Rodak Riffs...: Reflections: Too Little Seen As Too Much

Rodak Riffs...: Reflections: Too Little Seen As Too Much
Excerpt:
Here, from the Houselander’s Introduction, is an excerpt that immediately caught my attention:

How dear to us St. Catherine of Sienna is, because she loved her garden, because she made up little verses and gilded tiny oranges to humor a difficult Pope. How close she comes to us in her friendships: in the motley company of poets, politicians, soldiers, priests, and brigands; men who idolized her; and not only men, for St. Catherine was not only the most dynamic woman in history but also the best friend to other women that ever lived. Such things almost make us forget that she was fiercely ascetic, that for years she was fed only on the Blessed Sacrament, and that she was an ecstatic: her agony for the world’s sin is hidden under the beautiful cloak of her love for sinners.
“…she was fiercely ascetic…” yet she befriended all kinds of worldly men. Fiercely ascetic, yet she functioned in the world with her sacrifices “hidden under [a] beautiful cloak of love… ” This is a mode of existence for which I have boundless respect...