourselves, and fall back to our self-love that corrupts and can destroy true love for God.
 
What are some ways this might look like in real life?

Minding our own business, for example? I mean, not paying much attention to what other persons are doing in the world or spiritually unless God directs us to do so for the good of their souls. Would that be one example?
 
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The “greatest Commandment” is to love God with one’s whole being. Our love for others, including for ourselves, must be “in God” - within, that is, our primary love for God. To see others (including ourselves) with the “eyes” and “heart” of God is our calling. Thus, to mind one’s own business as a Christian is to be very concerned about “what other persons are doing in the world or spiritually”, because God does direct us to be concerned. We are our brother’s keeper, contrary to the mind of Cain, who killed his brother Abel out of jealousy.

Righteous love for others, and the desire to help them on the path to their own happiness, is no easy task. In most cases, the best way to love them is to pray for them to God, and to Mary their mother, that His holy will for their happiness and salvation be accomplished. And include in that prayer, your own intervention - if God would show you what His will is for you, in their lives.

To live in rightful knowledge of oneself - IMHO - is to courageously insist on Truth concerning oneself, as well as Truth concerning God. The opposite of that insistence is very common, and very popular! People love to tailor a god to fit their lifestyle, and to fabricate a self-image to suit their ego. Fiction is more popular than Truth, and thus the great danger of idolatries and of self-deceit. Rightful knowledge of God and rightful self-knowledge go together - to seek one is to seek the other; to avoid one is to avoid the other. Thus the first step in the journey to God is repentance: the denial of self-love for the sake of truthful pursuit of and love for God. In Him - denying ourselves - in Him we can find ourselves.
 
fide said:
The “greatest Commandment” is to love God with one’s whole being. Our love for others, including for ourselves, must be “in God” - within, that is, our primary love for God. To see others (including ourselves) with the “eyes” and “heart” of God is our calling. Thus, to mind one’s own business as a Christian is to be very concerned about “what other persons are doing in the world or spiritually”, because God does direct us to be concerned. We are our brother’s keeper, contrary to the mind of Cain, who killed his brother Abel out of jealousy.

Righteous love for others, and the desire to help them on the path to their own happiness, is no easy task. In most cases, the best way to love them is to pray for them to God, and to Mary their mother, that His holy will for their happiness and salvation be accomplished. And include in that prayer, your own intervention - if God would show you what His will is for you, in their lives.

To live in rightful knowledge of oneself - IMHO - is to courageously insist on Truth concerning oneself, as well as Truth concerning God. The opposite of that insistence is very common, and very popular! People love to tailor a god to fit their lifestyle, and to fabricate a self-image to suit their ego. Fiction is more popular than Truth, and thus the great danger of idolatries and of self-deceit. Rightful knowledge of God and rightful self-knowledge go together - to seek one is to seek the other; to avoid one is to avoid the other. Thus the first step in the journey to God is repentance: the denial of self-love for the sake of truthful pursuit of and love for God. In Him - denying ourselves - in Him we can find ourselves.
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Yes. Thanks for your help. I was meaning to say that there is a negative way to concern ourselves with things of the world and with others that neither helps our souls nor the souls of others. I will write more later when in my computer.

Thanks again for your insight. I will reflect on it some more.

Catherine also likes to repeat the phrase of ‘remaining within the cell of self - knowledge’. Is this the same, related, or similar?
 
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Would, for example, the spiritual exercises of St Ignatius, his general examen and personal examen be one of the ways of staying on the cell of self knowledge?
 
JamalChristophr said:
the knowledge of yourself
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Yes, she is refering to this same necessity, of remaining in the knowledge of the truth of oneself. A near-by passage makes this clearer, I think:
I have washed you, and re-created you in the Blood of My only-begotten Son, spilt with so great a fire of love. This Blood teaches the truth to him, who, by self-knowledge, dissipates the cloud of self-love, and in no other way can he learn.
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This is a truth to never forget: This Blood teaches the truth to him, who, by self-knowledge, dissipates the cloud of self-love, and in no other way can he learn.
 
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