Coached by Catherine of Siena
Lessons in Charity
Joan Watson
ISBN 9781594175565
eISBN 9781594175572
I have loved all the volumes I have read in this series, and this latest release jumped to the top of my ‘to be read’ pile as soon as it came out. Reading this volume marks the fourth in the series I have read.
When I read the first book in this series, Coached By Joan of Arc by Alexandre Havard, I was unaware it was the beginning of a series. They are to date all excellent reads. This one is a great read.
The description of this book states:
“What if one of the Church's most fiery mystics could mentor you in prayer, charity, and holiness, right where you are?
Walk alongside St. Catherine of Siena as she teaches you how to grow in love of God, neighbor, and the Church. Drawing deeply from her letters and prayers, this book brings Catherine's bold wisdom into your daily life—not as a distant mystic to admire, but as a spiritual coach who meets you in your struggles and calls you to rise above them.
Catherine doesn't ask you to levitate or to live on nothing but the Eucharist. She asks you to begin. Again and again. Through daily prayer, honest self-knowledge, and sacrificial love, she shows how every Christian, no matter how weak or ordinary, can become a saint.
Whether you're battling distraction, discouragement, pride, or sloth, Catherine has been there—and she will not let you stay stuck. She speaks with authority, tenderness, and with a burning desire for your holiness.
Let her coach you. And let God, through her and out of complete love for you, make you new.”
About the author we are informed:
“Joan Watson is a Catholic speaker and author who loves to make Scripture, theology, liturgy, and history accessible and applicable. She currently works as Pilgrim Formation Manager for Verso Ministries, a Catholic company who aims to facilitate encounters with Jesus Christ through pilgrimage. Propelled by Luke 12:48, Joan has worked the Church and various religious apostolates for twenty years. She is passionate about helping others encounter Christ and enter into friendship with Him through the daily circumstances of life.”
The chapters and sections in this volume are:
Introduction
Part One: Love of God
Building a Foundation
How Do I Pray?
Feeding the Fire with Gratitude
In the Struggle
What to Do with Discouragement
Killing the Selfish Will
Part Two: Love of Neighbor
The Only Way to Love God
Continual Prayer
Charity Toward Sinners
Sharing the Mercy
Part Three: Love of the Church
The Bride, the Body, the Mother
Where Reform Begins
Filial Fidelity
Our Service to the Church
Art Attribution
I highlighted numerous passages while reading this book, some of them are:
“As St. Francis de Sales notes, there are often aspects of a saint’s life that may be admired but probably should not be imitated.”
“Catherine would first tell you not to simply become a carbon copy of herself. Rather, in a lengthy letter to Jacomo Tondi, a Carthusian monk, she reminds us that the paths to holiness are varied. She cautions against the tendency to judge those who are living differently than we are. Rather than insisting everyone live the way of holiness we have decided is correct, we must be humble enough to understand that God has different gifts and plans for different people.”
“What else would Catherine tell us? If we could turn to her for spiritual direction, what would she advise us to do? In many cases, we do not have to wonder. Catherine left behind almost four hundred letters3 written to a variety of people, from government officials, craftsmen, husbands, and wives to hermits, female religious, and popes. Catherine had sage advice to share with all of them. At times, the advice was the same, regardless of vocation or social standing, because all of us are called to be saints. And at its root, that means we are called to love.”
“While these will certainly be referred to in this work, the majority of Catherine’s advice that we will explore will come from her letters. You and I may never have moments of ecstasy in prayer. But chances are, we have received a letter. So let’s listen to hers.”
“Highlight(pink) - Building a Foundation > Page 16 · Location 145
This is a hatred not for ourselves as sons and daughters of God, but a hatred for our sins, failings, and shortcomings.”
“True humility is rooted in the truth of who I am, a mere creature who sins every day against God. But if I am really sitting in that “cell” of self-knowledge, I cannot ignore the truth that God continues to love me.”
“The foundation of self-knowledge permeates all of Catherine’s writing because advancement in the spiritual life is impossible without it. I have to begin with those lenses on.”
“One of Catherine’s favorite times to pray was after morning Mass, and we can see in her own prayer the fruit of deep meditation on the lectionary and prayers of the day.”
“While our state of life might dictate that the plan changes and we have to allow ourselves flexibility, for most of us, failing to plan means failing to pray.”
“There are other times ordained for prayer as well. In her wisdom, the Church has given us a liturgical calendar of feast and fasts. Our prayer lives should reflect that. Perhaps this means committing to additional prayer during Lent. Maybe it means making the Church’s lectionary the basis for our daily meditation, so that our prayer focuses on the themes given to us in the liturgical seasons.”
“It is important to note what this recollection is not. It is not an emptying of the mind. Rather, it is focusing our mind on the Lord, desiring to be filled with him.”
“In her letters to laypeople, she recognizes that they might not have the same opportunity for the sacraments as clergy and religious, but she still expects them to center their spiritual lives on the sacraments. It is the only way we will truly grow.”
“Such a one is like a manful knight, who does not avoid blows. Nay, he holds him unworthy of so great grace, as it seems to him to be, to bear pain, temptations and harassment for Christ crucified. All is through the contempt he has for himself, and the love he has conceived for virtue.”
“And so out of the very opposites the soul comes to learn perfection. It is not aware of this; it finds itself become perfect in many storms and temptations. In no other way does one ever arrive at the harbor of perfection.”
“The second important point is that what we are experiencing is perfectly normal. The more we strive for holiness, the more we will be aware of our failings. This should not discourage us; perhaps it should actually encourage us! It is often a sign that we are indeed growing in virtue.”
“When we suffer temptations, it is an occasion to strengthen our spiritual muscles and practice the virtue. Temptation and suffering should not discourage us; they are necessary steps on the path to virtue.”
“This is why Catherine brings us back to our cell of self-knowledge. The spiritual life is about being more than doing. To grow in virtue, I need to work my spiritual muscles, but most importantly, I must look to God and rely on him.”
“But choose one virtue to work on, with the Lord’s help. Since virtue is learned by its opposite, keep your eyes open for moments throughout your day when you are tempted to sin against that particular virtue.”
“You know that discouragement is wholly discordant with what you’ve been taught. It is a leprosy that dries up soul and body, and holds them in continual torment, and binds the arms of holy desire, and does not let us do what we would like to do. It makes the soul unbearable even to itself, opening the mind to conflicts and varying fantasies. It robs the soul of supernatural light, and darkens its natural light. So one falls into great faithlessness, because one does not know the truth of God, in which He has created us—that is, that He created us in truth to give us life eternal.”
“Again, not surprisingly, Catherine’s advice is rooted in self-knowledge. Perhaps here, more than anywhere else, it is vital to understand that this self-knowledge is not navel-gazing. This knowledge begins with ourselves but does not end in ourselves. It turns us to the Lord.”
“You’re not special. We all sin. And God is bigger than that sin. Yes, you sinned. But God is merciful. Instead of wallowing in your terribleness, go to confession, ask God for help to not sin again, and move on with his grace.”
“It is a great gift when we are given spiritual consolations and when we feel close to God in prayer. But even when our emotions are not in accord with our prayer, we cling to the truth we have been taught: God is present and God is merciful. At times we can trust our emotions, but at other times we cannot.”
“All the great spiritual writers address these periods of dryness in prayer, which can happen at various times and for various reasons in our spiritual journeys. Regardless of the why or the how, the answer in moments of dryness is to continue to pray. Even when you have lost the feeling you may have had even just yesterday, persevere in the prayer.”
“If your morning has not gone the way you had hoped, the day is not lost. Take a breath, reset, and say, “What I have not done so far today, I will do now.” If yesterday was a wash, there is still hope for today. Make a morning resolution: “What I didn’t do yesterday, I will do now.” Perhaps the last several years of your life have been spent away from God. Take a breath, turn to him, and say, “What I haven’t done in the last several years, I will do now.” Maybe that is the first prayer you have prayed in a very long time.”
“While the Church prescribes days of fasting and requires Friday abstinence from meat, additional penances are a matter of discernment. Even these requirements by the Church come with age and health allowances.”
“This is the vital distinction that Catherine repeatedly makes. Penance is an instrument. “Penances ought to be set as walls, not as the foundation,” she clarifies.”
“Likewise, penance is not the foundation on which we build our spiritual life, but the walls by which we construct the house of virtue. Penance helps us keep our bodily desires in check and order our will to our intellect.”
“Charity is strong. Troubles cannot weaken it by making us impatient, nor can prosperity by making us inordinately happy. Charity reconciles antagonists, controls anger, and crushes sloth and envy, because it loves and rejoices in our neighbors’ good as much as it does in our own.”
“In several different letters, Catherine outlines three ways of praying: continual prayer, vocal prayer, and mental prayer.”
“When St. Paul told us to “pray always,” he did not mean that we ought to spend every moment of the day praying the Our Father, for example. He also did not mean we should go around mumbling prayers to ourselves all the time. He meant that every action of our day can be a prayer and be rooted in prayer.”
“When we encounter sin, let us be harsh in hatred for the sin, but gentle and compassionate with the sinner, not knowing what temptations the person faces or what the Lord might be doing with and for him or her.”
“Regardless of whether we can stir up the emotion of charity in our heart, we can exercise the virtue of charity by praying for those who have wronged us. Perhaps all we can do at first is ask God to help us pray for them. This is the first step. Forgiveness is a choice, an act of the will, not an emotion.”
“There is a fallen human tendency to favor either justice or mercy, rather than holding them together in a virtuous balance.”
“First, our love of the Church comes from our love for God. The gift of piety is the gift of the Holy Spirit that helps us to reverence God and the things of God, recognizing him as our Father.”
“But be aware, dearest brother, that you cannot do this well—you cannot be courageous and come to the help of Holy Church—unless you first fight and make war against our three chief enemies, the world, the devil, and our weak flesh. . .”
“Where does reform in the Church begin? Not by sowing division, or in anger, nor in councils or synods. It doesn’t even begin with writing letters like Catherine. It begins by reforming our own lives.”
“Why is there sin in the Church? Because I am a sinner. The Church is not holy because I am holy, but because Christ, her Bridegroom, is holy, and he gave his life to make me holy.”
“It means that we honor the Pope, not because he is blameless, but because through the sacraments and the teaching of the Church, he gives us life. As Catherine writes to the people of Siena in the letter at the start of the chapter, “Our respect is not paid to [the Pope] for his own sake but to Christ’s blood and to the authority and dignity God has given him for our sake.””
“This is obedience, as hard as it might be to stomach the thought. It is easy to be obedient when we agree with our shepherds. The difficulty comes in submitting to decisions made by incompetent and weak leaders.”
“Lastly, each of us is called to serve the Church in various ways according to our vocation.”
I hope those quotes give you a feel for this volume. It is a great read in an excellent series. The material is clearly presented. It is easily accessible and could be used by a high school student up to a retiree. The writing is crisp and clean. When I started reading this, I planned on a chapter a day, and I stuck close to that pace.
Having read so much a few volumes about Saint Catherine over the years I was intrigued by the concept of this volume even before I began it. I really found all of this volume applicable and meaningful. In fact once I have finished the series if I circle back to read them again at this point I would start with this volume. So much of this was applicable, as a husband, a father as a man trying to grow, change, improve and pray more. It was hard to stick to a chapter a day but it really helped me focus on the material. Occasionally I had to split a chapter over 2 days because I was finding so much in the chapter I needed to think on.
This is a good volume that I can easily recommend. And I look forward to reading others in the series.
Note: This book is part of a series of reviews: 2026 Catholic Reading Plan! For all reviews about Saint Paul and Pauline Theology click here.
Books in the Scepter Coached by Series:
Coached by Catherine of Siena - Joan Watson
Coached By Joan of Arc - Alexandre Havard
Coached by Josemaría Escrivá - Henry Hanson, O. Praem.
Coached by Paul the Apostle - Fr. Nathan Cromly
Coached by Philip Neri - Rob Marco
Coached by the Curé - Kevin Wells
…
Books about Catherine of Siena:
Coached by Catherine of Siena: Lessons in Charity - Joan Watson
…
Books by Joan Watson:
Jacob's Fishing Day
Making a Pilgrimage
My Turning Points
Mysteries of the Kingdom
Opening the Holy Door
Pendulum
The Accidental Farmer
…
