The Great Magdalens: Famous Women Who Returned to God after Lives of Sin by Hugh Francis Blunt

Author:Hugh Francis Blunt [Blunt, Hugh Francis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: TAN Books
Published: 2016-04-03T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

CATALINA DE CARDONA, "THE SINNER"

THERE never was a finer judge of character, spiritual or secular, in the world or out of it, than St. Teresa of Avila. Praise from her is praise indeed. So that when you find her with her great common sense, her sense of humor and her realization of the weakness of human nature, growing enthusiastic over anybody, you may be sure that the object of her admiration is quite out of the ordinary. And surely she is enthusiastic to a great degree over the remarkable penitent, Catalina de Cardona, who is recognized as one of the glories of her age. To call Catalina a penitent is something of a misnomer, just as it was a misnomer for her to call herself "The Sinner." It was just that same humility that made Teresa consider herself the greatest sinner that ever lived when we know that she never sullied her baptismal innocence. Saints regard the slightest imperfections with a horror that makes the rest of us tremble. They regard themselves as sinners, hence their lives of heroic penance; hence, too, their delight, as in the case of St. Teresa, in meditating on the lives of those who once had been great sinners and who had been converted even unto sanctity. There is a very striking passage in the life of Mary Queen of Scots, the guilt or innocence of whose life seems fated never to be settled until the day of judgment, although her death had all the characteristics of martyrdom for the faith. During the night before her execution she searched in the Lives of the Saints, which her ladies were accustomed to read to her, for the story of some great sinner whom God had pardoned. She stopped at the story of the penitent thief which Jean Kennedy was reading to her, and declared that it was the most reassuring example of human confidence and Divine mercy. "He was a great sinner," she said, "but not so great as I. I implore Our Lord in memory of His Passion to remember and have mercy upon me as He had upon him in the hour of death."

And St. Teresa, who had never been a great sinner, found as her favorite among all the saints none other than Mary Magdalen. "I had a very great devotion," she writes, "to the glorious Magdalen, and very frequently used to think of her conversion, especially when I went to Communion. I used to recommend myself to that glorious saint, that she might obtain me pardon." And again: "On the feast of the Magdalen, when thinking of the great love I am bound to have for Our Lord, according to the words He spoke to me in reference to this saint, and having great desires to imitate her, Our Lord was very gracious to me and said I was to be henceforth strong." Sinner that she believed herself to be, she yearned to give herself to a life of the most austere penance.

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