What Saint Catherine of Siena Is Teaching Me About Spices and the Sacred Heart
My saint of 2020 is Saint Catherine of Siena, and let me tell you what, readers. She’s been following me like nobody’s business. Her writing have popped up in my daily meditations so much in these past few months that I’m not even surprised to see her name as the author of meditations in the books that I have for spiritual reading (including this one, which comes highly recommended).
Today we celebrate her feast day in the Catholic Church, so it wasn’t surprising to see a reflection from her in Magnificat’s meditation of the day. Titled “No Fear of Rejection,” it’s a beautiful meditation on finding shelter in the blood of Christ and in His Sacred Heart. But towards the end of the reflection, St. Catherine left me a little puzzled. Here’s the line I’ve been chewing on today:
“Do you want to live in security? Then hide yourself within his side and see that you are never found outside this opened heart - though once you enter, you will discover such joy and sweetness that you will never want to leave. For it is an open storehouse filled with spices, overflowing with mercy.”
That line about spices? That one threw me for a loop.
I’ve been praying to find security and shelter in Christ’s Sacred Heart for a while now. But a storehouse of spices? What in the world did she mean by that? I decided to tap back into my days as a college student studying history and went down rabbit hole after rabbit hole of research. After consuming quite a few articles on the nature and purpose of spices and taking a quick detour to discover the etymology of the word “spice,” (old French, if you’re wondering), I discovered these few points that made St. Catherine’s words make much more sense.
If you, like me, are wondering why St. Catherine talked about the Sacred Heart of Jesus like a storehouse of spices, here’s a few things to think on:
Spices give flavor
Whether you’re cooking a pot of chili or perfecting your chicken and curry recipe, you use spices in cooking to transform a meal with a variety of flavors. Cumin and sesame give food a nutty flavor, while coriander and saffron leave you with a fresh floral taste. But just what does “flavor” mean? The word flavor is a late Middle English word meaning “fragrance” or “aroma.”
How does sheltering in His Sacred Heart give our lives this flavor or aroma of Christ? I love this prayer from Saint John Henry Newman when it comes to understanding what this looks like in our lives, and how to pray for this aroma in our lives: “Dear Jesus, help me to spread Your fragrance everywhere I go. Flood my soul with Your spirit and life. Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly, That my life may only be a radiance of Yours.”
When we find shelter in the Sacred Heart of Jesus, we ask Him to help us spread his fragrance (flavor!) wherever we go. When people interact with us, whether that’s our spouse, our kids, our friends, our neighbors, we can pray that they can smell the aroma of Christ and His Sacred Heart in our words and actions.
Spices enhance flavor
While some spices introduce flavor into a dish, others enhance the flavor of what you’re cooking with. A blend of seasonings can be designed to enhance the natural flavor of most foods without introducing new flavor tones, which spices like Mei Yen seasonings and paprika are especially good at.
What does this mean for our spiritual lives, though?
When we shelter in the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and lay our head on the Heart of Christ like Saint John did, we can hear Him reminding us of who we are as children of God. He created us and calls us good. We are His beloved daughters and sons - not because of something we’ve done to earn this love. We don’t have to prove our belovedness. He made us, we’re His. He calls us to live fully alive as the women and men He’s created us to be.
So the more we listen to the beating of the Sacred Heart, the more we are reminded of our dignity and worth as His children.
Spices preserve things from decay
You can use spices to enhance flavor and give flavor, but you can also use spices to preserve things from rot and decay. Think about how the ancient Egyptians used salt, balsam plants, and natural sugars to preserve the body in the mummification process. But even in cooking, spice plants are rich in antimicrobial compounds (more on that here - remember, my degree is in history, not biology).
So what does it mean for the Sacred Heart to be a storehouse filled with spices that preserve us? When we enter into the shelter of the Sacred Heart, the blood of Christ preserves us - keeps us safe from harm. St. Catherine’s prayer to the Holy Spirit speaks into this beautifully: “Preserve me, O ineffable Love, from every evil thought; warm me, inflame me with Thy dear love, and every pain will seem light to me. My Father, my sweet Lord, help me in all my actions. Jesus, love, Jesus, love.”
And St. Catherine isn’t the only one to recognize the preservation of our souls that comes when we shelter in the Sacred Heart.
“It is truly the one, identical Lord, whom we receive in the Eucharist, or better, the Lord who receives us and assumes us into himself,” Pope Benedict XVI said in a 2002 conference. “St Augustine expressed this in a short passage which he perceived as a sort of vision: ‘eat the bread of the strong; you will not transform me into yourself, but I will transform you into me.’ In other words, when we consume bodily nourishment, it is assimilated by the body, becoming itself a part of ourselves. But this bread is of another type. It is greater and higher than we are. It is not we who assimilate it, but it assimilates us to itself, so that we become in a certain way ‘conformed to Christ', as Paul says, members of his body, one in him.”
When we consume the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist at Mass (which is an exchange of hearts where we lift up our hearts and Christ gives us His heart in return!), Christ preserves us from death. He takes us into Himself, into His Sacred Heart, and preserves us and transforms us.
So let’s enter into this shelter of His Sacred Heart today, friends.
Saint Catherine of Siena, Ora Pro Nobis!