This traditional collect for Saint Catherine of Siena appears in older Catholic prayer books and liturgical sources associated with her feast. It asks God for grace to imitate her purity, patience, courage, and steadfast love amid spiritual trials. Catherine was a fourteenth-century Dominican tertiary, mystic, peacemaker, and defender of the unity of the Church. She was later named a Doctor of the Church. Catholics pray this prayer especially near her feast on April 29, during times of temptation, and when seeking fidelity to Christ and His Church. The concluding passage comes from The Dialogue, dictated by Catherine, in the public-domain English translation of Algar Thorold.
Traditional Collect:
O God, Who didst enable blessed Catherine, graced with the special privilege of virginity and patience, to overcome the assaults of evil spirits and to remain unshaken in Thy love: grant, we beseech Thee, that following her example, treading underfoot the wickedness of the world, and overcoming the wiles of all our enemies, we may pass in safety to Thy glory.
Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
From The Dialogue:
You, Eternal Trinity, are a deep sea, into which the more I enter, the more I find, and the more I find, the more I seek.
The soul cannot be satiated in Your abyss, for she continually hungers after You, the Eternal Trinity, desiring to see You with the light of Your light.
As the hart desires the springs of living water, so my soul desires to leave the prison of this dark body and see You in truth.
When to pray it: Pray this on Saint Catherine’s feast, during temptation, or when asking for steadfast love of Christ and fidelity to His Church.
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