My Sister, My Guide

We don't own a lot of books, we're more of a minimalist family, so when I found myself standing in front of our bookshelf in 2018, looking for something to grab off the shelf, for what purpose I don't remember, I had a fairly good idea of what was on offer. The book I grabbed took me by surprise. I had probably purchased it during one of those lonely months of my first two years of college. 

Attending an enormous party school and living in dorms with people who lived for Thursday night - if you know, you know -  I found myself at the not-very-local Catholic bookstore on a number of occasions simply because it felt like a respite from the toxic air I breathed on campus. During that season I purchased a number of books that I never read, intending to someday... I had cracked this one open a few times before married life, but not since. It had felt opaque but important so it stayed with us, relegated to a dusty existence on the shelf.

The Dialogue of St. Catherine of Siena. She was a saint with whom I was familiar and already considered a personal favorite if not yet a friend; one of my daughters bears hers as a middle name, and as a nurse myself, I felt a kinship to her active life of caring for the sick in the midst of plague-ridden Europe. ...but I had only ever managed to read others' descriptions of her life and writings, never her own. This text is her narration to a scribe, describing conversations - dialogues - she had with God the Father. I opened it again and began to read, and this time what was formerly opaque was easy, captivating, and relatable. It was the first non-Biblical text I'd ever read meditatively but thirstily, underlining so much that I had to stop the practice because it was all so compelling.

My favorite image of St. Catherine Siena - resolute

Something ignited in my heart. St. Catherine speaks to spiritual consolation and desolation, and the dangers of desiring consolation more than its giver. It was a gift to have this wisdom offered exactly when I was experiencing a profound consolation - renewed joy, hope, vigor in my spiritual life, a sense of God's personal care for me, such that all former struggles felt easy. I remember telling Heidi, "I just want God, why do we have to stay so long here where He can be known only dimly; can't Jesus just come back?" It wasn't a lack of love for life, but the dawn of a deeper realization that life here is the antechamber and I was tasting the sweetness of Heaven. In those months I would wonder on occasion if God was preparing me for death; perhaps He had lit this as a final spark to prepare me for Himself? It didn't feel like a morbid thought, but a radical acceptance of the truism, "you know not the day or hour."

Years ago, it was pointed out to me that the great saints of the church have frequently come in pairs: Francis & Clare, Benedict & Scholastica, Teresa of Avila & John of the Cross... I saw it as a grace of companionship and support in their spiritual journey. I begged the Lord to give me a companion who thirsted and drank of Himself similarly - not that I fancied myself any kind of saint, but I recognized my desires to dive deep and for companions for this journey. How long did I pray for that before my veiled eyes were opened that He had already provided exactly that, and what joy that she was not just anyone, but my sister! I didn't fancy us - certainly not myself! - saints, but I recognized in the saints a model for which my heart was yearning. 

Heidi, ever the Meg to my Jo March, or Elinor to my Marianne Dashwood, was a godsend in that season, long before I recognized her role or my desire for it, taking me gently under her wing, delight in her eyes but temperance in her words. She knew so much more about the spiritual life than my neophyte self, though we'd been walking in faith together for our whole lives. I would gush, and she would absorb, digest and offer a few words. It took more years for me to fully appreciate the role of mentor that she was filling in my life, not grasping it fully until we were perhaps 18 months out from her unforeseen death. 

I miss her so very, very much. She was not my spouse, not my mother, but more than a grieving sister I feel like a pilgrim whose companion-guide has vanished. And yet...