28 November 1991
Farafangana, Madagascar

My dear Sisters and Confreres,

When I raise my eyes from my desk in Rome and look across at the book shelves in my room, there stand the two rather large volumes of the definitive biography of Saint Catherine, written by Father René Laurentin. The first volume, giving the text, comprises almost four hundred pages, and the second volume, giving us the footnotes to the text, has more than six hundred pages. One thing is certain, neither Catherine herself nor those who lived with her ever dreamt that such a lengthy and scientific biography could have been written about such a simple Daughter of Charity, who lived her life "hidden with Christ in God." (Col 3:3). Two other certainties present themselves to us from a study of this definitive biography: first, the authenticity of the apparitions of Our Lady to St. Catherine and, second, the authenticity of St. Catherine's own sanctity.

Today we are thinking about St. Catherine and her sanctity. Father Laurentin, commenting on the sanctity of St. Catherine at the end of his work, states that it all could be summed up in this phrase: "God in everything," and also "everything in God" and "everything for God." After St. Catherine's death, one of her superiors remarked that Catherine frequently, at the Community confession of faults, accused herself of failing to perform those acts which recalled to her the Presence of God. Catherine not only saw God in everything, but everything in God. That program of sanctity was not of Catherine's own making. It was another expression of that fundamental virtue which St. Vincent recommends to both his Communities, the virtue of simplicity, the virtue which enables us to act always, as St. Vincent expressed it, "with God alone in view." I think it is important for us all to remind ourselves that it was not seeing Our Lady with her physical eyes that made Catherine a saint. Rather, it was seeing God with her spiritual eyes that brought her to the heights of holiness. Catherine, to quote one of her companions who was later to become Mother General, showed that "her pure and limpid gaze looked only to God."

It was during the month of November 1876 that Catherine made her last retreat, just a few weeks before her death. As she made her retreat in the Chapel of the rue du Bac, she had hardly need of a preacher. She would have looked at the altar and recalled what Our Lady had said to her forty-six years earlier: "You will have much to suffer, but come to the altar. There you will receive all the graces you need." "You will have much to suffer...." She had. There were misunderstandings in her life as there are in the lives of all of us. There was the Sister Servant who felt urged to humiliate Sister Catherine, and she noticed that the characteristic reaction of Catherine was to bite her lips and be silent in order that one word might not borrow another in anger. She had learned, like Jesus, to give "no answer, not even to a single charge." (Mt 27:40). Talking of biting lips, St. Catherine must have had to bite them on other occasions as well so that she could keep her secret. For forty-four years St. Catherine kept her secret, and that called for much silence and self-control. When Pius XI beatified Sister Catherine in 1933, he remarked: "We know of no more striking example of the hidden life than that of this soul of whom everyone was speaking during her lifetime for such a number of years, but who remained in the shade, hidden."

On this feast of St. Catherine when we think of the Daughters of Charity throughout the world who find in St. Catherine's life much inspiration, I would like to quote the encouraging words of Pope John Paul II in his recent encyclical on the missions. He wrote:

I extend a special word of appreciation to the missionary Religious Sisters, in whom virginity for the sake of the Kingdom is transformed into a motherhood in the spirit that is rich and fruitful. It is precisely the mission ad gentes that offers them vast scope for 'the gift of self with love in a total and undivided manner.' (Mulieris Dignitatem, p20). The example and activity of women who through virginity are consecrated to love of God and neighbor, especially the very poor, are an indispensable evangelical sign among those peoples and cultures where women still have far to go on the way towards human promotion and liberation. It is my hope that many young Christian women will be attracted to giving themselves generously to Christ, and will draw strength and joy from their consecration in order to bear witness to him among the peoples who do not know him." (Redemptoris Missio, p70).