Part 15

Dearest mother in Christ sweet Jesus: Your poor, unworthy daughter Catherine comforts you in the precious Blood of the Son of God. With desire have I desired to see you a true mother, not only of my body but of my soul; for I have reflected that if you are more the lover of my soul than of my body, all disordinate tenderness will die in you, and it will not be such a burden to you to long for my bodily presence; but it will rather be a consolation to you, and you will wish, for the honour of God, to endure every burden for me, provided that the honour of God be wrought. Working for the honour of God, I am not without the increase of grace and power in my soul. Yes, indeed, it is true that if you, sweetest mother, love my soul better than my body, you will be consoled and not disconsolate. I want you to learn from that sweet mother, Mary, who, for the honour of God and for our salvation, gave us her Son, dead upon the wood of the most holy Cross. And when Mary was left alone, after Christ had ascended into Heaven, she stayed with the holy disciples; and although Mary and the disciples had great consolation together, and to separate was sorrow, nevertheless, for the glory and praise of her Son, for the good of the whole universal world, she consented and chose that they should go away. And she chose the burden of their departure rather than the consolation of their remaining, solely through the love that she had for the honour of God and for our salvation. Now, I want you to learn from her, dearest mother. You know that it behoves me to follow the will of God; and I know that you wish me to follow it. His will was that I should go away; which going did not happen without mystery, nor without fruit of great value. It was His will that I should come, and not the will of man; and whoever might say the opposite, it is not the truth. And thus it will behove me to go on, following His footsteps in what way and at what time shall please His inestimable goodness. You, like a good, sweet mother, must be content, and not disconsolate, enduring every burden for the honour of God, and for your and my salvation. Remember that you did this for the sake of temporal goods, when your sons left you to gain temporal wealth; now, to gain eternal life, it seems to you such an affliction that you say that you will go and run away if I do not reply to you soon. All this happens to you because you love better that part which I derived from you--that is, your flesh, with which you clothed me--than what I have derived from God. Lift up, lift up your heart and mind a little to that sweet and holiest Cross where all affliction ceases; be willing to bear a little finite pain, to escape the infinite pain which we merit for our sins. Now, comfort you, for the love of Christ crucified, and do not think that you are abandoned either by God or by me. Yet shall you be comforted, and receive full consolation; and the pain has not been so great that the joy shall not be greater. We shall come soon, by the mercy of God; and we should not have delayed our coming now, were it not for the obstacle we have had in the serious illness of Neri. Also Master Giovanni and Fra Bartolommeo have been ill.... I say no more. Commend us.... Remain in the holy and sweet grace of God. Sweet Jesus, Jesus Love!

TO MONNA GIOVANNA DI CORRADO MACONI

Monna Lapa was evidently not the only mother in Siena who fretted over the long absence from home of Catherine and her spiritual children. Monna Giovanna, of the noble family of the Maconi, longed for the presence of Catherine's secretary, her beloved son Stefano. This is the second letter which Catherine wrote in the effort to reconcile her. We cannot be surprised if she murmured. Stefano had known Catherine for a few months only when she bore him off with her to Avignon. Their relations dated from January, 1376, when at his entreaty she healed a feud of long standing between the Maconi and the rival house of the Tolomei. From this time he attached himself to her person, and his devotion to her made him an object of ridicule to his bewildered former friends. He was, by all accounts, a singularly attractive and lovable young man--sunny, light-hearted, and popular wherever he went. Catherine from the first loved him, as she avows in this letter, with especial tenderness. She made him her trusted intimate, and from now until shortly before her death he was in almost constant attendance upon her, or when away was still occupied in her affairs. Catherine was evidently on intimate and affectionate terms with the rest of the Maconi family also; but it is not strange if Monna Giovanna developed a little motherly jealousy, as she saw her brilliant son not only absorbed by this new friendship, but borne away to distant lands. Catherine's letter is as applicable to-day as then, to all parents whose misguided tenderness would seek to hinder their children in a high vocation.

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

To you, dearest sister and daughter in Christ Jesus: I Catherine, servant and slave of the servants of Jesus Christ, write in His precious Blood, with desire to see you clothed in the wedding garment. For I consider that without this garment the soul cannot please its Creator, nor take its place at the Marriage Feast in the enduring life. I wish you, therefore, to be clothed in it; and in order that you may clothe you the better, I wish you to divest yourself of all self-love according to nature and the senses, which you feel for yourself, your children, and any other created thing. You ought to love neither yourself nor anything else apart from God; for it is impossible that a man can serve two masters; if he serve the one, he does not give satisfaction to the other. And there is no one who can serve both God and the world, for they have no harmony with each other. The world seeks honour, rank, wealth, sons in high place, good birth, sensuous pleasure and indulgence, all rooted in perverted pride; but God seeks and wants exactly the opposite. He wants voluntary poverty, a humbled heart, disparagement of self and of every worldly joy and grace; that personal honour be not sought, but the honour of God and the salvation of one's neighbour. Let a man seek only in what way he may clothe him in the fire of most ardent charity with the ornament of sweet and sincere virtue, with true and holy patience; let him take no revenge on another for any injury his neighbour may show him, but endure all in patience, seeking only to pass sentence on himself, because he sees that he has wronged the Sweet Primal Truth. And what he loves, let him love in God, and apart from God love nothing.

And did you say to me, "In what way should I love?" I answer you that children and everything else should be loved for love of Him who created them, and not for love of one's self or the children; and that God should never be wronged for their sake or any other. That is, do not love through regard to any utility, nor as your own thing, but as a thing lent to you: since whatever is given us in this life is given for use, as a loan, and is left to us so long only as pleases the Divine Goodness which gave it us. You should use everything, then, as a steward of Christ crucified, spending your temporal substance so far as is possible to you for the poor, who stand in the place of God; and so you ought to spend your children, nourishing and educating them ever in the fear of God, and wishing that they should die rather than wrong their Creator. Oh, make a sacrifice of yourself and them to God! And if you see that God is calling them, offer no resistance to His sweet will: but if they welcome it with one hand, do you reach out both like a true loving mother, who loves their salvation; do not desire to shape their lives to suit yourself--for this would be a sign that you loved them apart from God--but with any state to which God calls them, with that be you content. For a mother who loves her children according to the wickedness of the world, says many a time: "It pleases me well that my children should please God; they can serve Him in the world as well as anywhere else." But it happens often to these simple mothers, who want to plunge their children in the world, that later they possess those children neither in the world nor in God. And it is a just thing that they should be deprived of them, spirit and body, since such ignorance and pride reigns in them that they want to lay down law and rule to the Holy Spirit, who is calling them. Such people do not love their children in God, but with sensuous self-love apart from God, for they love their bodies more than their souls. Never, dearest sister and daughter in Christ sweet Jesus, could he clothe himself in Christ crucified who had not first divested him of this. I hope by the goodness of God that all this will not apply to you, but that you will give yourself and them to the honour and glory of the Name of God, like a true good mother, and so shall you be clothed in the Wedding Garment. But in order that you may clothe you the better, I want that you should lift your desire and heart above the world and all its doings, and that you should open the eye of the mind to know what love God bears to you, who has given you, for love, the Word, His Only-Begotten Son; and the Son in burning love has given you life, and has sacrificed His Body that He might cleanse us with His Blood. Ignorant are we and wretched who nor know nor love so great a benefit! But all this is because our eyes are closed; for were they open, and had they fastened themselves on Christ crucified, they would not be ignorant nor ungrateful in presence of so great grace. Therefore I say to you, keep your eyes ever open, and fasten them fixedly on the Lamb that was slain, in order that you may never fall into ignorance.

Up, sweetest daughter, let us delay no more! Let us recover the time we have lost, with true and perfect love; so that, clothing ourselves in this life with the garment I spoke of, we may joy and exult at the Marriage Feast in the enduring life--you and your husband and your children together. And comfort you sweetly, and be patient, and do not grow disturbed because I have kept Stefano so long: for I have taken good care of him, for by love and tenderness I have become one thing with him, therefore I have treated your things as if they were my own. I think you have not taken this in bad part. I wish to do whatever I can for him and for you, even to death. You, mother, bore him once; and I wish to bear him and you and all your family, in tears and sweats, by continual prayers and desire for your salvation.

I say no more. Commend me to Currado, and bless all the rest of the family, and especially my little new plant, that has just been planted anew in the Garden of Holy Church. Be it commended to you, and do you bring it up for me virtuously, so that it may shed fragrance among the other flowers. God fill you with His most sweet favour. Remain in the holy and sweet grace of God. Sweet Jesus, Jesus Love.

TO MESSER RISTORO CANIGIANI

Apart from her relations with Religious seeking to follow the Counsels, Catherine directed the life of a number of devout laymen. Among these was Ristoro Canigiani, an honourable citizen of Florence, whose younger brother, Barduccio, became one of her secretaries, and was with her at her death. In the first letter to Ristoro here given, we see that he had already become Catherine's disciple. He had evinced his sincerity by forgiving his enemies--a feat more practical and difficult for most men in those days than now--by withdrawing in a measure from society-- (ecclesiastical, one notes, as well as secular)--and by embracing the simple life, selling his superfluous possessions. In the second letter given, he has evidently advanced in experience. Like many religious souls since his day, he suffers from scruples lest he be unworthy to receive the Holy Communion. Catherine handles his difficulties tenderly and wisely, in words which all anxious souls would do well to take to heart. She has no reproofs for this excellent man, only applause and encouragement. It is noteworthy that neither in these letters nor in any others does she seek to induct Ristoro into that region of ecstatic mystery where she herself lived, and whither she was wont to expect--often in vain--certain of her friends to follow her. The standard which she sets for this devout layman could not be better summed up than in the familiar words: "A sober, godly, and righteous life."

In other letters to Ristoro she seeks to inspire him with a fervour of charity by very beautiful meditations, in which she presents the love of friends and family as sanctified and glorified by its relation to the all- enfolding Love from which all pure human affection must proceed. In her attitude toward the natural world and its claims, Catherine again recalls St. Bernard, who, in naming the degrees of love, starts from an hypothesis which sets forth natural things, not as evil and destroying, but good, and waiting their transfiguration. Like poor Francesca, but with a conception more pure, Catherine rings the changes on the words "amore," "amare." "Perocche, condizione é del' amore d' amare quando si sente amare, d' amare tutte le cose che ama colui ch' egli ama. E però, à mano che l' anima ha conosciuto l' amore del suo Creatore verso di lui, l' ama: e amandolo, ama tutte quelle cose che Dio ama." "For it is of the nature of love, to love when it feels itself loved, and to love all things loved of its beloved. So when the soul has by degrees known the love of its Creator toward it, it loves Him, and, loving Him, loves all things whatsoever that God loves." ... As we read, we recognize once more how far is this great Mystic from the cold asceticism that has sometimes been attributed to her.

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

Dearest brother 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 you constant and persevering in virtue; for it is not he who begins who is crowned, but only he who perseveres. For Perseverance is the Queen who is crowned; she stands between Fortitude and true Patience, but she alone receives a crown of glory. So I want you, dearest brother, to be constant and persevering in virtue, that you may receive the reward of your every labour. I hope in the great goodness of God that He will fortify you in such wise that neither demon nor fellow-creature can make you look back to your vomit.

You seem, according to what you write me, to have made a good beginning, in which I rejoice greatly for your salvation, seeing your holy desire. First, you say that you have forgiven every man who had wronged you or wished to wrong you. This is a thing which is very necessary, if you wish to have God in your soul through grace, and to be at rest even according to the world. For he who abides in hate is deprived of God and is in a state of condemnation, and has in this life the foretaste of hell; for he is always gnawing at himself, and hungers for vengeance, and abides in fear. Believing to slay his enemy, he has first killed himself, for he has slain his soul with the knife of hate. Such men as these, who think to slay their enemy, slay themselves. He who truly forgives through the love of Christ crucified, has peace and quiet, and suffers no perturbation; for the wrath that perturbs is slain in his soul, and God the Rewarder of every good gives him His grace and at the last eternal life. What joy the soul, then, receives, and gladness and rest in its conscience, the tongue could never tell. And even according to the world, very great honour is given to the man who through love of virtue and magnanimity does not greedily desire to wreak vengeance on his enemy. So I summon you and comfort you, to persevere in this holy resolution.

To demand and obtain your own in a reasonable way, this you can do with good conscience; whoever wants to can do it: for a man is not bound to abandon his possessions more than he chooses; but he who would choose to abandon them would reach a much greater perfection. It is well and excellent not to go to the Bishop's house nor to the palace, but to stay peaceably at home. For if other people get excited, we are weak, and often we find our own soul excited, and doing unjust and irrational things, one to show that he knows more than another, and one from appetite for money. Yes, it is better to keep away from the place.

But I add one thing: that when such poor men and women as are clearly in the right, and have no one to help them, show us the reason why they have no money, it would be greatly to the honour of God for you to undertake their cause, from the impulse of charity, like St. Ives, who in his time was the lawyer of the poor. Consider that the deed of pity, and ministering to the poor with those faculties which God has given you, is very pleasing to God, and salvation to your soul. Therefore St. Gregory says that it is impossible that a pitiful man should perish with an evil, that is, an eternal death. This, then, pleases me much, and I beg you to do it.

In all your works put God before your eyes, saying to yourself when intemperate appetite would lift its head against the resolution you have made: "Consider, my soul, that the eye of God is upon thee, and sees the secret of thy heart. Thou art mortal, for thou must die, and knowest not when; and it shall befit thee to render account before the highest Judge of what thou shalt do--a Judge who punishes every fault and rewards every good deed." In this wise, if you put on the bit it will not slip off, separating from the will of God.

You ought to give satisfaction to your soul as soon as you can, and unburden your conscience of what you feel it burdened with. Give it satisfaction, either for the trouble it has felt in giving up temporal possessions, or for the other annoyances that others have given it. And have pardon asked fully from everyone, in order that you may always remain in the joy of charity with your neighbour. As for selling the goods which you have over and above, and the showy garments (which are very harmful, dearest brother, and a means of penetrating the heart with vanity, and nourishing it with pride, since they make a man seem to be more and bigger than others, boasting of what one ought not to boast of; so it is great shame to us, false Christians, to see our Head tormented, and to abide ourselves in such luxuries: so St. Bernard says, that it is not fitting for limbs to be delicate beneath a thorn-crowned Head),--I say that you do very well to find a remedy for this. But clothe you as you need, modestly, at no immoderate price, and you will greatly please God. And, so far as you can, make your wife and your sons do the same; so that you may be to them example and teacher, as the father should be, who should educate his sons with the words and deeds of virtue.

I add one thing; that you abide in the state of marriage, with fear of God, and treat it with reverence as a sacrament, and not with intemperate desire. Hold in due reverence the days ordered by Holy Church, like a reasonable man, and not a brute beast. Then from yourself and her, like good trees, you will bring forth good fruits.

You will do very well to refuse offices; for a man seldom fails to give offence in them. It ought to weary you simply to hear them mentioned. Let the dead, then, bury themselves, and do you exert yourself, in liberty of heart, to please God, loving Him above everything in the desire of virtue, and your neighbour as yourself, fleeing the world and its delights. Renounce your sins and your own fleshly instincts, ever bringing back to memory the favours of God, and especially the favour of the Blood, shed for us with such fire of love.

Again, it is needful for you, if you wish your soul to preserve grace and grow in virtue, to make your holy confession often for your joy, that you may wash your soul's face in the Blood of Christ. At least once a month, since indeed we soil it every day. If more, more; but less it seems to me ought not to be done. And rejoice in hearing the Word of God. And when the season shall come that we are reconciled with our Father, do you communicate on the solemn Feasts, or at least once a year: rejoicing in the Office, and hearing Mass every day; and if you cannot every day, at least you must make an effort, just as far as you can, on the days which are ordered by Holy Church, to which we are bound.

Prayer must not be far from you. Nay, on the due and ordered hours, so far as you can, seek to withdraw a little, to know yourself, and the wrongs done to God, and the largess of His goodness, which has worked and is working so sweetly in you; opening the eye of your mind in the light of most holy faith, to behold how beyond measure God loves us; love which He shows us through the means of His only-begotten Son. And I beg that, if you are not saying it already, you should say every day the office of the Virgin, that she may be your refreshment and your advocate before God. As to ordering your life, I beg you to do it. Fast on Saturday, in reverence for Mary. And never give up the days commanded by Holy Church, unless of necessity. Avoid being at intemperate banquets, but live moderately, like a man who does not want to make a god of his belly. But take food for need, and not for the wretched pleasure it gives. For it is impossible that any man who does not govern himself in eating should keep himself innocent.

But I am sure that the infinite goodness of God, as regards this and all the rest, will make you yourself adopt that rule which will be needful for your salvation. And I will pray, and will make others pray, that He grant you perfect perseverance until death, and illumine you concerning that which you have to do for your salvation. I say no more to you. Remain in the holy and sweet grace of God. Sweet Jesus, Jesus Love.

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

Dearest son 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 you free from every particle of self-love, so that you may not lose the light and knowledge which come from seeing the unspeakable love which God has for you. And because it is light which makes us know this, and false love is what takes light from us, therefore I have very great desire to see it quenched in you. Oh, how dangerous this self-love is to our salvation! It deprives the soul of grace, for it takes from it the love of God and of its neighbour, which makes us live in grace. It deprives us of light, as we said, because it darkens the eye of the mind, and when the light is taken away we walk in darkness, and do not know what we need.

What do we need to know? The great goodness of God, and His unspeakable love toward us; the perverse law which always fights against the Spirit, and our own wretchedness. In this knowledge the soul begins to render His due to God; that is, glory and praise to His Name, loving Him above everything, and the neighbour as one's self, with eager desire for virtue; and the soul bestows hate and displeasure on itself, hating in itself vice, and its own sensuousness, which is the cause of every vice. The soul wins all virtue and grace in the knowledge of itself, abiding therein with light, as was said. Where shall the soul find the wealth of contrition for its sins, and the abundance of God's mercy? In this House of Self- Knowledge.

Now let us see whether we find it in ourselves or not. Let us talk somewhat about it. For, as you wrote me, you have a desire to feel contrition for your sins, and not being able to feel it, you give up for this reason Holy Communion. Now we shall see whether you ought to give it up for this.

You know that God is supremely good, and loved us before we were: and is Eternal Wisdom, and His Power in virtue is immeasurable: so for this reason we are sure that He has power, knowledge, and will to give us what we need. Well we see, in proof, that He gives us more than we know how to ask, and that which was not asked by us. Did we ever ask Him that He should create us reasonable creatures, in His own image and likeness, rather than brute beasts? No. Or that He should create us by Grace by the Blood of the Word, His only-begotten Son, or that He should give us Himself for food, perfect God and perfect Man, flesh and blood, body and soul, united to Deity? Beyond these most high gifts, which are so great, and show such fire of love toward us, that there is no heart so hard that its hardness and coldness would not melt by considering them at all: infinite are the gifts and graces which we receive from Him without asking.