Letters of Catherine Benincasa

by Saint of Siena Catherine

They have well in mind that when Pope Urban VI., true Pope, was created by a great and true election, and crowned with great solemnity, you held a great and high festival, as the child should do over the exaltation of the father, and the mother over that of the son. For he was both son and father to you; father, through his dignity to which he had come, son because he was your subject—that is to say, of your kingdom. Therefore you did well. Further, you commanded everyone to obey his Holiness as the highest pontiff. Now I see that you have turned about, like a woman who has no decision, and you will them to do the contrary. Oh, miserable passion! That evil which you have in yourself you wish to impart to them. How do you suppose that they can love you and be faithful to you, when they see that you are responsible for separating them from life and leading them into death, and casting them from truth into falsehood? You separate them from Christ in heaven and from Christ on earth, and seek to bind them to the devil, and to antichrist—lover and prophet of lies that he is, he and you and the others who follow him.

No more thus for the love of Christ crucified! You are in every way calling down the divine judgment. I grieve for it. If you do not hinder the ruin that is coming upon you, you cannot escape from the hands of God. Either by justice or by mercy, you are in His hands. Correct your life, that you may escape the hands of justice, and remain in those of mercy. And do not wait for the time, for an hour comes when you shall wish and cannot. O sheep, return to your fold; let you be governed by the Shepherd: else the wolf of hell shall devour you! Take back for your guards the servants of God, who love you in truth more than you yourself, and good, mature and discreet counsellors. For the counsel of incarnate demons, with the inordinate fear into which they have thrown you through terror of losing your temporal state—(which passes like the wind with no permanence, for either it leaves us, or we it through death)—has brought you where you are. You shall yet weep, if you change not your ways, saying: "Alas, alas! I am one who has robbed herself, on account of the fear into which I was thrown by villainous counsellors!" But there is yet time, dearest mother, to avert the judgment of God. Return to the obedience of Holy Church: know the ill that you have wrought: humble you under the mighty hand of God; and God, who has regard to the humility of His handmaid, shall show mercy upon us: He will placate His wrath over your faults; through the mediation of the Blood of Christ, you shall be grafted and bound in Him with the chain of that charity in which you shall know and love the truth. The truth shall set you free from lie: it shall scatter all shadows, giving you light and knowledge in the mercy of God. In this truth you shall be freed; in other wise, never.

And because the truth sets us free, I, having desire for your salvation, said that I desired to see you established in the truth, that it be not wronged by falsehood. I beg you, fulfil in yourself the will of God and the desire of my soul, for with all the depth and all the strength of my soul I desire your salvation. And, therefore, constrained by the Divine Goodness which loves you unspeakably, I have moved me to write to you with great sorrow. Another time, also, I wrote you on this same matter. Have patience if I burden you too much with words, and if I speak with you boldly, irreverently. The love which I bear to you makes me speak with boldness: the fault which you have committed makes me depart from due reverence, and speak irreverently. I could wish far rather to tell you the truth by speech than by writing, for your salvation, and chiefly for the honour of God; and I would far rather deal in deeds than in words with him who is to blame for it all, although the blame and the reason is in yourself, since there is no one, neither demon nor creature, who can force you to the least fault unless you choose. Therefore I said to you that you are the cause of it. Bathe you in the Blood of Christ crucified. There are scattered the clouds of self-love and servile fear, and the poison of hate and self-scorn. I say no more to you. Remain in the holy and sweet grace of God. Sweet Jesus, Jesus Love.

TO SISTER DANIELLA OF ORVIETO

Sister Daniella has found herself in straits again; constrained, it would seem, by the Spirit, to action not endorsed by her religious superiors. Possibly she wished, following the example of Catherine, to leave her cloister and take part in the public life of her time. Catherine herself had been in like straits during much of her early life. Well she knew, as St. Francis knew before her, the suffering of that inward conflict, when the Voice of God summons one way, and the voices of men, reinforced by that instinct of humility and obedience which the middle ages held so dear, insist upon another. She writes to her friend with comprehending sympathy. Daniella, as we have already seen, was a woman who understood her and whom she understood. And it must have been a relief to Catherine, at this point in her career, for once to encourage ardour instead of rebuking sin or seeking to inspire timidity. Our saint is so constantly on the side of obedience, when, as not infrequently happens, some weak brother or sister is restless under the yoke of vows, that we are sure she must know her woman when she writes: "Fear and serve God, disregarding yourself; and then do not care what people say unless it is to feel compassion for them."

We see at the end of the letter that Catherine is on the point of going to Rome. In fact, Urban had summoned her thither, being evidently alive to the advantages of the support of one so famed for sanctity. In Rome the remainder of her life was to be passed.

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

Dearest daughter in Christ sweet Jesus: I Catherine, servant and slave of the servants of Jesus Christ, write to you in His precious Blood: with desire to see thee in true and very perfect light, that thou mayest know the truth in perfection. Oh, how necessary this light is to us, dearest daughter! For without it we cannot walk in the Way of Christ crucified, a shining Way that brings us to life; without it we shall walk among shadows and abide in great storm and bitterness. But, if I consider aright, it behoves us to possess two orders of this light. There is a general light, that every rational creature ought to have, for recognizing whom he ought to love and obey—perceiving in the light of his mind by the pupil of most holy faith, that he is bound to love and serve his Creator, loving Him directly, with all his heart and mind, and obeying the commandments of the law to love God above everything, and our neighbour as ourselves. These are the principles by which all men beside ourselves are held. This is a general light, which we are all bound by; and without it we shall die, and shall follow, deprived of the life of grace, the darkened way of the devil. But there is another light, which is not apart from this, but one with it—nay, by this first, one attains to the second. There are those who, observing the commandments of God, grow into another most perfect light; these rise from imperfection with great and holy desire, and attain unto perfection, observing both commandments and counsels in thought and deed. One should use this light with hungry desire for the honour of God and the salvation of souls, gazing therewith into the light of the sweet and loving Word, where the soul tastes the ineffable love which God has to His creatures, shown to us through that Word, who ran as enamoured to the shameful death of the Cross, for the honour of the Father and for our salvation.

When the soul has known this truth in the perfect light, it rises above itself, above its natural instincts; with intense, sweet and loving desires, it runs, following the footsteps of Christ crucified, bearing pains, bearing shame, ridicule and insult with much persecution, from the world, and often from the servants of God under pretext of virtue. Hungrily it seeks the honour of God and the salvation of souls; and so much does it delight in this glorious food, that it despises itself and everything else: this alone it seeks, and abandons itself. In this perfect light lived the glorious virgins and the other saints, who delighted only in receiving this food with their Bridegroom, on the table of the Cross. Now to us, dearest daughter and sweet my sister in Christ sweet Jesus, He has shown such grace and mercy that He has placed us in the number of those who have advanced from the general light to the particular—that is, He has made us choose the perfect state of the Counsels: therefore we ought to follow that sweet and straight way perfectly, in true light, not looking back for any reason whatever; not walking in our own fashion but in the fashion of God, enduring sufferings without fault even unto death, rescuing the soul from the hands of devils. For this is the Way and the Rule that the Eternal Truth has given thee; and He wrote it on His body, not with ink, but with His Blood, in letters so big that no one is of such low intelligence as to be excused from reading. Well thou seest the initials of that Book, how great they are; and all show the truth of the Eternal Father, the ineffable love with which we were created—this is the truth—only that we might share His highest and eternal good. This our Master is lifted up on high upon the pulpit of the Cross, in order that we may better study it, and should not deceive ourselves, saying: "He teaches this to me on earth, and not on high." Not so: for He ascended upon the Cross, and uplifted there in pain, He seeks to exalt the honour of the Father, and to restore the beauty of souls. Then let us read heartfelt love, founded in truth, in this Book of Life. Lose thyself wholly; and the more thou shalt lose the more thou shalt find; and God will not despise thy desire. Nay, He will direct thee, and show thee what thou shouldst do; and will enlighten him to whom thou mightest be subject, if thou dost according to His counsel. For the soul that prays ought to have a holy jealousy, and let it always rejoice to do whatever it does with the help of prayer and counsel.

Thou didst write me, and as I understood from thy letter it seems that thou art troubled in heart. And this is not a slight feeling; nay, it is mighty, stronger than any other, when on the one side thou dost feel thyself called by God in new ways, and His servants put themselves on the contrary side, saying that this is not well. I have a very great compassion for thee; for I know not what burden is like that, from the jealousy the soul has for itself; for it cannot offer resistance to God, and it would also fulfil the will of His servants, trusting more in their light and knowledge than in its own; and yet it does not seem able to. Now I reply to thee simply according to my low and poor sight. Do not make up thy mind obstinately, but as thou feelest thyself called without thine own doing, so respond. So, if thou dost see souls in danger, and thou canst help them, do not close thine eyes, but exert thyself with perfect zeal to help them, even to death. And never mind about thy past resolutions to silence or anything else—lest it be said to thee later: "Cursed be thou, that thou wast silent." Our every principle and foundation is in the love of God and our neighbour alone; all our other activities are instruments and buildings placed on this foundation. Therefore thou shouldst not, for pleasure in the instrument or the building, desert the principal foundation in the honour of God and the love of our neighbour. Work, then, my daughter, in that field where thou seest that God calls thee to work; and do not get distressed or anxious in mind over what I have said to thee, but endure manfully. Fear and serve God, with no regard to thyself; and then do not care for what people may say, except to have compassion on them.