St Catherine

A friend showed me today these words from Catherine of Siena:

“The soul can only love me in truth, and in the same truth it serves its neighbour.

And it cannot be otherwise, because love of me and of one’s neighbour are one and the same thing; and, so far as the soul loves me, it loves its neighbour, because love towards one’s neighbour issues from me.

This is the means I have given you, so that you may exercise and prove your virtue; because inasmuch as you can do me no profit, you should do good to your neighbour.”

They portray sharply that we can do nothing practically useful to God save possibly our attitude to our neighbour.