Part 24

TO BROTHER ANTONIO OF NIZZA OF THE HERMIT BROTHERS OF SAINT AUGUSTINE AT THE CONVENT OF LECCETO NEAR SIENA

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 founded upon the Living Rock, Christ sweet Jesus, so that the building you shall raise on it may never be overthrown by any contrary wind that may strike you, but may endure wholly solid, firm, and stable, even till your death upon the Way of Truth. Oh, how we need this true and royal foundation--not known of my ignorance! for did I truly know it, I should not build upon myself, who am worse than sand, but upon that Living Rock I spoke of. Following Christ upon the way of shame and outrage and insult, I should deprive me of every consolation from whatever source, within or without, to conform myself with Him. I would not seek myself for my own sake, but would care only for the honour of God, the salvation of souls, and the reform of Holy Church, whom I see in so great need! Me miserable, who am doing quite the contrary! But though I do wrong, dearest son, I would not that you and the others did; nay, I desire to see you founded on this Rock. Now the hour is come that proves who is a servant of God, and whether men shall seek themselves for their own sake, and God for the private consolation they find in Him, and their neighbours for their own sake in so far as they see consolations in them--yes, or no, and whether we are to believe that God may be found only in one place and not in another. I do not see that this is so--but find that to the true servant of God every place is the right place and every time is the right time. So when the time comes to abandon his own consolations and embrace labours for the honour of God, he does it; and when the time comes to flee the wood for need of the honour of God, he does it, and betakes him to public places, as did the blessed St. Antony, who although he supremely loved solitude, yet deserted it many times to comfort the Christians. And so I might tell of many other saints. This has always been the habit of the true servants of God, to emerge in time of need and adversity, but not in the time of prosperity--nay, that they flee. There is no need to flee just now, through fear lest our great prosperity make our hearts sail away in the wind of pride and vainglory; for there is no one who can glory now otherwise than in labours. But light seems to be failing us, dazzled as we are by our consolations and the hope we place in special revelations-- things which do not let us know the truth rightly, though we act in good faith. But God, who is highest and eternal Goodness, gives us perfect and true light. I enlarge no more on this matter.

It appears, from the letter which Brother William has sent me, that neither he nor you is coming here. I do not intend to reply to this letter: but I grieve much over his simplicity, for little honour to God or edification to his neighbour results from it. For if he is unwilling to come from humility and fear of forfeiting his peace, he ought to exercise the virtue of humility, by asking permission from the Vicar of Christ humbly and with gentleness, entreating his Holiness graciously to permit him to stay in his wood, for his greater peace, nevertheless, as one truly obedient, submitting the matter to his will. Thus he would be more pleasing to God, and would secure his own good. But he seems to have done just the contrary, alleging that a person who is bound to divine obedience ought not to obey his fellow-creatures. As to other people, I should care very little; but that he should include the Vicar of Christ, this does grieve me much, to see him so discordant with truth. For divine obedience never prevents us from obedience to the Holy Father: nay, the more perfect the one, the more perfect is the other. And we ought always to be subject to his commands and obedient unto death. However indiscreet obedience to him might seem, and however it should deprive us of mental peace and consolation, we ought to obey; and I consider that to do the opposite is a great imperfection, and deceit of the devil. It appears from what he writes that two servants of God have had a great revelation, to the effect that Christ on earth, and whoever advised him to send for these servants of God, followed human and not divine counsel, and that it was rather the instigation of the devil than the inspiration of God that made them wish to drag their servants from their peace and consolations: adding that if you and the others came you would lose your spiritual life, and thus would be of no help in prayer, and unable to stand by the Holy Father in spirit. Now really, the spiritual life is quite too lightly held if it is lost by change of place. Apparently God is an acceptor of places, and is found only in a wood, and not elsewhere in time of need! Then what shall we say --we who, on the one hand, wish that the Church of God be reformed, the thorns uprooted, and the fragrant flowers the servants of God planted there; and, on the other hand, we are told that to send for them, and drag them from their mental peace and quiet in order that they may come to help that little Ship is a wile of the devil? At least, let a man speak for himself, and not speak of the other servants of God--for among the servants of the world we are not to count ourselves. Not thus have done Brother Andrea of Lucca, nor Brother Paolina, those great servants of God, old men and far from well, who have lived such a long time in their peace: but at once, with all their weariness and disabilities they put themselves on the road, and have come, and fulfilled their obedience: and although desire constrains them to return to their cells, they are not therefore willing to throw off the yoke, but say: "What I have said, be it unsaid!" --disregarding their self-will and their personal consolations. One comes here to endure: not for honours, but for the dignity of many labours, with tears, vigils and continual prayers; thus should one do. Now let us not weigh ourselves down with more words. May God by His mercy send us clear vision, and guide us in the way of truth, and give us true and perfect light, that we may never walk among shadows. I beg you, you and the Bachellor, and the other servants of God, to pray the Humble Lamb that He make me walk in His Way. Remain in the holy and sweet grace of God. Sweet Jesus, Jesus Love.

TO QUEEN GIOVANNA OF NAPLES (WRITTEN IN TRANCE)

Giovanna, recalcitrant, has failed to respond to the entreaties of Catherine. Her temporary espousal of the cause of Urban has made only more painful her reversion to the side of Clement. "You see your subjects pitted against each other like beasts through this unhappy division," writes Catherine in another letter. "Oh me! how is it that your heart does not burst, to endure that they should be divided by you, and one hold to the white rose and one the red, one to truth and one to falsehood? Misfortunate my soul! Do you not see that they are all created in that very pure rose, the eternal will of God, and re-created by grace in that very burning rose, crimson with the Blood of Christ, in which we were washed from sin in Baptism? Consider that nor you nor another ever so bathed them or gave them that glorious rose, but only our Mother, Holy Church, through the highest Pontiff who holds the keys, Pope Urban VI. How can your soul bear to take from them that which you cannot give? If this does not move you, are you not at least moved by the shame into which you are fallen in the sight of the world? This much more since your change than before; for lately you confessed the truth and your wrong, and showed yourself willing to throw yourself like a daughter upon the mercy of your father; and since then you have wrought worse than ever, whether because your heart was not pure, and feigned what was not there, or because justice willed that I should anew do penance for my ancient sins, that I do not merit to see you in peace and quiet, feeding at the breasts of Holy Church. It is such a pain to me, that I cannot bear a greater cross in this life, when I consider the letter which I received from you, in which you confessed that Pope Urban was the true highest father and priest, and said that you were willing to be obedient to him, and now I find the contrary."

In the present letter Catherine pours forth to the yet living woman a sorrowful elegy over the dead soul. She argues no longer; the political aspect of the situation is for the time being overshadowed by the grief with which she contemplates the hardened sin and coming doom of the woman to whom her heart had from her youth up gone out with an especial tenderness, and in whom she had hoped at one time to see a true Defender of the Faith. It will be noticed that she writes in trance. Whatever may have been the nature of that mysterious state, we may be sure that thoughts then uttered came from the depths of her being which lie below consciousness, and we may so gain an additional evidence of the intensity of her feeling concerning Giovanna.

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

Dearest mother 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 compassionate to your own soul and body. For if we are not merciful to our own souls, the mercy and pity of others would avail us little. The soul treats itself with great cruelty when of its own accord it puts the knife with which it can be killed in the hands of its foe. For our foes have no weapons with which they can hurt us. They would be very glad to, but they cannot, because will alone can hurt us; and as for the will, neither demon nor creature can move it, nor force it to one least fault more than it chooses. So the perverse will which consents to the malice of our foes is a knife which kills the soul that gives it into the hand of these foes with its own free choice. Which shall we call the more cruel--the foes or the very person who receives the blow? It is we who are more cruel, for we consent to our own death.

We have three chief foes. First, the devil, who is weak if I do not make him strong by consenting to his malice. He loses his strength in the power of the Blood of the humble and spotless Lamb. The world with all its honours and delights, which is our foe, is also weak, save in so far as we strengthen it to hurt us by possessing these things with intemperate love. In the gentleness, humility, poverty, in the shame and disgrace of Christ crucified, this tyrant the world is destroyed. Our third foe, our own frailty, was made weak; but reason strengthens it by the union which God has made with our humanity, arraying the Word with our humanity, and by the death of that sweet and loving Word, Christ crucified. So we are strong, and our foes are weak.

It is very true, then, that we are more cruel to ourselves than our foes are. For without our help they cannot kill nor hurt us, since God has not given them to us that we might be vanquished, but that we might vanquish them. Then our fortitude and constancy are proved. But I do not see that we can avoid such cruelty and become merciful without the light of most holy faith, opening the eye of the mind to behold how displeasing it is to God and harmful to soul and body, and how pleasing to God and useful to our salvation is mercy.

Dearest mother--mother I say in so far as I see you to be a faithful daughter of Holy Church--it seems to me that you have no mercy on yourself. Oh me! oh me! because I love you I grieve over the evil state of your soul and body. I would willingly lay down my life to prevent this cruelty. Many times I have written you in compassion, showing you that what is shown you for truth is a lie; and the rod of divine justice, which is ready for you if you do not flee so great wrong. It is a human thing to sin, but perseverance in sin is a thing of the devil. Oh me! there is none who tells you the truth, nor do you seek among the servants of God those who might tell it you, that you should not stay in a state of condemnation. Oh, how blessed my soul would be could I come into your parts, and lay down my life to restore to you the good of heaven and the good of earth; to take from you the knife of cruelty, with which you have killed yourself, and help to give you that of mercy, which kills vice; so that you should clothe you in the holy fear of God and love of truth, and bind you in His sweet will!

Oh me, do not await the time which you are not sure of having! Do not choose that my eyes should have to shed rivers of tears over your wretched soul and body--a soul which I hold as my own! If I consider that soul, I see that it is dead, because separated from its body; it persecutes, not Pope Urban VI., but our truth and faith. I expected, mother and daughter mine, as you used to write to me, that through you these should be spread among the infidels by means of divine grace, and declared and helped among us, defended when we should see a taint appear, from those who have been or were contaminated. Now I see quite the contrary appear in you, through the evil counsel which has been given you for my sins. You have received it as one merciless toward your salvation; and I see that there will be no human creature who can restore your loss, but you yourself must render this account before the highest Judge. You did not offend through ignorance, not knowing the right, for the truth was shown to you; but you do not know how to turn back from that which you have begun, because the knife of perverse and selfish will destroys knowledge and choice, making you hold that as shame which is your greatest honour. For perseverance in fault and in such an evil is greatest disgrace, and displays one as a sign of shame before the eyes of one's fellow-creatures; but to escape from them is greatest honour; and by honour and the odour of virtue, shame is escaped and the stench of vice extinguished.

And if I consider your condition as to those temporal and transitory goods that pass like the wind--you yourself have deprived yourself of them by right. You have only to receive the last sentence of being deprived of them by deed, and published a heretic. My heart breaks and cannot break, from the fear that I have lest the devil so obscure the eye of your mind that you endure that loss, and such shame and confusion as I should repute greater than the loss that you would suffer. And you cannot hide it with saying, "This would be done to me unjustly, and the thing which is unjustly inflicted casts no shame." That cannot be said; for it would be done justly, both because of the fault you have committed, and because he can do it as highest and true pontiff that he is, chosen by the Truth in truth. For were he not so, you would not have offended. So that it would be just. But he has refrained from doing this through love, as a benignant father who waits for his son to correct himself. Yet I fear that he may do it, constrained by justice, and by your long perseverance in evil. And I do not say this as one who does not know what she is saying.

And if you said to me, "I do not care about this, for I am strong and mighty, and I have other lords who will help me, and I know that he is weak"--I reply to you that he wearies himself in vain who will guard the city with force and with great zeal, if God guard it not. And can you say that you have God with you? We cannot say it, for you have put Him against you for putting yourself against truth; you have put you against Him, and it is truth that sets him free who holds thereto, and none there is who can confound it. Therefore you have reason to fear, and not to trust in your strength and power, had you yet more of them than you have. And he has reason to comfort his weakness in Christ sweet Jesus, whose place he holds, trusting in His strength and aid, who shall send him aid from such a side as we cannot imagine. And you know that if God is for you, none shall be against you.

Then let us fear God, and tremble beneath the rod of His justice. Let us correct us, and advance no further. Be merciful to yourself, and you shall call down the mercy of God upon you. Have compassion on the many souls who are perishing through you; of whom you will have to render account before God at the last extremity of death. There is yet healing for us, and time wherein we can return; and He will receive you with great benignity. I am sure that if you will be merciful and not cruel to your soul and also to your body, you will do this, and will have pity upon your subjects: in otherwise, no. Therefore I said that I desired to see you merciful and not cruel to your soul. And thus I pray you, through the love of Christ crucified, that at least you hold and will to be held, the truth which was announced to you and to the other lords of the world. And if you should say, "It is still doubtful to me," stay neutral till it is made clear to you, and do not do what you should not. Desire illumination and counsel from those whom you see to fear God, and not from members of the devil, who would counsel you ill in that which they do not hold for themselves. Fear, fear God, and place Him before your eyes, and think that God sees you, and His eye is upon you, and His justice wills that every fault be punished and every good rewarded. Be merciful, ah, be merciful to yourself! I say naught else to you. Remain in the holy and sweet grace of God. Sweet Jesus, Jesus Love.

TO BROTHER RAIMONDO OF THE PREACHING ORDER WHEN HE WAS IN GENOA

In more grievous ways than any yet noted, Catherine was to be wounded in the house of her friends. The letters already given have shown us how tenderly intimate, on the human as well as on the spiritual side, were her relations with the father of her soul, "given her by that sweet mother, Mary." One shares her affection for good Father Raimondo as one reads the legend. His figure might well have belonged to the trecento rather than to the more strenuous age that followed. He was the simplest, the most modest of men--albeit by no means lacking in homely shrewdness; he was also one of the least heroic. Catherine, like most uplifted natures, demanded heroism from those dear to her, as a matter of course. Others wish for their beloved ease, delights, the gratification of ambition and desire; Catherine sought for them sorrow, hardships, the opportunity to offer their lives in exalted sacrifice for the sins of the Church and the world. She craved for them only less passionately than for herself, the crowning grace of martyrdom. Now Fra Raimondo had no affinity whatever for martyrdom. His chance at it came, in the fortunes of those stern times, and was promptly rejected. Urban, perhaps at Catherine's instigation, had despatched him to the King of France, and Raimondo had bidden his spiritual daughter and mother a solemn farewell, surmising doubtless that he was to see her face no more. He proceeded to the port of Genoa, planning thence to set sail for France. But the galleys of the antipope sought to debar the passage; and Raimondo, accepting the obstacle (one imagines with much ease), allowed himself to give up the expedition.

Catherine wrote him two letters on the matter. The first is brief, and half-playful in tone: "Oh my naughty father" (cativello padre mio) she says, "How blessed your soul and mine would have been could you have sealed with your blood a stone in Holy Church! I do wish I could see you risen above your childishness--see you shed your milk teeth and eat bread, the mustier the better!" Evidently Raimondo had answered this letter, writing, one imagines, in a deprecating tone, fearing lest Catherine may love him the less for his failure, yet after all assuming--so strong is our expectation of finding our own attitude in our friends--that she will rejoice in his escape. In this her reply she tells her whole heart. Surely, few more pathetic revelations of disappointed yet faithful affection have drifted to us on the tide of the ages. Catherine was at this time far advanced upon her own Via Dolorosa. One of the stations of her sorrow had been the parting with her friend: "And you have left me here, and have gone away with God." Here was another station, marked by a deeper pain: "Faithful obedience would have done more in the sight of God and men than all human prudence; my sins have prevented me from seeing it in you." With a glad suffering she had given Raimondo up to the service of God; with a suffering that was bitterly shamed, she saw him false to his calling. She utters no vain reproaches. In her own way she begins with earnest self-accusations, and proceeds to comfort the weakness of the man who should have been her guide with tender and subtly-reasoned assurances of her unchanged affection. At the same time she does not flinch from uncondoning, scathing statement of his sin and of her disillusion. Considerate, delicate, even courteous to a degree, the letter yet reveals in every line the sense of solitude which the action of Raimondo had caused her. There is no rebellion in her spirit: "I hold me none the less in peace, because I am certain that nothing happens without mystery," she sighs. But we grieve with a new, awestruck perception of the loneliness of her great soul, as we realize that to Raimondo was to be given perforce her deepest confidence in the passion upon which she was even now entering.

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

Dearest father 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 in you the light of most holy faith. This is a light which shows us the way of truth, and without it no activity, or desire, or work of ours would come to fruition, or to the end for which we began it; but everything would become imperfect--slow we should be in the love of God and of our neighbour. This is the reason: seemingly love is as great as faith, and faith is as great as love. He who loves is always faithful to him whom he loves, and faithfully serves him till death. By this I perceive that in truth I do not love God, nor the creatures through God: for if in truth I loved Him, I should be faithful in such wise that I should give myself to death a thousand times a day, were it needful and possible, for the glory and praise of His Name, and faith would not fail me, since for the love of God and of virtue and of Holy Church I should set myself to endure. So I should believe that God was my help and my defender, as He was of those glorious martyrs who went with gladness to the place of martyrdom. Were I faithful I should not fear, but I should hold for sure that the same God is for me who was for them; and His power to provide for my necessities is not weakened as to capacity, knowledge, or will. But because I do not love, I do not really trust myself to Him, but the sensuous fear in me shows me that love is lukewarm, and the light of faith is darkened by faithlessness toward my Creator, and by trusting in myself. I confess and deny not that this root of evil is not yet uprooted from my soul, and therefore those works are hindered which God wants to do or puts in my way, so that they do not reach the lucid and fruitful end for which God had them begun. Ah me, ah me, my Lord! Woe to me miserable! And shall I find myself thus every time, in every place, and in every state? Shall I always close with my faithlessness the way to Thy providence? Yes, truly, if indeed Thou by Thy mercy do not unmake me, and make me anew. Then, Lord, unmake me, and break the hardness of my heart, that I be not a tool which spoils Thy works!

And I beg you, dearest father, to pray earnestly that I and you both together may drown ourselves in the Blood of the humble Lamb, which will make us strong and faithful. We shall feel the fire of the divine charity: we shall be co-workers with His grace, and not undoers or spoilers of it. So we shall show that we are faithful to God, and trust in His help, and not in our knowledge nor in that of men.

With this same faith we shall love the creature; for as love of the neighbour proceeds from love of God, so with faith, in general and in particular; as there is a general faith corresponding to the love which we ought to feel in general to every creature, so there is a special faith belonging to those who love one another more intimately: like this, which beyond the common love has established between us two a close particular love, a love which faith manifests. So much love does it manifest that it cannot believe nor imagine that one of us wishes anything else than the other's good; and it believes earnestly, for it seeks this with great insistence in the sight of God and men, seeking ever in the other the glory of the name of God and the profit of his soul; constraining Divine Help, that as it adds burdens it may add fortitude and long perseverance. Such faith bears he who loves, and never lessens it for any reason, neither for speech of man nor illusion of the devil, nor change of place. If anyone does otherwise, it is a sign that he loves God and his neighbour imperfectly.

Apparently, as I understood by your letter, many diverse battles befell you, and troubled reflections, through the deceit of the devil and through your own sensuous passion, it seeming to you that a burden was imposed on you greater than you can bear. You did not seem to yourself strong enough for me to measure you with my measure, and on this account you were in doubt lest my affection and love to you were diminished. But you did not see aright, and it was you who showed that I had grown to love more, and you less; for with the love with which I love myself, with that I love you, in the lively faith that all which is lacking on your part, God will complete by His goodness. But this is not done yet, for you have known how to find ways to throw your load down to earth. You present us many scraps of excuses to cover up your faithless frailty, but not in such wise that I do not see it quite enough now, and good it will seem to me if it is not perceived by anyone but me. Yes, yes, I show you a love increased in me toward you, and not waning. But what shall I say? How could your ignorance give place to one of the least of those thoughts? Could you ever believe that I wished anything else than the life of your soul? Where is the faith that you always used to have and ought to have, and the certainty that you have had, that before a thing is done, it is seen and determined in the sight of God--not only this, which is so great a deed, but every least thing? Had you been faithful, you would not have gone about vacillating so, nor fallen into fear toward God and toward me; but like a faithful son, ready for obedience, you would have gone and done what you could. And if you could not have gone upright, you would have gone on all fours; if you could not have gone as a Frate, you would have gone as a pilgrim; if there is no money for us, one would have gone begging. This faithful obedience would have accomplished more in the sight of God and in the hearts of men than all human prudences. My sins have prevented me from seeing it in you.

Nevertheless I am quite sure, that although selfish passion was there, you yet had and have holy and good regard to fulfil better the will of God and that of Christ on earth, Pope Urban VI. Not that I would have had you stay, though; nay, but take to the road at once, in whatever fashion and by whatever way had been open to you. Day and night I was constrained by God concerning many other things also; which, through the carelessness of him who has to do them, but chiefly through my sins which hinder every good, are all coming to nothing. And thus, ah me! we see ourselves drowning, and offences against God increasing, with many torments; and I live in an agony of delay. May God, in His mercy, soon take me from this life of shadows!

We see in the kingdom of Naples that this last disaster is worse than the first; and so many evils are likely to happen there, that may God remedy them! But He in His pity showed the disaster, and the remedies that ought to be applied. But, as I said, the abundance of my faults hinders all good. I shall have a great deal to say to you about these matters, should I not receive the greatest grace, that of release from earth before I see you again.

Yes, as I say, I do entirely wish that you had gone. Nevertheless I hold me in peace, because I am certain that nothing happens without mystery; and also because I unburdened my conscience, doing what I could that a messenger should be sent to the King of France. May the clemency of the Holy Spirit achieve it! For we by ourselves are bad workmen.

As for going quickly to the King of Hungary, it is clear that the Holy Father would be well enough pleased, and he had planned that you should go with other companions. Now, I do not know why, he has changed his mind, and wishes you to stay where you are, and do what good you can. I beg you to be zealous about it.