Catherine of Siena: Spiritual Development in Her Life and Teaching by Thomas McDermott, O.P. (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 157 law is the one concept that orders and integrates all constituent principles of Aquinas's moral thought. Rziha offers his argument by way of a comprehensive interpretation of Aquinas's moral theology. This case he wins hands down. And this achievement by itself makes the book an indispensable contribution to the full recovery and proper understanding ofAquinas's moral theology. At the same time, however, Rziha's study amounts to an urgent invitation to contemporary Thomist philosophers and theologians to follow up with a constructively argued speculative re-articulation of Aquinas's insight into the abiding truth of the eternal law as God's wisdom guiding all things to their proper ends, in order to shed light from a higher source on the dark landscape of a late modernity littered with the countless ruins of collapsed and abandoned post-Enlightenment moral experiments etsi Deus non daretur. To put it more bluntly: any natural-law ethic in the footsteps of the Enlightenment project that disregards the eternal law (and hence divine providence and governance, in short, the primacy of divine agency as efficient, final, and exemplary cause) and the various human modes of participation in it, only one of which is the natural law, is doomed to fail-sooner or later. Duke University Divinity School Durham, North Carolina REINHARD HOTIER Catherine ofSiena: Spiritual Development in Her Life and Teaching. By THOMAS McDERMOTI, 0.P. Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 2008. Pp. 368. $27.95 (paper). ISBN 978-0-8091-4547-8. One of the outcomes of the feminist movement of the twentieth century is the increased attention paid to the mystical experiences of women in Christian history. Scholarly and popular books, journal articles and dissertations provide theological and historical studies that have enriched our understanding and appreciation for medieval women such as Hildegaard of Bingen, Gertrude the Great, Julian of Norwich, Angela of Foligno, Catherine of Genoa, and Marguerite Porete, to name but a few. Catherine of Siena, canonized saint and doctor of the Church, has been one of the most popular and frequently studied among these female mystics and is the subject of the current book by Fr. Thomas K. McDermott, O.P., professor of spirituality and director of spiritual formation at Kenrick Seminary in St. Louis. This volume, which includes an appendix, substantial notes, and an index is essentially McDermott's doctoral dissertation made accessible to the wider readership through some careful editing. This is no mere inspirational meditation on the spirituality of St. Catherine, but a serious study of her doctrine and it is 158 BOOK REVIEWS a significant contribution to the corpus of Catherinian studies. His work will be of invaluable assistance to anyone attempting a comprehensive appreciation of the doctrine of the woman who is, as McDermott describes her, a "doctrinal mystical theologian" (2). By this he means, "she is a mystic who experiences contact with God and who then communicated this experience, affective and experimental, to others-often through images" (ibid.). While the final product bears the limits of any thesis-turned-book, it is a work that must influence any serious student of the Virgin of Siena and those interested in late-medieval spirituality or mysticism. McDermott's central thesis is that the notion of spiritual development "is not the only theme found in Catherine's writings, but is undoubtedly the most important" (ibid.). He traces this theme of spiritual development through Catherine's works, most particularly the Dialogue. Here he makes what is perhaps his strongest contribution. His methodology is carefully to analyze Catherine's writings to discover therein the doctrinal foundation for her teaching about how a person grows in the life of virtue, prayer, and union with God. While proceeding from the classical understanding of the spiritual life as having a certain organic structure, that is, progressive stages of growth and development, McDermott does not impose established categories or terminology on Catherine's thought, but seeks to discover from within the text her doctrine of growth and development. Because Catherine's spirituality is so diffuse in themes and images, many authors and commentators have chosen one or another theme or image to unlock the theological richness contained in...