Homily for the Memorial of St. Catherine of Siena

In our gospel today, Jesus says point blank: “Whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”

On the surface, this seems to totally contradict today’s saint — St. Catherine of Siena — whose words we find in the Office of Readings: “I can never be satisfied,” she cries out. “What I receive will ever leave me desiring more. When you fill my soul I have an even greater hunger, and I grow more famished for your light.”

If Jesus really is our soul’s absolute deepest satisfaction —  if “whoever comes to him will never hunger” — then how can Catherine say she “can never be satisfied?”

This seems to be a central mystery to the life of a disciple. And both realities must be held closely in tension.

Christ’s promise that if we come to him, we would never to be hungry again is certainly NOT a guarantee for a well-contented, full belly — a bloated and comfortable spiritual-food-coma. He made that much clear when he dismissed the crowds just prior to the passage we heard this morning from John Chapter 6. There he rebuked them saying: “You seek Me not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.”

They had received temporary relief — they had enjoyed an afternoon of contentment. And now they’re back for more — but how hollow their desire. How quickly sated it is!

If you ever believe you’ve “had enough” of God… then that’s NOT God you’ve been feasting on. Or worse — perhaps you’ve lost the taste for Him?

There’s always more to the Lord. There’s always some new facet to His love that ought to astonish us. Amaze us. Confound us. Drive us into a sort of madly joyful adventure — the relentless human quest to rush out and meet the One who has been seeking us in Love this entire time. As CS Lewis described it so well: We are to “come further up and further in!” There’s always more to unfold and discover. That is a labor of the greatest of loves — a love that is both satisfied and eternally on fire with desire! 

“Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life!”

We return to this altar each day, brothers — not because the accidents of bread have been digested and we need our stomachs filled again. Rather, we come again and again to the Altar of the Lord’s Once-for-all Sacrifice because we have tasted His Infinity, and so we eagerly desire to come further up and further into His Heart — His beating love. It is a love that we can never drain.

In this moment of history when the vast majority of devout Catholics are simply unable to receive the spiritual food we are receiving on a daily basis, it’s even more important for us to implore the Holy Spirit not to let our desire for the Lord in the Eucharist grow cold. 

Through the intercession of St. Catherine of Siena, may our participation in today’s banquet of the Lord’s grace leave us absolutely famished for more.