O eternal, infinite Good! O mad lover!
And you have need of your creature?
It seems so to me,
for you act as if you could not live without her,
in spite of the fact that you are Life itself,
and everything has life from you
and nothing can have life without you.
Why then are you so mad?
Because you have fallen in love with what you have made!
You are pleased and delighted over her within yourself,
as if you were drunk with desire for her salvation.
She runs away from you and you go looking for her.
She strays and you draw closer to her.
You clothed yourself in our humanity,
and nearer than that you could not have come.
–Catherine of Siena
O love, O charity beyond all telling,
to ransom a slave you gave away your Son!
O truly necessary sin of Adam,
destroyed completely by the Death of Christ!
O happy fault
that earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer!