We will go particularly deep into the affective dimension, really central in the spiritual consciousness of Caterina, who said of herself: “My nature is fire”.
The fire for Catherine symbolizes love, which is exactly the divine nature participated in all creatures, and that for her constitutes the reason for their existence and the condition of their full realization. She writes, in fact, in the dialogue: “In your nature, eternal deity, I will know my nature. And what is my nature, priceless love? It is fire, but you are nothing but fire of love, and of this nature you have given to man, but for fire of love you created him.” (Dialogue CX). “And so all the other creatures and all things created were made out of love.” (Orazione XXII).
Therefore “the soul cannot live without love.” (Dialogue LI). And from the Lord himself, Catherine is heard saying: “Your subject is love because I created you for love and yet you cannot live anything else but love.” (Dialogue CX).
Having the experience of being loved and to love is therefore a fundamental requirement for her, which is fully fulfilled through the intimate knowledge of that “furnace of divine charity” which is the crucified Christ, to whom she invites to touch her spiritual children: “And yet I want, my son, to open the eye of knowledge in the object of Christ crucified, because he is the source where the soul gets intoxicated, bringing it sweet and loving desires, that’s what I want you to stretch over the body of the holy church for the honor of God and the health of every creature. By doing so he will divert from your operations and words like the sapphire that is drawn from burning fire, that throwing it burns wherever it hits, because he can’t help but give from what he has in himself. So you think, my son, that if your soul will enter the furnace of fire of divine charity by force of the heat of love, it will turn that you throw and throw what you have touched from the fire“. (Letter 228)
Luciano Wolf