Doctors of Our Souls

As we prepare to celebrate the Ascension of Our Lord and look beyond it to the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, it is appropriate that we celebrate this week the feasts of two great saints who taught us something about the Holy Spirit. Separated by 1,000 years, Saint Athanasius and Saint Catherine of Siena are joined in honor as two of the 33 Doctors of the Church.

On April 29, we celebrate the feast of Saint Catherine (1347-80), a courageous woman who bore the stigmata (the wounds of Christ) the last five years of her life and dared to tell Pope Gregory XI that he should return the papacy to Rome from its exile in Avignon, France. A mystic from an early age, she consecrated herself to Christ at the age of seven. She died on the Sunday before Ascension, at the age of 33--the same age as Christ at the time of His Crucifixion.

Among her many writings (all of which she dictated), Saint Catherine left a short Prayer to the Holy Ghost, asking Him for the grace to resist all temptation and to grow in charity.

The feast day of Saint Athanasius (c. 296-373) is May 2, and this bishop of Alexandria is known as the "Father of Orthodoxy" for his courageous defense of the doctrine of the Incarnation against the Arians, who taught that Christ was a mere man, and not the incarnate Son of God. His view prevailed at the Council of Nicaea (325), but the Arians, though defeated doctrinally, continued to persecute Athanasius for the rest of his long life.

Saint Athanasius left for us the Athanasian Creed, the longest of all the standard Christian creeds. Concerned with defining the doctrine of the Trinity (including the relation of the Holy Spirit to the Father and the Son) and of the two natures of Christ, divine and human, the Athanasian Creed was traditionally recited on Trinity Sunday, one week after Pentecost Sunday.

Related Resources:

• Prayer to the Holy Ghost by Saint Catherine of Siena
• Athanasian Creed
• The Doctors of the Church