WHAT IT MEANS TO PRAY 'OUR FATHER' by St. Catherine of Siena
I want your security to be in Christ gentle Jesus. He has clothed us in the sturdiest garment there is, a garment of love, fastened with the clasp of free choice, so we can take it off or put it on as we wish. If we want to throw away this garment of charity we can, and if we want to keep it we can do that too. Just think! The very first garment we ever had was love, for it was only by love that we were created in God's image and likeness. So we cannot exist without love since we are made of nothing less than love. Whatever we have, physically or spiritually, we have because of love — for it is by love alone, with the help of God's grace, that a mother and father give their child existence (I mean bodily existence). This is why a son is so obligated to his father. Even more: because he loves him (by natural inclination), he cannot, if he is a true son, bear to see his father offended in any way. But look out when a son because of his selfishness comes to hate his father — such a son is not acting naturally; in his blindness he has gone against his own nature. . .
Our soul's natural bent is to love and follow our Father Creator, God eternal. For when we see that God created us out of love alone, we feel drawn to him and cannot bear to see him offended. We want to avenge such offense because of our love for our Father. This is why our soul is constantly wanting to punish the sensual part of us, the soul's mortal enemy. For anyone who follows this sensuality is dead with an eternal death; such person is crucifying Christ all over again — for you know that sin alone was the cause of his death. So a soul in love with God our high eternal Father wants to follow its own nature: love makes it lose itself; love makes it punish itself by striking out against false sensual passion and the devil, the world, and the flesh. It strikes them with the sword of hatred and of love — hatred and contempt for sin and love for virtue — by finding pleasure in what God loves and hating what God hates. Then our soul is giving the Father his due, following its nature and never going against it.
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