Catherine of Siena

The path to heaven lies through heaven, and all the way to heaven is heaven.

Saint Catherine of Siena (March 25, 1347 – April 29, 1380) was a Dominican Tertiary (lay affiliate) of the Dominican Order.

Quotes

• The path to heaven lies through heaven, and all the way to heaven is heaven.
  • Attributed by Dorothy Day in On Pilgrimage (1948) p. 161
  • Variants:
  • All the way to Heaven is Heaven, because Christ is the Way.
    • As attributed in The Last Things : Death, Judgment, Hell, Heaven (1998) by Regis Martin, p. 39
  • All the way to heaven is heaven, for Jesus said, I am the way.
    • As attributed in The Fear of Beggars : Stewardship and Poverty in Christian Ethics (2007) by Kelly S. Johnson, p. 209

• If you are what you ought to be, you will set fire to all Italy, and not only yonder. (Letter 368 to Stefano Maconi)
  • Original Italian: Se sarete quello che dovete essere, metterete fuoco in tutta Italia, non tanto costì. (Lettera 368 a Stefano Maconi)
    • Variant versions:
      • If you are what you should be, you will set the whole world on fire!
      • If you are what you should be, you will set the whole world ablaze! As quoted by Pope John Paul II in | an address to the Regnum Christi Movement and the Legionaries of Christ (4 January 2001)
        • Also as quoted by Pope John Paul II in | The Closing Homily at World Youth Day, Tor Vergata, (Sunday 20 August 2000)
      • Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.
        • As quoted by Bishop Richard Chartres in his sermon to the Royal Wedding congregation at Westminster Abbey (29 April 2011)^{[specific citation needed]}

• • Variant versions:
    • I see the world is rotten because of silence … speak the truth in a million voices. It is silence that kills. (quoted at 0:23 of Randall Terry (2020-10-19). The Silence That Kills. Retrieved on 2022-06-07.)
  • Original Italian: Oimé, non più tacere! Gridate con centomiglia di lingue. Veggo che, per lo tacere, el mondo è guasto, la Sposa di Cristo è impalidita (Lettera 16, "A uno grande prelato")
    • lit.: "O alas, be silent no more! Shout with a hundred thousand tongues. I see that, through silence, the world is broken, the Bride of Christ is impaled"

External links

• Works by Catherine of Siena at Project Gutenberg
• "St. Catherine of Siena" by Edmund G. Gardner in The Catholic Encyclopedia (1908)
• Saint Catherine of Siena, Virgin at EWTN
• Letters of Catherine from Gutenberg
• Saint Catherine of Siena: text with concordances and frequency list