Lay Cistercians of Gethsemani Abbey

Vigils Reading - St Catherine of Siena
2024-04-29
THE TRUE WORKERS
From “The Dialogues” of St Catherine of Siena2
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Do you know what course I follow, once my servants have completely
given themselves to the teaching of the Gentle loving Word? I prune them, so
that they will bear much fruit – cultivated fruit, not wild. Just as the gardener
prunes the branch that is joined to the vine so that it yield more and better wine,
but cuts off and throws into the fire the branch that is barren, so do I the true
gardener act. When my servants remain united to me I prune them with great
suffering so that they will bear more and better fruit, and virtue will be proved
in them. But those who bear no fruit are cut off and thrown into the fire.
These are the true workers. They till their souls well, uprooting every
selfish love, cultivating the soil of their love in me. They feed and tend the
growth of the seed of grace that they have received in holy baptism. And as they
till their own vineyards, so they till their neighbor’s as well, for they cannot do
the one without the other. You already know that every evil as well as every good
is done by means of your neighbors.
You, then, are my workers. You have come from me, the supreme eternal
gardener, and I have engrafted you onto the vine by making myself one with
you. Keep in mind that each of you has your own vineyard. But everyone is
joined to your neighbor’s vineyards without any dividing lines. They are so
joined together, in fact, that you cannot do good or evil for yourself without
doing the same for your neighbors.
All of you together make up one common vineyard, the whole Christian
assembly, and you are all united in the vineyard of the mystic body of holy
Church from which you draw your life. In this vineyard is planted the vine,
which is my only-begotten Son, into whom you must be engrafted. Unless you
are engrafted into him you are rebels against holy Church, like members that
are cut off from the body and rot.
It is true that while you have time you can get yourselves out of the stench
of sin through true repentance and recourse to my ministers. They are the
workers who have the keys to the wine cellar, that is, the blood poured forth
from this vine. (And this blood is so perfect in itself that it cannot be deprived
of its benefits through any fault in the minister.)
It is charity that binds you to true humility – the humility that is found in
knowing yourself and me. See, then, that it is as workers that I have sent you
all. And now I am calling you again, because the world is failing fast. The thorns
have so multiplied and choked the seed so badly that it will produce no fruit of
grace at all. I want you, therefore, to be true workers. With deep concern help
to till the souls in the mystic body of holy Church. I am calling you to do this
because I want to be merciful to the world as you have so earnestly begged me.

2 Catherine of Siena – The Dialogue – The Classics of Western Spirituality – Paulist Press – New York – 1980 – pg
24.5
