We are beginning an 8 week study on the life and times of St. Catherine of Siena this Tuesday 5th October @7pm-8:15pm via Zoom. If you are interested in joining us, please let us know and we can send you more information.
This study begins with this sentence: “In 1347, Saint Catherine of Siena was born into a dying world.”
In our own day, Pope Francis has said that “what we are experiencing is not simply an epoch of changes, but an epochal change” echoing his predecessor Pope Benedict when he observed that “our century is characterized by an entirely new phenomenon: the appearance of people incapable of relating to God.”
There was a time and a place, namely Christendom, when Faith was the starting point for an entire culture. During that time we weren’t the “different” ones. But now we are no longer the norm. A Christian worldview is not what captures the imagination of our current culture.
For this reason, despite the vestiges of a Christian influence, we are once again in apostolic territory and this demands an attention beyond what has often been called “institutional maintenance.” Our times do not call for business as usual. Not in the Church and certainly not in the world. If ever there was a saint to help us in these difficult times, it is St. Catherine, because she too was called to be a saint and an agent of renewal in a culture that was dying.
St. Catherine of Siena, pray for us.
Mountain of Praise Ballarat 