December 19th

The Transfiguration

So we're back to the Mystery which gave me this idea.

I mentioned my name, Katherine, in conjunction with this Mystery last time and my recent reconciliation with St. Catherine of Siena as my name saint. This summer I learned her life story, and I was quite impressed. I had read about her in saint books before, of course, but somehow it never really sank in until I took the class Saints, Witches and Madwomen - which covered visionaries, the witch trials and the over-commitment of women to madhouses as historical phenomena.

I had always preferred St. Catherine of Alexandria - a queen with an exciting story with the Wheel and everything. St. Catherine of Siena wasn't even really a martyr (apparently hunger strikes don't count when you're a kid), though I can't for the life of me figure out why her being the only woman to be declared of Doctor of the Church didn't impress me until now.

For one thing, she was quite devoted to St. Catherine of Alexandria herself, so I feel grandmothered in to Alexandria with Siena. But really - her story totally wowed me. The twenty-third child of a fisherman and his wife (no idea how many of the siblings survived or if more came after) whose family was incredibly, even heroically, tolerant of her giving away of family possessions to the poor. They had arranged a marriage for her when she declared that she had made a vow to be a nun three years back (I think it was) - upon hearing this, they simply asked why she hadn't just told them that. She even spent three years locked in her room communing with God, becoming/being a visionary.

She was apparently happy that way and said more than once that all she had wanted was to remain so. But she was called to leave the room and become a determined warrior in Church politics. She mostly wrote letters, but my favorite thing she did was walk right into the papal palace at Avignon in all of its luxury and corruption to tell the pope that he had to leave this worldly palace to return to Rome (where a hefty population of city and Church wanted to kill him). And he did. (He died just after doing so and the Schism was the result of the election of a new pope but that doesn't make what he or she did any less impressive.)

Much like she had had to leave the place that was as close to heaven as Earth could bring her to go out into the world and try to help the situation. How successful the pope's return or her letters and eventual hunger strike to end the Schism (she died before it was resolved) were would take a more thorough knowledge of Church history and politics than I have the patience to acquire - especially since it would no doubt boil down to a matter of opinion at some point in any rate.

I actually considered going back and deleting the mentions of how the pope coming back didn't quite work out (and her unsuccessful hunger strike), but I think it's an important part of what I want to say today. An important step in the spiritual journey is the fulfillment of the promise, like that made to Simeon that He would see the Son of God before his death. The glorious revelation, the direct contact with divinity at the top of the mountain. The fire of pure Holy Spirit. However it manifests itself, that blissful moment of faith as a given, hope much the same and love overwhelming all. We could stay there forever.

Most of us don't get to.

Much of my life I feel has been spent in fear of such a moment. A really, really stupid fear, I know. I'm afraid of getting stuck - of getting caught and losing my will to return. Because I love this world, this life. In all its wonderful bright colors and crazy people and radical changes of weather. Because I want to continue moving and acting in this world - and not only because I want to do good in it. I don't know if that is what has held me back from it or if God simply knows that I am not ready or meant for such a thing.

Because all of my life I've been afraid of two things: going or being accused of being crazy and of being called to be a prophet. Because I want to move and work in the world. Because I love it down here.

I really shouldn't worry. We're all asked to come down the mountain eventually. To walk out of the room after divine ecstasy for three years and then go out and make a difference in the world. And down here, it's never as simple as it was on the higher plane. You are not given the worldly proof that your actions and sacrifices were worthwhile. Everything is murky and covered in politics compared to up there.

Maybe it's simple from up there - the view. Maybe it's more complicated but still more glorious. Maybe someday I'll find out.

But perhaps I've written so much about this Mystery - scoffed at Peter for wanting to stay up on the mountain forever and dwelled so much on how we must come down - because my great sin is that I love the world and choose it over growing closer to God. Especially silly because I really needn't fear: it always ends. We are always asked to rejoin the world.

It is the most beautiful and perhaps the hardest step we have to take in our faith journey - and perhaps for different people "the hard part" is different. For St. Catherine of Siena it was probably that first step out of the room where she touched bliss after three years. For me, it would be the first few days in the room.