Easter 2026 - Reading #24 - Fortitude | Catholic Daily Reflection

Saint Catherine of Siena, in her Dialogue, records the Father's words about the fortitude his Spirit gives: "Do you know how I show My providence to My servants who trust in Me? In two ways. I sometimes provide for them through human means, which seem to happen in the course of nature. At other times I provide in a way that goes beyond the ordinary course of nature, so that they may the more clearly see that it is I who provide. Do not be afraid, for I am with you. I am a father who never abandons his children."

Catherine herself demonstrated extraordinary fortitude: she wrote to popes with breathtaking directness, traveled to Avignon to demand the papacy's return to Rome, mediated between warring factions, and accepted suffering with a joy that astonished and sometimes alarmed those around her. She wrote: "Nothing great is ever achieved without much enduring. The soul must be ready to be broken to pieces if necessary, out of love for God."

For Catherine, fortitude was not a grim endurance but a passionate embrace of whatever God's will required. It was love expressed as willingness to suffer, not because suffering is good, but because the One for whom we suffer is infinitely good.

Twenty-five days into Easter, Catherine of Siena shows us fortitude fueled by love rather than mere willpower. "Nothing great is ever achieved without much enduring." This is the testimony of a woman who accomplished more in thirty-three years than most people accomplish in a lifetime, not through political power or institutional authority, but through the sheer force of a soul animated by the Holy Spirit.

Catherine's fortitude was not the stoic endurance of someone who has suppressed their feelings. It was the passionate endurance of someone so in love with God that no cost was too high. This is the crucial distinction between the natural virtue of fortitude (which Lent cultivated) and the gift of fortitude (which the Easter season bestows). The natural virtue says: this is hard, but I will endure it because duty requires it. The supernatural gift says: this is hard, but I will endure it because love demands it and the Spirit empowers it. The first can last for a time. The second can last forever.

We are now past the midpoint of our Easter journey, and the gifts are accumulating: awe, intimacy, clarity, and now strength. The person being formed by these gifts is not a stoic or a hero of willpower. It is someone whose awe before God (fear of the Lord) has opened into intimate relationship (piety), whose intimate relationship has produced clear sight (knowledge), and whose clear sight now demands the strength to act on what is seen (fortitude). Each gift builds on the last. Today, ask the Spirit to give you Catherine's kind of fortitude, not the grim-jawed endurance of obligation, but the radiant, passionate, almost reckless courage of a soul on fire with love.

Walk this season with us.