Our very first guest in the Attollo Executive Speaker Series line up is St. Catherine of Siena, Italy.
“Thank you!! I want you to stop and to really listen and reflect on what I have to say for the next 5 minutes. It will change your life and I promise you won’t have to walk over any coals!
Unless your motivation is stripped clean of selfish love, of self-complacency and a desire to please the world, you will never be able to attain what I call true and perfect love. These two loves are diametrically opposed to each other. You can’t have it both ways! You probably feel it when they are battling it out in your heart. They are so opposed to each other that selfish love separates you from God and your neighbor (the EXACT opposite of what Christ said were the two greatest commandments by the way), while perfect loves unites you to both. One is death-dealing, brings darkness and war while the other gives life, brings light and peace.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out which love every soul longs for.
Here’s what happens. When you act selfishly, your heart shrinks to the point it doesn’t have room for yourself or your neighbors. When you act our of divine charity (love) it expands your heart so it can welcome both friends and enemies – really everyone because your heart – I like to say – is clothed in Christ’s love and so your heart needs to follow him.
One last thought on selfish love since I’m on the subject. It is simply wretched. It parts way with justice and makes friends with and perpetuates injustices. It is characterized by a slave-like fear that keeps it from acting justly as it should because it loves and desires flattery and fears greatly the loss of prestige … prestige as the world defines it anyway. This is the same perverse servility and fear that led Pilate to kill Christ. Such people can do no justice only injustice. They live unjustly, viciously, in a dark, selfish love.
This is what I want for you! Write this down and reflect on it often! Ready? Pens in hand?
I want you to be freed from such selfish love and to be grounded in true and perfect charity, loving God for God’s sake. And to love yourself for God’s sake, and to love your neighbors for God’s sake… and not for your own selfish advantage! I want you to be bound with the bonds of true and blazing charity. This is what my soul longs for you!
I have to tell you. One last thing I promise. Don’t think what I am saying is just for people in religious vocations. That’s why the world is in dire straights you know. Leaders like yourself, more often than not, write off my words because “they aren’t for me, they are for the priest in the Church or someone else”. I am telling you they are just as applicable to the business leader as they are to the cardinal, bishop, pastor, priest, brother, sister or deacon out there. Ponder that. Ponder what my words can do to help you attain your exceptional destiny as a business leader. Then, apply them in your life, at your work, in society.
Thank you! God bless you all for listening!”
If you want to know more about St. Catherine of Siena here are a few books to start:
Catherine of Siena : The Dialogue (Classics of Western Spirituality)
The Executive Speaker Series is purely fictional but the wisdom from the many saints, doctors and blesseds of the Catholic Church is real and will help you along the arduous journey of your transformation to a truly integrated business leader.
