Letters of Catherine Benincasa

by Saint of Siena Catherine

Then comes the Infinite Goodness of God, and sees the evil state and the loss and the ruin of these sheep, and sees that they cannot be won back by wrath or war. So, notwithstanding that it has been wronged by them—since man deserved an infinite penalty for his disobedient rebellion against God—Highest and Eternal Wisdom will not do thus; but finds an attractive way, the most gentle and loving possible to find. For it sees that the heart of man is in no wise so drawn as by love, because he was made by love. This seems to be the reason why he loves so much, that he was made by nothing but love, both his soul and his body. For by love God created him in His Image and Likeness, and by love his father and mother gave him substance, conceiving and bearing a son. God, therefore, seeing that man is so ready to love, throws the book of love straight at him, giving him the Word His Only-Begotten Son, who takes our humanity, to make a great peace. But justice wills that vengeance should be wrought for the wrong that has been done to God: so comes Divine Mercy and unspeakable Charity, and to satisfy justice and mercy condemns His Son to death, having clothed Him in our humanity—that is, with the clay of Adam, who sinned. So by His death the wrath of the Father is pacified, having wrought justice on the person of His son: so He has satisfied justice and has satisfied mercy, releasing the human race from the hands of demons. This sweet Word jousted in His arms upon the wood of the most holy Cross, death making a tournament with life, and life with death: so that by His death He destroyed our death, and to give us life He sacrificed the life of His body. So then with love He has drawn us, and has conquered our malice with His benignness, in so much that every heart should be drawn to Him: since greater love one cannot show—and this He Himself said—than to give one's life for one's friend. And if He commends the love which gives one's life for a friend, what, then, shall we say of that most burning and complete love which gave its life for its foe? For we through sin had been made foes of God. Oh, sweet and amorous Word, who with love hast found thy flock once more, and with love hast given Thy life for them, and hast brought them back into the fold, restoring to them the Grace which they had lost!

Holiest sweet "Babbo" mine, I see no other way for us, and no other help in winning back your sheep, which have left the fold of Holy Church in rebellion, not obedient nor subject to you, their father. I pray you therefore, on behalf of Christ crucified, and I will that you do me this grace, to overcome their malice with your benignity. Yours we are, father! I know and recognize that they all feel that they have done wrong; but although they have no excuse for their evil deeds, nevertheless it seemed to them that they could not do otherwise on account of the many sufferings and unjust and iniquitous things that they endured from bad shepherds and governors. For, breathing the stench of the life of many rulers whom you know yourself to be incarnate demons, they fell into the worst of fears, so that they did like Pilate, who, not to lose the government, killed Christ; so did they, for not to lose the state, they persecuted you. I ask you, then, father, to show them mercy. Do not have regard to the ignorance and pride of your sons; but with the food of love and of your benignity, inflicting such sweet discipline and benign reproof as shall please your Holiness, restore peace to us miserable children who have done wrong. I tell you, sweet Christ on earth, on behalf of Christ in Heaven, that if you do thus, without any strife or tempest, they will all come, grieving for the wrong they have done, and will put their heads in your bosom. Then you will rejoice, and we shall rejoice, because by love you have restored the wandering sheep to the fold of Holy Church. And then, sweet my "Babbo," you will fulfil your holy desire and the will of God, by making the holy Crusade, which I summon you in His Name to do swiftly and without negligence. They will turn to it with great eagerness; they are ready to give their life for Christ. Ah me, God, sweet Love! Raise swiftly, "Babbo," the gonfalon of the most holy Cross, and you will see the wolves become lambs. Peace, peace, peace, that war may not delay this happy time! But if you will wreak vengeance and justice, take them upon me, poor wretch, and give me any pain and torment that may please you, even to death. I believe that through the stench of my iniquities many evils have happened, and many misfortunes and discords. On me, then, your poor daughter, take any vengeance that you will. Ah me, father, I die of grief and cannot die! Come, come, and resist no more the will of God that calls you; and the hungry sheep await your coming to hold and possess the place of your predecessor and champion, Apostle Peter. For you, as the Vicar of Christ, should rest in your own place. Come, then, come, and delay no more; and comfort you, and fear not for anything that might happen, since God will be with you. I ask humbly your benediction, for me and for all my sons; and I beg you to pardon my presumption. I say no more. Remain in the holy and sweet grace of God. Sweet Jesus, Jesus Love.

TO GREGORY XI

"Ahi, Constantin, di quanto mal fu matre,
Non la tua conversion, ma quella dote
Che da te prese il primo ricco patre!"

"For ever since Holy Church has aimed more at temporal than at spiritual things, matters have gone from bad to worse." Catherine's sorrowful denunciations of the sins of the Church recall the thought of Dante, the thought of Petrarch—which is also the thought of all the great saints, seers, and loyal Catholics, to whom through the Christian ages the shortcoming of their spiritual mother has meant grief beyond words. The lovely conception of Holy Church as a garden, borrowed though it be from Holy Writ, she has made peculiarly her own by constant repetition. We recognize in it the womanly imagination which, we are told, always found refreshment in wreathing fragrant flowers and walking abroad through the fields and woods.

Catherine in this letter presents explicitly her threefold policy: reform of the Church, return to Rome, the initiation of a Crusade. In her little letter to Sir John Hawkwood, we have already seen her devotion to this last cause. A Crusade in the fourteenth century was not to be. Nevertheless, Catherine never showed more political wisdom than in this matter, and it was the one aim of her life in which she wholly failed. We have in the Legenda Minore a racy account of a personal interview with Gregory on the subject, in which she presented cogent considerations to him. She shrewdly suggested that the mercenary troops who ravaged Italy, and were "the very cause and nourishment of war," would gladly turn their arms against the infidel, "For there are few people so wicked that they are not willing to serve God by indulging their taste: all men would gladly expiate their sins by doing what they enjoy." Behind all such considerations of policy, however, lay, as we clearly see, the intense desire that the infidels should be saved. And not for their own sake only. Desperate and desolate as she beheld the worldliness of Christian folk, and their remoteness from the faith and ardour of an earlier time, Catherine ventured to dream that new converts, won from the peoples that sat in darkness, might revive the spiritual life of Christendom by the infusion of spiritual passion strong in young purity. "Oh, what joy it would be," she wrote to Gregory, "could we see the Christian people convert the Infidel! For when they had once received the Light, they might reach great perfection, like a young plant which has escaped the wintry cold of faithlessness, and expands in the warmth and light of the Holy Spirit; so they might bear flowers and fruits of virtue in the mystical body of Holy Church; so that the fragrance of their virtue might help us to drive away the sins and vice, the pride and impurity, which abound to- day among the Christian people, and above all among those high in Holy Church."

It was a strange dream, and hopeless; but it was the dream of a saint.

In the Name of Jesus Christ crucified and of sweet Mary:

Most holy and dear and sweet father in Christ sweet Jesus: I your unworthy daughter Catherine, servant and slave of the servants of Jesus Christ, write to you in His precious Blood. With desire have I desired to see in you the fulness of divine grace, in such wise that you may be the means, through divine grace, of pacifying all the universal world. Therefore, I beg you, sweet my father, to use the instrument of your power and virtue, with zeal, and hungry desire for the peace and honour of God and the salvation of souls. And should you say to me, father—"The world is so ravaged! How shall I attain peace?" I tell you, on behalf of Christ crucified, it befits you to achieve three chief things through your power. Do you uproot in the garden of Holy Church the malodorous flowers, full of impurity and avarice, swollen with pride: that is, the bad priests and rulers who poison and rot that garden. Ah me, you our Governor, do you use your power to pluck out those flowers! Throw them away, that they may have no rule! Insist that they study to rule themselves in holy and good life. Plant in this garden fragrant flowers, priests and rulers who are true servants of Jesus Christ, and care for nothing but the honour of God and the salvation of souls, and are fathers of the poor. Alas, what confusion is this, to see those who ought to be a mirror of voluntary poverty, meek as lambs, distributing the possessions of Holy Church to the poor: and they appear in such luxury and state and pomp and worldly vanity, more than if they had turned them to the world a thousand times! Nay, many seculars put them to shame who live a good and holy life. But it seems that Highest and Eternal Goodness is having that done by force which is not done by love; it seems that He is permitting dignities and luxuries to be taken away from His Bride, as if He would show that Holy Church should return to her first condition, poor, humble, and meek as she was in that holy time when men took note of nothing but the honour of God and the salvation of souls, caring for spiritual things and not for temporal. For ever since she has aimed more at temporal than at spiritual, things have gone from bad to worse. See therefore that God, in judgment, has allowed much persecution and tribulation to befall her. But comfort you, father, and fear not for anything that could happen, which God does to make her state perfect once more, in order that lambs may feed in that garden, and not wolves who devour the honour that should belong to God, which they steal and give to themselves. Comfort you in Christ sweet Jesus; for I hope that His aid will be near you, plenitude of divine grace, aid and support divine in the way that I said before. Out of war you will attain greatest peace; out of persecution, greatest unity; not by human power, but by holy virtue, you will discomfit those visible demons, wicked men, and those invisible demons who never sleep around us.

But reflect, sweet father, that you could not do this easily unless you accomplished the other two things which precede the completion of the other: that is, your return to Rome and uplifting of the standard of the most holy Cross. Let not your holy desire fail on account of any scandal or rebellion of cities which you might see or hear; nay, let the flame of holy desire be more kindled to wish to do swiftly. Do not delay, then, your coming. Do not believe the devil, who perceives his own loss, and so exerts himself to rob you of your possessions in order that you may lose your love and charity and our coming be hindered. I tell you, father in Christ Jesus, come swiftly like a gentle lamb. Respond to the Holy Spirit who calls you. I tell you, Come, come, come, and do not wait for time, since time does not wait for you. Then you will do like the Lamb Slain whose place you hold, who without weapons in His hand slew our foes, coming in gentleness, using only the weapons of the strength of love, aiming only at care of spiritual things, and restoring grace to man who had lost it through sin.