Saint Catherine of Siena and the Gentle Light of Eucharistic Wisdom

Excerpts from Jesse J. Maingot OP, THE BREAD OF ANGELS: A SAPIENTIAL REREADING OF EUCHARISTIC THEOLOGY (Tesina) Rome: Angelicum 2023.

For the great 14th century Dominican mystic and Doctor of the Church, St. Catherine of Siena, the Eucharist is the Wisdom-Son of the Father who comes into the soul in Holy Communion illuminating it with his own light of wisdom. We truly eat the Truth from the hands of the priest. In her Dialogue there are numerous texts in which God the Father speaks to her of the graced sapiential effects of the Eucharist upon the soul with the recurrent theme of Christ as Wisdom and Light of the Father. On speaking of the Eucharist, the Father conveys its sapiential dimension to St. Catherine:

Nothing can contaminate or divide the gentle light in this sacrament. Its brightness is never diminished and it never strays from its orbit though the whole world shares in the light and heat of this Sun. So this Word, this Sun, my only-begotten Son, never strays from me, the eternal Sun and Father. In the mystic body of holy Church he is administered to everyone who will receive him....Though all the world should ask for his light, all would have it whole, and whole it would remain.¹

What is this ‘light and heat of this Sun’ if not a participation in the Wisdom and Love of the Father? Here the Father is clearly teaching St. Catherine of the effects the Eucharist has upon the mind and will of the believer. In another passage, the Father explains the meaning of the ‘light and heat’ infused by Holy Communion. The Father describes the ‘light’ in regards to the Wisdom of the Son and the ‘heat’ in regards to the Holy Spirit. The Father says to her:

I am that Sun, God eternal, whence proceed the Son and the Holy Spirit. To the Holy Spirit is appropriated fire, and to the Son, wis- dom. And in that wisdom my ministers receive a gracious light for administering this light with lightsome gratitude for the blessing they received from me the eternal Father when they followed the teaching of this Wisdom, my only-begotten Son. This light has in it the color of your humanity, the one united with the other....The person of the Incarnated Word was penetrated and kneaded into one dough with the light of my Godhead, the divine nature, and with the heat and fire of the Holy Spirit, and by this means you have to receive the light. And to whom have I entrusted it? To my ministers in the mystic body of Holy Church, so that you might have life when they give you his body as food and his blood as drink. I have said this body of his is a sun. ²

To think of the Eucharist as St. Catherine’s image of the sun is a powerful image to highlight the illuminating radiance of the grace Jesus brings to souls who receive him in the Eucharist. When the priest bestows the Eucharist in Holy Communion, he holds in his hands he who is even brighter than the sun, he holds the Creator himself, he holds Wisdom himself, the true Image of the Eternal Sun. The priest truly enlightens the people of God by feeding them with the Eucharistic Christ. At his hands the faithful eat the sacred mysteries of Fire and Light.

What is also striking in this quote is the Father’s holding in unity the priestly ministry of the divine light through the sacrament of the Eucharist and through the ministry of preaching the wisdom of God revealed in the ‘doctrine of the Eternal Wisdom.’ For St. Thomas this brings us to the heart of Christ’s priesthood. St. Thomas teaches us that the New Testament priesthood, like the Old Testament priesthood, has for its “primary function” the transmittance “of the truth, for there can be no true spiritual sacrifice except where there is communion in the truth.”³

An Inherent Unity

There is an inherent unity in teaching the truth of God’s wisdom and receiving it in the sacrament of the Eucharist. Within this unity we can speak of the primacy of preaching God’s word for the sake of drawing souls towards the sacraments and a participation in the mystery of God communicated therein. In this sense, it is “more essential to communicate the Word of God than to baptize.”⁴

When it comes to the Eucharistic celebration the communication of divine wisdom in the preaching of God’s word makes “the Christian assembly a communion in Wisdom in the celebration of the Eucharist.”⁵ Thus, it is why the liturgy of the word in the Mass precedes the liturgy of the Eucharist so that having received the word in faith one can hunger for the intimacy of the Word of God in Holy Communion. The ministry of communicating divine wisdom in preaching prepares disciples for the more intimate and efficacious reception of divine wisdom in the Eucharist.

This theme of the inseparability and unity of the word of God and the Eucharist is present in Vatican II’s Dei Verbum and Pope Benedict’s XVI’S Sacramentum Caritatis and Verbum Domini.⁶ These themes highlight the sapiential dimension of the Eucharist. The Eucharist as a mystery of divine light comes easily to the fore. It is why the Father can say to St. Catherine about his priests that it is “the Sun I have given them to administer.”⁷

In another stunning text, God the Father speaks to St. Catherine in no uncertain words about the way the Eucharist illuminates the soul with the heavenly wisdom of Christ:

Dearest daughter, contemplate the marvelous state of the soul who receives this bread of life, this food of angels, as she ought. When she receives this sacrament she lives in me and I in her. Just as the fish is in the sea and the sea in the fish, so am I in the soul and the soul in me, the sea of peace. Grace lives in such a soul because, having received this bread of life in grace, she lives in grace. When this appearance of bread has been consumed, I leave behind the imprint of my grace, just as a seal that is pressed into warm wax leaves its imprint when it is lifted off. Thus does the power of this sacrament remain there in the soul; that is, the warmth of my divine charity, the mercy of the Holy Spirit, remains there. The light of my only-begotten Son’s wisdom remains there, enlightening the mind’s eye.⁸

St. Catherine’s writings indicate that she experienced an increase in wisdom and love through her devotion to the Eucharist. This quote is particularly poignant because it highlights the sapiential impact of the Eucharistic grace on the ‘mind’s eye.’ Receiving the Eucharist is truly a food by which we grow in wisdom.

Sin as a Obstacle to Eucharistic Wisdom

The problem of sin and the wisdom of the Eucharist is also a concern of St. Catherine. As long as the heart and mind are open to receive the Eucharist, they grow in wisdom. Sin, however, can impede this growth. The Father tells St. Catherine the key is to approach the sacrament with a lively and burning desire:

It is with this love that you come to receive my gracious glorious light, the light I have given you as food, to be administered to you by my ministers. But even though all of you receive the light, each of you receives it in proportion to the love and burning desire you bring with you. It is just like the example I gave you of the people whose candles received the flame according to their weight. Each of you carries the light whole and undivided, for it cannot be divided by any imperfection in you who receive it or in those who administer it. You share as much of the light as your holy desire disposes you to receive... If the soul is not disposed as she should be for so great a mystery, this true light will not graciously remain in her but will depart, leaving her more confounded, more darksome, and more deeply in sin.⁹

If we want to be illuminated and enkindled with the light of the Eucharist our preparation and desire for the sacrament is essential. We ought to ask the Lord for a burning desire in order to profit the many graces of wisdom and love that the Eucharistic Lord wishes to bestow upon us. As the Father says: “How is this sacrament tasted? With holy desire. The body tastes only the flavor of bread, but the soul tastes, me, God and human.”¹⁰

St. Thomas and the Receptivity of the Soul

In a text by St. Thomas, he quotes St. Damascene employing provocative imagery of fire and a burning coal to allude to the effects of the Eucharist. What is interesting is the stark reference to the sapiential effect of the Eucharist upon the heart. This text is also of particular importance because St. Thomas makes clear that the fruits of the Eucharist can be impeded by sin which in turn affects the soul’s receptivity of the sacrament. He writes:

Damascene says (De Fide Orth. iv): “The fire of that desire which is within us, being kindled by the burning coal,” i.e. this sacrament, “will consume our sins, and enlighten our hearts, so that we shall be inflamed and made godlike.” But the fire of our desire or love is hindered by venial sins, which hinder the fervor of charity.¹¹

St. Thomas invites us to reflect on the relationship between the way we live our lives and our ability to receive the graces of the Eucharist. One cannot expect to profit much from Holy Communion if one has not opted to conform one’s life to the gospel and the Lord’s commandments. A lack of preparation for Holy Communion extends not only to the minutes before and after Mass but to our whole lives. If one wants to eat Wisdom himself and be made wise and loving by him, a firm will set against venial sin is an important and necessary condition.

The Virgin Mary as Maternal Help against Sin

For help in our struggle against sin as we prepare for Holy Communion, we can turn to our Blessed Mother Mary for her intercession and aid. We can implore her to help us have a heart like hers, a heart like rich soil for the Word. Mary, our Heavenly Mother, is the model par excellence of a heart totally receptive to Christ. In her there were no obstacles to grace. What must have her Holy Communions with her son been like? Lawerence Feingold notes in his important text on the Eucharist that “the aspect of spiritual nourishment of the Eucharist is exemplified in Mary as the person in whom the life-giving power of the Eucharist reached its apex”: Mary never placed any obstruction “to grace.”¹²

Mary is therefore our model of Holy Communion because of “the perfection of her disposition of love and yearning for the fullest union with her Son.”¹³ Through every Holy Communion Mary herself would “have grown in grace” and “in an unparalleled way, as she received the Son whom she had nurtured in her womb and accompanied to Calvary.”¹⁴ As a result, Mary’s complete openness and receptivity to the Word to the point of the Incarnation is no doubt the doctrinal basis for her title as the Seat of Wisdom. Since she is “full of grace” (Lk 1:28) the Blessed Mother is full of the Eternal Light. Her heart and mind radiate with the gift of wisdom in a most singular way. We can apply all the effects of the gift of wisdom to Mary in the fullest extent. She teaches us how to profit from the gifts of grace from the Eucharistic Lord.

Adoration in the School of Mary

One of the ways Mary can also teach us to profit from our Eucharistic Lord is with the practice of Eucharistic adoration. There has never been a more perfect adorer of Christ than Mary. When speaking of obstacles to the effects of the Eucharist, Eucharistic adoration outside of Mass is a very important means to make the time of Holy Communion fruitful. Adoration can help us profit the graces of the Eucharist. The practice of “worship of the Eucharist outside of the Mass is of inestimable value for the life of the Church.”¹⁵

In learning to adore the body of Christ we can better be prepared to receive him in Holy Communion. It is the experience of Christian prayer in adoration that intensifies our desire for the Lord which opens the heart more deeply to receive him and his graces. Adoration, therefore, is not opposed to receiving Holy Communion: “communion only reaches its true depths when it is supported and surrounded by adoration.”¹⁶ Hence, Eucharistic adoration is a “guaranteed path for making our participation in Mass, and our entire lives, more fruitful in every way.”¹⁷ Pope Benedict XVI writing on the relationship between adoration and communion says:

Eucharistic Adoration is an essential way of being with the Lord....In the sacred Host, he is present, the true treasure, always waiting for us. Only by adoring this presence do we learn how to receive him properly—we learn the reality of communion, we learn the Eucharistic celebration from the inside...Let us love being with the Lord! ¹⁸

In a similar vein, in Sacramentum Caritatis, Pope Beneditct XVI notes the “intrinsic relationship between eucharistic celebration and eucharistic adoration.”¹⁹ The Pope underlines the fundamental importance of adoration and its intensifying and prolonging effect of the Eucharistic celebration:

As Saint Augustine put it: “nemo autem illam carnem manducat, nisi prius adoraverit; peccemus non adorando – no one eats that flesh without first adoring it; we should sin were we not to adore it.” In the Eucharist, the Son of God comes to meet us and desires to become one with us; eucharistic adoration is simply the natural consequence of the eucharistic celebration, which is itself the Church's supreme act of adoration. Receiving the Eucharist means adoring him whom we receive.... The act of adoration outside Mass pro- longs and intensifies all that takes place during the liturgical celebration itself. Indeed, “only in adoration can a profound and genuine reception mature.²⁰

Notice Pope Benedict’s words that Eucharistic adoration ‘prolongs and intensifies what hap- pens in the liturgical celebration.’ These magisterial words constitute a key to unlocking a solid doctrinal understanding of the fruits of Eucharistic adoration as an extension of the fruits of Holy Communion. This notion had already appeared in the magisterium of Pope St. John Paul II. In Ecclesia de Eucharistia St. John Paul II is explicit:

The Eucharist is a priceless treasure: by not only celebrating it but also by praying before it outside of Mass we are enabled to make contact with the very wellspring of grace. A Christian community desirous of contemplating the face of Christ...cannot fail also to develop this aspect of Eucharistic worship, which prolongs and in- creases the fruits of our communion in the body and blood of the Lord. ²¹

The magisterium beckons us to take seriously the practice of Eucharistic adoration as a true contact with the ‘wellspring of grace.’ Adoring the Lord is a veritable and preeminent means of receiving and increasing the many gifts and graces he bestows on us in Holy Communion. We could say adoration is truly a form of spiritual eating, it is a real spiritual communion with the Lord. Ratzinger writes:

Eating it— as we have just said is a Spiritual process, involving the whole man. “Eating” it means worshipping it. Eating it means letting it come into me, so that my “I” is transformed and opens up into the great “we”, so that we become “one” in him (cf. Gal 3:16). Thus adoration is not opposed to Communion, nor is it merely added to it.²²

The consequence of these teachings has significant import for our purposes in this current work: like Holy Communion, Eucharistic adoration is a rich source of sanctifying grace increasing in the soul. If Eucharistic adoration intensifies, prolongs, and matures the fruits of Holy Communion, we can conclude that praying in Eucharistic adoration with the right dispositions of heart ought to help us to grow in charity which in turn causes us to grow in the Holy Spirit gift of wisdom’s mystical enlightenment.

Eucharistic Adoration as a Bath of Light

Connecting these beautiful mysteries helps one to see Eucharistic adoration as a real interior bath of light. It gently floods the soul with meaning and love. A recently canonized Saint, St. Manuel Garcia, no doubt from his own experience born from the gift of wisdom in adoration, tells us in realist terms that the Eucharistic Jesus still speaks to the attentive soul in adoration:

Here is a question that will perplex many Christians and probably even a few pious people too. What does Jesus do and say [From the tabernacle]? Have we ever considered the fact that there is Someone who speaks and works with power hidden in the tabernacle?....I would be very happy if Christians who read these words arise determined to go to the tabernacle to see what is done and to hear what is said there by the most good and constant of lovers....I tell you that there is no place on earth with activity more fruitful than that which is done in the tabernacle. It is not for the eye or the ear of the flesh to perceive these things, but for the ear and eye of the soul.²³

What does the Eucharistic Lord speak if not words of light and grace. It baths us in a gentle light. Afterall, the Eucharistic Christ is “full of grace and truth” (Jn. 1:14).

1. Catherine of Siena, The Dialogue, trans. Suzanne Nofolk, O.P. (New York: Paulist Press, 1980), 209

2. Ibid., 206

3. Le Guillou o.p., M. J., Christ and Church: A Theology of The Mystery, trans. Charles E. Schal- denbrand (New York: Desclee Company, 1966), 286

4. Ibid., 287

5. Ibid., 285

6. See Dei Verbum, 21, Sacramentum Caritatis, 22 and Verbum Domini, 54

7. St. Catherine of Siena, 206

8. Ibid., 211

9. Ibid., 210-211

10. Ibid., 211

11. ST III q.79 a.8

12. Feingold, The Eucharist, Mystery of Presence, Sacrifice and Communion (Steubenville, Emmaus Academic, 2018), 31

13. Ibid.

14. Ibid.

15. Ecclesia de Eucharistia, 25

16. Joseph Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy, 91

17. Kwasniewski, The Holy Bread of Eternal Life: Restoring Eucharistic Reverence in an Age of Impiety (Manchester: Sophia Institute Press, 2020), 161

18. Pope Benedict XVI, Homily at Marian Vespers With Religious and Seminarians of Bavaria, St. Anne’s Basilica, Altötting, 11th September, 2006, Holy See, https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/homilies/2006/docu- ments/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20060911_vespers-altotting.html

19. Sacramentum Caritatis, 66

20. Ibid.

21. Ecclesia de Eucharistia, 25

22. Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy, trans. John Saward (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000), 90

23. St. Manuel Gonzalez Garcia, The Bishop of the Abandoned Tabernacle, Selected Writings, compiled and translated by Victoria G. Schneider, ed. Sean Davidson, M.S.E., (New York: Scepter, 2018), 45-48