Praedicatores misericordiae (III): Saint Catherine de Ricci


Saint Catherine of Ricci (1522 - 1590) was a Dominican nun in a monastery in Florence, Italy. She was known for her good common sense, her joy and her devotion to the love and mercy of God revealed in Christ's passion.
In the Order, she is revered as patron saint of novice directors, as she herself was a strict and serious, yet merciful mistress of novices.
In the Dominican calendar, she is commemorated on 4 February, in the general calendar on the 13th.

We propose an excerpt of one of her letters as a meditation for Lent and Passiontide:


Now, my child, we are celebrating a season when running and enduring are more necessary than we are accustomed to. For when we consider the depth of the mystery of redemption presented to us during these days, how much more should we not endure and persevere!
First of all we see the mercy that conquered justice and that, acting as an intercessor with the eternal Father, induced God to send the only-begotten Son and clothe him in human flesh for our salvation. All the while we were unaware of this blessing. It drew God down from the heights to the earth, enclosing in a virgin's womb him "whom the heavens cannot contain." The omnipotent God became an infant susceptible to all human miseries: the immortal and immutable one became both mortal and mutable; the divine one became human; the most wise one became, so to speak, foolish before others; the Lord whom angels serve became a slave of human beings. 


(From a letter written by Saint Catherine de' Ricci on Palm Sunday, April 18, 1554, to Bonaccorso Bonaccorsi of Florence.)