Hope

Saint Catherine

The letters of Saint Catherine

Oh Hope, sweet sister of faith, you are the one who with the keys of the blood desires eternal life, you look at the city of the soul from the enemy of confusion, you do not loose your steps because the devil with the gravity of the sins committed, he wants to confuse the soul to lead her to despair; but if virile persevere in virtue, placing the price of blood on the scales, you place the crown of victory over the head on perseverance, because you hoped to have it by virtue of blood.

You are the one that binds the devil of confusion with the rope of living faith, you respond to the subtle deception that he uses with the soul, to keep it in continual darkness and affliction. Sometimes the soul has confessed its defect clearly; the demon then, in order to impose his mind on her, and because he does not receive the fruit of confession with ardent heart, will have shown to the soul that she has not confessed his faults by saying: "You did not tell them all; and those you said, you did not show them the way you should have.

And many other cogitations and passions send into the soul. If then the soul does not rise with prudence and with hope, she remains in a lukewarm, in a tremor and trouble of mind, and in a darkness, binding the arms of the holy desire, trapping in the fusion; in a single word, the wearer of the loses herself of rejoicing and becomes unbearable to herself".

How does he have to repair so that he does not come to despair? There is no other way, if not with the light of the faith that makes conscientiously without malice to be observed to the conscience there is no poison of guilt in the soul that the confession can not expel. Yet he humbly confessed to having said those imperfect faults, that he had not made the fault worse than she should have; but this confession is seasoned with the hope of the blood of Christ, hoping that what is missing from him will be He who will complete it.

The other remedy is that by looking at what is ineffably loved by God; His love does not scorn the witness of good conscience, nor does it claim that in the soul it remains something that has been done in its offense. With this faith, love and hope, you are drowned in the mercy of God, talking to yourself, confessing with simplicity of heart; and do not worry more; leave the thought directed at yourself quiet, and think rather of the mercy of God who has received and receives continuously.

And in case the battle and the harassment of the devil return, if you throw them over your shoulders like grief, and if you put it before you for humiliation and self-knowledge, with the fruit of true and perfect hope; it is more pleasing to God that we hope in His support to pass in the way of the cross, than in any other way. And more abundantly will receive the fruit of the blood. This is the remedy, dear brother, who gives you eternal Truth against your infirmity.

Now we have seen what is the thing that takes away the light, and we have seen what faith does, how it breaks down pride and takes away presumption; and we have seen the fruit that gives faith, that is, hope.

I pray, and I cling to you for the love of Jesus Christ, that we can pass this stormy sea with such glorious light, with firm hope and true knowledge of us; throwing down our every will, opinion and pleasure, for true humility; trying to dress us real virtues in the doctrine of the crucified Christ. I am sure that by having the light of faith in you you will do all this, otherwise you will not be able to. I told you that I wished to see in you this sweet light; and so I pray you do not worry about having it in you. Think that God is more ready to forgive, than you are to sin. Hope and be faithful to the blood and to the holy Church, and to the supreme pontiff Pope Urban VI. Jesus is love.