The Room of Self-Knowledge

 St. Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) lived, like all of us, in tumultuous times.  Destined for greatness, she experienced the love of God at an early age, but she did not fit in with the expectations of her parents or of her culture.  When she turned her back on the possibility of marriage, her parents retaliated by forcing her to work as a household servant, but she constructed in her heart a "secret cell" of "self-knowledge" to which she could retreat from her daily drudgery.

To Catherine, knowledge of self and knowledge of God were one and the same. Christ once said to her: You are she who is not; I am the One Who Is!  The entire secret of this woman who never learned to read and who wrote poorly seems to be her absolute knowledge of her own poverty and of God's sufficiency. For her, to know oneself is a form of prayer.

She once said, "Be who God meant you to be, and you will set the world on fire!"  So then, how do we get to the place where we know ourselves and understand who God meant us to be?

When I started thinking about the room of self-knowledge, the image that came to mind was the kaleidoscope room at Disney World.  I don't know if that room still exists, since I experienced it in the 70's, but as we waited our turn for a main attraction, we stood in a circular room surrounded by 20 or more narrow screens that reached from floor to ceiling.  Each screen portrayed for a few moments a different scene, not in a dizzying fashion, but rather peacefully, so that you could gaze at whichever scene drew your attention for a few seconds until your focus shifted or the scene changed. 

When I imagine a "secret cell of self-knowledge," I imagine standing in the center of such a room, with the screens flashing images of myself at different times and stages of my life, or even from moment to moment in the present time.  Over the room and embracing all the scenes, I imagine a ceiling like the ones in the Eastern Orthodox churches, with Christ the Pantocrater--the Ruler and Creator-- hovering over all the images of my life, loving and embracing all of who I am, who I was, who I will be in the future.  What I see as failures to love, He sees as stages along the journey.  Catherine said, "It is only through shadows that one comes to know the Light."

To see ourselves through His eyes is a great grace; we cannot see ourselves through our own eyes, for there are too many false images and too much lack of understanding.  I think we naturally fear to see ourselves as we truly are, but if we could only see the person He made us to be, we would rejoice in His wisdom and strength.