Letters of Catherine Benincasa. Saint of Siena Catherine
read with amazement the able, clearly conceived, practical letters which she was despatching to the many European potentates whom she was endeavouring to hold true to the cause of Urban. But her spirit in the meantime dwelt in the region of the Eternal, where the dolorous struggle of the times appeared, indeed, but appeared in its essential significance as seen by angelic intelligences. The awe-struck letters to Fra Raimondo, her Confessor, with which this selection closes, are an accurate transcript of her inner experience. They constitute, surely, a precious heritage of the Church for which her life was given. Catherine Benincasa died heartbroken; yet in the depths of her consciousness was joy, for God had revealed to her that His Bride the Church, "which brings life to men," "holds in herself such life that no man can kill her." "Sweetest My daughter, thou seest how she has soiled her face with impurity and self-love, and grown puffed up by the pride and avarice of those who feed at her bosom. But take thy tears and sweats, drawing them from the fountain of My divine charity, and cleanse her face. For I promise thee that her beauty shall not be restored to her by the sword, nor by cruelty nor war, but by peace, and by humble continual prayer, tears, and sweats poured forth from the grieving desires of My servants. So thy desire shall be fulfilled in long abiding, and My Providence shall in no wise fail."
V
Psychologically, as in point of time, St. Catherine stands between St. Francis and St. Teresa. Her writings are of the middle ages, not of the renascence, but they express the twilight of the mediaeval day. They reveal the struggles and the spiritual achievement of a woman who lived in the last age of an undivided Christendom, and whose whole life was absorbed in the special problems of her time. These problems, however, are in the deepest sense perpetual, and her attitude toward them is suggestive still.
It has been claimed that Catherine, a century and a half later, would have been a Protestant. Such hypotheses are always futile to discuss; but the view hardly commends itself to the careful student of her writings. It is suggested, naturally enough, by her denunciations of the corruptions of the Church, denunciations as sweeping and penetrating as were ever uttered by Luther; by her amazingly sharp and outspoken criticism of the popes; and by her constant plea for reform. The pungency of all these elements in her writings is felt by the most casual reader. But it must never be forgotten that honest and vigorous criticism of the Church Visible is, in the mind of the Catholic philosopher, entirely consistent with loyalty to the sacerdotal theory. There is a noble idealism that breaks in fine impatience with tradition, and audaciously seeks new symbols wherein to suggest for a season the eternal and imageless truth. But perhaps yet nobler in the sight of God—surely more conformed to His methods in nature and history—is that other idealism which patiently bows to the yoke of the actual, and endures the agony of keeping true at once to the heavenly vision and to the imperfect earthly form. Iconoclastic zeal against outworn or corrupt institutions fires our facile enthusiasm. Let us recognize also the spiritual passion that suffers unflinchingly the disparity between the sign and the thing signified, and devotes its energies, not to discarding, but to restoring and purifying that sign. Such passion was Catherine's. The most distinctive trait in the woman's character was her power to cling to an ideal verity with unfaltering faithfulness, even when the whole aspect of life and society around her seemed to give that verity the lie. To imagine her without faith in the visible Church and the God-given authority of the Vicar of Christ is to imagine another woman. Catherine of Siena's place in the history of minds is with Savonarola, not with Luther.
Catherine confronted a humanity at enmity with itself, a Church conformed to the image of this world. Her external policy proved helpless to right these evils. The return of the Popes from Avignon resulted neither in the pacification of Christendom nor in the reform of the Church. The Great Schism, of which she saw the beginning, undermined the idea of Christian unity till the thought of the Saint of Siena was in natural sequence followed by the thought of Luther. Outwardly her life was spent in labouring for a hopeless cause, discredited by the subsequent movement of history. But the material tragedy was a spiritual triumph, not only through the victory of faith in her own soul, but through the value of the witness which she bore. Neither of the great conceptions of unity which possessed the middle ages was identical with the modern democratic conception; yet both, and in particular that of the Church, pointed in this direction. That ideal of world-embracing brotherhood to which men have been slowly awakening throughout the Christian centuries was the dominant ideal of Catherine's mind. She hoped for the attainment of such a brotherhood through the instrument of an organized Christendom, reduced to peace and unity under one God-appointed Head. History, as some of us think, has rejected the noble dream. We seem to see that the undying hope of the human spirit—a society shaped by justice and love—is never likely to be gained along the lines of the centralization of ecclesiastical power. But if our idea of the means has changed, the same end still shines before us. The vision of human fellowship in the Name of Christ, for which Catherine lived and died, remains the one hope for the healing of the nations.
CHIEF EVENTS IN THE LIFE OF SAINT CATHERINE
[Processor's note: this timeline and the one that follows appeared in the opposite order in the 1905 edition on which this etext is based. Their order has been reversed to correctly reflect the order in which they appear in the table of contents.]
1347. On March 25th, Catherine, and a twin-sister who dies at once, are born in the Strada dell' Oca, near the fountain of Fontebranda, Siena. She is the youngest of the twenty-five children of Jacopo Benincasa, a dyer, and Lapa, his wife.
1353–4. As a child, Catherine is peculiarly joyous and charming. When six years old she beholds the vision of Christ, arrayed in priestly robes, above the Church of St. Dominic. She is inspired by a longing to imitate the life of the Fathers of the desert, and begins to practise many penances. At the age of seven she makes the vow of virginity. She is drawn to the Order of St. Dominic by the zeal of its founder for the salvation of souls.
1359–1363. Her ascetic practices meet with sharp opposition at home. She is urged to array herself beautifully and to marry, is denied a private chamber, and forced to perform the menial work of the household, etc. In time, however, her perseverance wins the consent of her father and family to her desires.
1363–1364. She is vested with the black and white habit of Saint Dominic, becoming one of the Mantellate, or Dominican tertiaries, devout women who lived under religious rule in their own homes.
1364–1367. She leads in her own room at home the life of a religious recluse, speaking only to her Confessor. She is absorbed in mystical experiences and religious meditation. During this time she learns to read. The period closes with her espousals to Christ, on the last day of Carnival, 1367.
1367–1370. In obedience to the commands of God, and impelled by her love of men, she returns gradually to family and social life. From this time dates her special devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. She joyfully devotes herself to household labours, and to a life of ministration to the sick and needy. In 1368 her father dies, and the Revolution puts an end to the prosperity of the Benincasa family, which is now broken up. Catherine seems to have retained to the end the care of Monna Lapa. In 1370 she dies mystically and returns to life, having received the command to go abroad into the world to save souls.
1370–1374. Her reputation and influence increase. A group of disciples gathers around her. Her correspondence gradually becomes extensive, and she becomes known as a peacemaker. At the same time, her ecstasies and unusual mode of life excite criticism and suspicion. In May, 1374, she visits Florence, perhaps summoned thither to answer charges made against her by certain in the Order. She returns to Siena to minister to the plague-stricken. She meets at this time Fra Raimondo of Capua, her Confessor and biographer. Her gradual induction into public affairs is accompanied by growing sorrow over the corruptions of the Church.
1375. At the invitation of Pietro Gambacorta, Catherine visits Pisa. Her object is to prevent Pisa and Lucca from joining the League of Tuscan cities against the Pope. She meets the Ambassador from the Queen of Cyprus, and zealously undertakes to further the cause of a Crusade. On April 1st she receives the