Melissa Dunphy

Commissioned by Sandra Tasca, and dedicated to the memory of Paolina Melchiori.

Treasure Time
By Catherine of Siena
Translated by Sandra Tasca

Time is a gift of opportunities.

God loves one person as a son or daughter,
another as a friend.
Someone else God loves as a servant,
and yet another as someone who has departed
and for whose return God longs.
These are the weak, the sinners who are deprived of grace.
But how does our heavenly Father show his love to these?
He loans them time.

And with time, God provides them opportunities
or presents impediments to sin,
or takes them away from a place
where they might be tempted,
or removes the power they might use to fall again.

[...]

And so, through the gift of time which God gave them in love,
from foes they are made friends,
and have grace and are fit to become the Father’s heirs.

[Taken from Letter T94)

Cover image caption: Shadows of pedestrians hurrying through a passage blur together then vanish. Murmured exchanges echo, and they, too, pass into nothingness. Catherine reminds us that of all the gifts God has given us, time is most precious, because it offers us the opportunity to grow in love. Le􀀣er T94 was probably written in late 1377. Catherine sent it to Dominican brother, Matteo di Francesco. She hoped to encourage his growth in faith, and to remind him of the fleeting nature of time.

Artwork by Sandra Tasca.