Easter 2026 - Reading #9 - Piety
Reading
Saint Catherine of Siena, in her Dialogue with God the Father, records the voice of God speaking with astonishing directness about his love for his children: "I am He who is, and you are she who is not. If you know these two things, you will be blessed. I loved you before you came into being. I loved you unspeakably, much more than you can love yourself. I loved you without being loved by you, even before you existed. Out of the great love I have for you, I wish to grant you what you ask of me."
Catherine elsewhere writes: "You, eternal Trinity, are a deep sea, into which the more I enter, the more I find, and the more I find, the more I seek. The soul cannot be satiated in Your abyss, for she continually hungers after You, the eternal Trinity, desiring to see You with the light of Your light. As the deer desires the springs of living water, so my soul desires to leave the prison of this dark body and see You in truth."
Catherine's mysticism is never abstract, it is fiercely personal, saturated with the tenderness of a God who speaks as Father to daughter, as Lover to beloved. For Catherine, piety is not a mild religious sentiment but a consuming fire of intimacy with the divine.
Reflection
Ten days into Easter, Catherine of Siena brings the gift of piety to its most passionate expression. Here is a woman who received the stigmata, who counseled popes and rebuked cardinals, who fasted until her body could barely function, and yet her most characteristic note is not severity but tenderness. Her God is not a distant judge but a Father who says, "I loved you before you came into being."
Catherine reminds us that piety is not a tepid virtue. It is a fire. The intimacy between God and the soul, when the gift of piety is fully alive, is not polite or domesticated. It is the intimacy of a love affair, all-consuming, demanding, ecstatic, and costly. Catherine did not drift toward God; she burned toward him. And the fire was lit not by her own effort but by the gift of the Spirit, who took her natural capacity for love and elevated it to something supernatural.
In the context of our Easter journey, Catherine's passion is a corrective to any tendency to keep God at a comfortable distance. The fear of the Lord, rightly understood, does not create distance, it creates the conditions for a deeper intimacy. And piety rushes into that space with all the force of a soul that has discovered it is loved beyond measure. This week, do not settle for a polite relationship with God. Ask the Spirit for Catherine's fire. The God who raised Christ from the dead is not interested in being your acquaintance. He wants to be your Father, and he wants the relationship to be real, not a doctrinal abstraction but a lived, felt, daily communion that transforms everything it touches.