The Neighbor as a Path to Holiness
A Lenten Reflection with St. Catherine of Siena and the Sacred Heart of Jesus
The Neighbor as a Path to Holiness
A Lenten Reflection with St. Catherine of Siena and the Sacred Heart of Jesus
This Lent, I have been praying daily with the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. I also use St. Catherine of Siena’s Dialogue as a source of spiritual reflection. I often think of my beloved St. Catherine as my spiritual director. St. Catherine, pray for me.
This morning, I found myself reflecting on Jesus’s words—“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt 5:44)—and was drawn to a deeper question: Who is my neighbor, and why has God placed them in my life?
In Scripture, a neighbor is anyone whom God places in our path, especially those in need, regardless of background, belief, or closeness. Jesus redefines neighbor not by proximity but by mercy, teaching us to become a neighbor through love, even toward those who oppose or wound us.
St. Catherine of Siena, in The Dialogue (§9), offers a startling and simple answer. She writes that it is through our neighbors that we are tested, formed, and perfected in virtue. God, in His wisdom, does not merely allow difficult people into our lives—He gives them to us. They are part of His divine pedagogy, shaping the soul, refining the heart, and drawing us closer to His own Sacred Heart.
Catherine states that it is by our neighbors that humility is tested by the proud, faith by the unfaithful, hope by the hopeless, justice by injustice, gentleness by wrath, and compassion by cruelty.
In other words, we do not grow in virtue in a vacuum or in the comfortable shelter of those who think like us, believe like us, or love us easily. We grow in the school of contradiction. It is easy to love those who love us. But to love those who wound us? That is the true school of virtue.
Yet this does not mean that we become hardened or stoic in the face of rejection. Rather, it is in the Sacred Heart of Jesus that we find our shelter. Sitting in His Heart, we become immunized—not indifferent to the sins of others, but protected from allowing those sins to define or deform us. It reminds me of Psalm 27:5—
“For He will hide me in His shelter in the day of trouble;
He will conceal me under the cover of His tent;
He will set me high upon a rock.”
Thank you, Jesus.
St. Catherine says that the proud cannot harm the humble because humility smothers pride. What freedom there is in this! The world’s cruelty cannot extinguish compassion when it flows from the Heart of Christ. Injustice cannot poison the just soul who keeps their eyes fixed on Jesus. Wrath is rendered powerless in the face of true gentleness, which finds its source not in temperament, but in Christ’s own meekness.
So perhaps that irritating coworker, the estranged relative, the person who always seems to wound you with a passing word—perhaps they are God’s gift to your sanctification. Not because they are right or good in what they do, but because God in His goodness is using even their failings to deepen your capacity to love.
St. Catherine is clear: these neighbors are not meant to be avoided. We are not called to retreat into spiritual safe spaces surrounded only by like-minded Christians, where love costs little and comfort is mistaken for holiness. No—the Gospel demands more. Christ commands us to love not only our friends, but our enemies. Because this is how Jesus loves.
“He makes His sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” (Matt 5:45)
To love like this is to love with the charity of Christ Himself. It is to say: Your bitterness will not make me bitter. Your hatred will not pull me into hatred. Your wrath will not quench my gentleness. Because I live in Him, and He lives in me.
And His Heart is enough.
Jesus, teach me to see others as my neighbor—not as a threat to my own fragile sense of peace, but as a mirror of Your call. Not as a source of pain to avoid, but as a gift for my sanctification and holiness. Let me see with Your eyes, the lens of mercy. Let me love with Your wounded Heart, which never closes.
If you think your friends and family would enjoy The Call to Holiness, please share with them. The purpose of The Call to Holiness is to help each other pray more and to enter into a deeper friendship with Jesus. God bless you all. Lawain