“When my goodness saw that you could be drawn in no other way, I sent him to be lifted onto the wood of the cross. I made of that cross an anvil where this child of humankind could be hammered into an instrument to release humankind from death and restore it to the life of grace. In this way he drew everything to himself: for he proved his unspeakable love, and the human heart is always drawn by love.”
–Catherine of Siena (1347-1380)
We are spending six weeks in our adult Sunday School with Foster and Smith’s Devotional Classics book. Here are the writers we’ve looked at each session:
- Week 1: St. Augustine
- Week 2: François Fénelon
- Week 3: Evelyn Underhill
- Week 4: Apocryphal Literature (materials to be posted soon)
- Week 5: Catherine of Siena
- Week 6: Kathleen Norris
Each week we do a short bio of the writer, some reading, some discussion, and some prayer.
Here are the teaching slides I used today on Catherine of Siena.
Words on the Word 
Abram, I’m showing my ignorance here, but do you know if other people had previously used the Cross as a metaphor for a bridge? Or was Catherine of Siena the first?
Also, I have written a short biography about Catherine of Siena in case anyone is interested. http://newlife.id.au/equality-and-gender-issues/catherine-of-siena/
I am adding to it some of these beautiful words that you have quoted in your slides.
Hi, Marg! This looks great; I look forward to reading your bio, and thanks for sharing it.
When we discussed this in class today, I mentioned the bridge diagram I and others have seen (especially in evangelism training contexts), where God and humanity are separated, and Christ/the cross is the bridge, the only way we can get from “here” to “there.”
So the Cross-bridge metaphor seems to have a history to it, but I’m afraid I don’t know of anything specifically, off-hand. I will post again here if I’m able to find out more, though.