Part 25

Abandon yourself, and every personal pleasure and consolation; and let turfs be thrown upon those who are dead, and with the cords of humble desire and holy prayer let the hands of divine justice be bound, the devil, and fleshly appetite. We are offered dead in the garden of Holy Church, and to Christ on earth, the lord of that garden. Then let us do the works of the dead. The dead man does not see nor hear nor feel. Be strong to slay yourself with the knife of hate and love, that you may not hear the derision, the insults, the reproaches of the world, which the persecutors of Holy Church would offer you. Let not your eyes see things as impossible to do, nor the torment that may follow; but let them see with the light of faith that through Christ crucified you can do all things, and that God will not impose a greater burden than can be borne. Why, we are to rejoice in great burdens, because then God gives us the gift of fortitude. With the love of endurance, fleshly sensitiveness is lost; and thus dead, dead, we may nourish ourselves in this garden. When I see this, I shall account my soul as blessed. I tell you, sweetest father, that whether we will or no, the times to-day summon us to die. Then be no more alive! End pains in pain, and increase the joy of holy desire in the pain; that our life may pass no otherwise than in crucified desire, and that we may give our bodies willingly to be eaten by beasts; that is, for the love of virtue let us willingly fling ourselves upon the tongues and hands of bestial men, as did those others who have worked, dead, in this sweet garden, and watered it with their blood, but first with their tears and sweats. And I--(grievous my life!)--because I have not given enough water to it, was refused permission to give it my blood. I will it to be no more thus, but be our life renewed and the fire of desire increased!

You ask me to pray the Divine Goodness to give you the fire of Vincent, of Lawrence, and of sweet Paul, and that of the charming John--saying that then you will do great things. And so I shall be glad. Surely I say the truth, that without this fire you would not do anything, neither little nor big, nor should I be glad in you.

Therefore, considering that it is so, and that I have seen it proved, an impulse has grown in me, with great zeal in the sweet sight of God. Were you near me in the body, truly I would show you that it is so, and would give you other than words. I rejoice, and I want you to rejoice; for, since this desire grows, He will fulfil it in you and me, because He accepts holy and true desires; provided that you open the eye of your mind in the light of holiest faith, that you may know the truth of the will of God. Knowing it you will love it, and loving it you will be faithful, and your heart will not be overshadowed by any wile of the devil. Being faithful, you will do every great thing in God: what He puts into your hands will be fulfilled perfectly; that is, it will not be hindered on your part from coming to perfection. With this light you will be cautious, modest, and weighty in speech and conversation and in all your works and way; but without it you would do quite the contrary in your ways and habits, and everything else would turn out contrary for you.

So, knowing that this is the case, I desired to see in you the light of most holy faith; and so I want you to have it. And because I want this, and love you immeasurably for your salvation, and desire with great desire to see you in the state of the perfect, therefore I pray you with many words--but I would do so more willingly in deed; and I use reproaches with you, in order that you may return continually to yourself. I have done my best, and I shall do so, to make you assume the burden of the perfect for the honour of God, and ask His goodness to make you reach the last state of perfection; that is, to shed your blood for Holy Church, whether your servant the flesh will it or no. Lose you in the Blood of Christ crucified, and bear my faults and words with good patience. And whenever your faults may be shown you, rejoice, and thank the Divine Goodness, which has assigned someone to labour over you, who watches for you in His sight.

As to what you write me, that antichrist and his members seek diligently to have you, do not fear; for God is strong to take away their light and their force, that they may not fulfil their desires. Beside, you ought to think that you are not worthy of so great a good, and so you need not fear. Take confidence; for sweet Mary and the Truth will be for you always.

I, vile slave, who am placed in the Field, where blood was shed for the love of Blood--(and you have left me here, and gone away with God)--shall never pause from working for you. I beg you so to do that you give me no matter for mourning, nor for shaming me in the sight of God. As you are a man in promising the will to do and bear for the honour of God, do not then turn into a woman when we come to the shutting of the lock; for I should appeal against you to Christ crucified and to Mary. Beware lest it happen later to you as to the abbot of St. Antimo, who, through fear and under colour of not tempting God, left Siena and came to Rome, supposing that he had escaped his prison and was safe; and he was thrown into prison, with the punishment that you know. So are pusillanimous hearts cured. Be, then, be all a man: that death may be granted you.

I beg you to pardon me whatever I might have said that was not honour to God and due reverence to yourself: let love excuse it. I say no more to you. Remain in the holy and sweet grace of God. I ask your benediction. Sweet Jesus, Jesus Love!

TO URBAN VI

This is the last letter to Urban that we possess. If, as seems likely, it is also the last that Catherine wrote to him, it must have been written on the Monday after Sexagesima, 1380, under circumstances which she describes for us in the next letter to be given. She had already at the time entered upon the mystical agony which preceded her transitus.

The letter alludes to historic details of which we have no knowledge and for which we do not care. Yet it has rare interest. That exquisite sweetness which often blends in so unique a way with Catherine's authoritative tone, was never more evident. Urban's impetuous inconsistencies, and the irrational gusts of anger which were by this time alienating even his friends, could not be more clearly nor more gently rebuked. One's heart aches at the thought of what manner of man he was to whom this sensitive and high-minded woman was forced by her faith to give not only allegiance but championship. Not once during Catherine's active life was she allowed to fight in a clear cause, or at least in a cause in which sympathies could be undivided; the pathos of the situation is evident in the meek and patient firmness of her tone. But the letter has a deeper interest, if it is really the last she wrote to him. Knowing the circumstances of its composition, we must be amazed at the lucidity of her thought and words, at the steady and definite wisdom with which she discusses the movement of events in the outer world. It is surely significant to the psychologist that a woman in the throes of such an experience as the next letters present, could write in such a strain. The whole life of Catherine, indeed, refutes the popular opinion that mystics cannot be trusted to sane judgment or sustained wisdom of action in the confused affairs of this world.

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

Dearest and sweetest father in Christ sweet Jesus: I Catherine, your poor unworthy daughter, write to you with great desire to see a prudence and sweet light of truth in you, in such wise that I may see you follow the glorious St. Gregory, and govern Holy Church with such prudence that it may never be necessary to take back anything which may be ordered or done by your Holiness; even the least word; so that your firmness grounded in the truth may be evident in the sight of God and men, as ought to be the case with the true holy High Priest. I pray the inestimable charity of God that He clothe your soul in this; for it seems to me that light and prudence are very necessary indeed to us, and especially to your Holiness and to anyone else who might be in your place; most chiefly in these current times. Because I know that you have a desire to find these in yourself, I remind you of them, showing you the desire of your own soul.

I have heard, holy father, of the reply which the violence of the Prefect made; surely in violence of wrath and irreverence toward the Roman ambassadors. On which reply it seems that they are to hold a General Council, and then the heads of the wards and certain other good men are to come to you. I beg you, most holy father, that as you have begun so you will continue to meet with them often, and to bind them prudently with the bands of love. So I beg you that now, as to what they will say to you when the Council is held, you will receive them with as much gentleness as you can, showing them what your Holiness thinks must be done. Pardon me--for love makes me say what perhaps there is no need of saying, since I know that you must understand the temperament of your Roman sons, who are drawn and held more with gentleness than with any force or asperity of words; and also you recognize the great necessity in which you are, and Holy Church, to keep this people in obedience and reverence toward your Holiness; because the head and beginning of our faith is here. And I humbly beg you, that you will aim prudently always to promise that which it ought to be possible to you fully to perform, so that loss, shame, and confusion may not follow later. Pardon me, most sweet and holy father, for saying these words to you. I am confident that your humility and benignity are content that they should be said, and will not feel distaste or scorn for them because they come from the mouth of a most despicable woman; for the humble man does not consider who speaks to him, but pays note to the honour of God, and to truth and his own salvation.

Comfort you, and do not fear on account of any bad reply which this rebel against your Holiness may have made or may make, for God will care for this and for everything else, as Ruler and Helper of the ship of Holy Church, and of your Holiness. Be you manful for me, in the holy fear of God; wholly exemplary in your words, your habits, and all your deeds. Let all shine clear in the sight of God and men; as a light placed in the candlestick of Holy Church, to which looks and should look all the Christian people.

Also I beg you that you should bring us some help for what Leo told you; for this scandal grows greater every day, not only through the thing that was done to the Sienese ambassador, but also through the other things which are seen day by day, which are enough to provoke to wrath the feeble hearts of men. You do not need this person now, but someone who shall be a means of peace, and not of war. Although he may act with a good zeal for justice, there are many who do so with such disorder and such impulse of wrath that they depart from all reason and measure. Therefore I earnestly beg your Holiness to condescend to the infirmity of men, and provide a physician who shall know how to cure the infirmity better than he. And do not wait so long that death shall follow: for I tell you that if no other help is found, the infirmity will grow.

Then recall to yourself the disaster that fell upon all Italy, because bad rulers were not guarded against, who governed in such wise that they were the cause of the Church of God being despoiled. I know that you are aware of this: now let your Holiness see what is to be done. Comfort you, comfort you sweetly; for God does not despise your desire, nor the prayer of His servants. I say no more to you. Remain in the holy and sweet Grace of God. Humbly I ask your benediction. Sweet Jesus, Jesus Love.

LETTERS DESCRIBING THE EXPERIENCE PRECEDING DEATH

"Fightings and fears within, without," had long been Catherine's portion. Now the end was at hand. From girlhood she had confronted a great contradiction. The sharpest trial to Christian faith throughout the ages is probably the spectacle presented by the visible Church of Christ. This abiding parable of the contrast between ideal and actual was perhaps never more painful to the devout soul than in Catherine's time, and perhaps we are safe in saying that no one ever suffered from it more than she. Her whole life was an Act of Faith: faith the more heroic because maintained against the recurrent attacks of spiritual doubt and despair. At more than one point in her career we see her, overwhelmed by the seeming failure of the divine purpose, lifting her whole being into the Presence of God, there to receive reassurance, none the less satisfying to her vigorous intellect because conveyed through the channel of mystic ecstasy.

One such experience may be quoted here. It dates apparently from the time of her greatest disappointment in Gregory; we can judge of its significance and depth from the fact that she afterward recorded it more fully, and used it as the basis for the first book of her "Dialogue." "Comfort you, dearest father," she writes to Raimondo: "Concerning the sweet Bride of Christ: for the more she abounds in tribulations and bitterness, so much the more Divine Truth promises to make her abound in sweetness.... When I had thoroughly understood your letters, I begged a servant of God to offer tears and sweats before God, for the Bride and because of the 'Babbo's' weakness.

"Whence instantly, by divine grace, there grew in her a desire and gladness beyond all measure. She waited for the morning to have Mass, it being the Day of Mary; and when the hour of Mass had come, took her place with true self-knowledge, abasing herself before God for her imperfection. And rising above herself with eager desire, and gazing with the eye of her mind into Eternal Truth, she made four petitions there, holding herself and her father in the Presence of the Bride of Truth.

"First, the reform of Holy Church. Then God, letting Himself be constrained by tears and bound by the cords of her desire, said: 'Sweetest My daughter, thou seest how she has soiled her face with impurity and self-love, and become swollen by the pride and avarice of those who feed at her bosom. But take thy tears and sweat, 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 or war, but by peace, and humble continual prayers, 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 you.'

"Although the salvation of all the whole world was contained in this, nevertheless the prayer reached out more in particular, entreating for the whole world. Then God showed in how great love He had created man, and He said: 'Now thou seest that every one is striking at Me. See, daughter, with what diverse and many sins they strike at Me, and especially with their wretched abominable self-love, whence issues every evil, with which they have poisoned the whole world. Do you then, My servants, adorn you in My Presence with many prayers, and so you shall mitigate the wrath of divine justice. And know that no one can escape from My Hands. Open the eye of thy mind and gaze upon My Hand.' And lifting her eyes she saw held in His grasp all the universal world. Then He said: 'I will that thou know that no one can be taken from Me; for all are under either justice or mercy; therefore all are Mine. And because they came forth from Me, I love them unspeakably, and shall show them mercy by means of My servants.' Then, the flame of desire increasing, that woman abode as one blessed and grieving, and gave thanks to the Divine Goodness: as perceiving that God had showed her the faults of His creatures that she might be constrained to arise with more zeal and greater desire. And so greatly increased the holy fire of love, that she despised the sweat of water she poured forth, through her great desire to see a sweat of blood pour from her body: and she said to herself, 'Soul mine, thou hast wasted thy whole life. Therefore have so great losses and evils fallen on the world and on Holy Church, in general and in particular. So now I wish thee to atone with sweat of blood.' Then that soul, spurred on by holy desire, arose much higher, and opened the eye of her mind, and gazed into the Divine Charity: where she saw and felt how much we are bound to seek the glory and praise of the Name of God in the salvation of souls."

In this remarkable passage we see Catherine's high and increasing sense of responsibility. Her tears and sweats are to cleanse the face of the Church, and through the grieving desire of the servants of God, redemption is to be accomplished. She was never, as we know, one of those Christian fatalists whose optimism leads them to inaction. From the day when, reluctant, she left her little cell, she threw her power with unwearied constancy and courage into the life of her day, repugnant though its problems might be to her natural temper. Catherine was, however, profoundly convinced that social salvation was to be wrought, not by work alone, but also by prayer; or rather, for the antithesis is false, that the forces which re-create society are set in motion in the invisible sphere. Constant intercession, and the uplifting of that "holy desire" which is the watchword of her teaching into a sacrificial passion--these are the means from which she hoped for reform and purification. In younger life, she is said to have prayed that she might be made a stopper in the mouth of Hell to prevent other souls from entering; through the quaint mediaeval figure one reads the prevailing impulse of her life.

The longer Catherine lived, the darker became the religious prospect. She saw her aims in practical politics realized one by one, only to mock her by spiritual failure. Those whom she best loved disappointed her ideal. She witnessed iniquity in high religious places, violence and corruption enlisted in the defence of truth. As she watched these things, the sense of an inward expiation to be accomplished became overpowering. It summoned her to death, and at the same time offered her a unique consolation.

These letters must now speak for themselves. They were written shortly before her death to Fra Raimondo, who, sadly though he had failed her, remained her most trusted friend. We have impressive accounts from other sources of Catherine's slow transitus--of the long weeks during which she was literally dying, and by her own choice, of a broken heart. They corroborate many of the details here given. But of still higher value is this transcript by the woman herself--minutely painstaking, while yet obviously composed under strong excitement--of the experience in the secret places of her soul. The first of these letters is written under stress of emotion so intense that coherence is hardly possible. The mind is baffled in seeking to find human speech which shall even adumbrate reality. What Catherine has to describe is the culmination of her earthly life: the final triumph of faith over despair, the final offering of herself as a sacrificial victim, in obedience, as she believes, to the express Voice of God. The second letter is more calm. The sacrifice has been accepted. She is dying, not indeed by the violence of men, like the martyrs for whose fate she has yearned, but by the agony of her own heart, breaking for the sins of Holy Church. "I in this way," she writes exulting, "as the holy martyrs with blood." And her agony is serene and joyous; her last thoughts are for others; her soul is full of the victory of peace. Outwardly, all was confusion around her; but her own life--the only region in which unity is within our reach--was rounded into a harmonious whole. To read the expression of that life in her letters is to follow one of those tragedies that are the salvation of the world.

TO MASTER RAIMONDO OF CAPUA

... I was breathless with grief from the crucified desire which had been newly conceived in the sight of God. For the light of the mind had mirrored itself in the Eternal Trinity; and in that abyss was seen the dignity of rational being, and the misery into which man falls by fault of mortal sin, and the necessity of Holy Church, which God revealed to His servant's bosom; and how no one can attain to enjoy the beauty of God in the abyss of the Trinity but by means of that sweet Bride; for it befits all to pass by the door of Christ crucified, and this door is not found elsewhere than in Holy Church. She saw that this Bride brought life to men, because she holds in herself such life that there is no one who can kill her; and that she gave fortitude and light, and that there is no one who can weaken her, in her true self, or cast her into darkness. And she saw that her fruit never fails, but increases for ever.

Then said Eternal God: "All this dignity, which your intellect could not compass, is given you men by Me. Consider, therefore, in grief and bitterness, and thou shalt see that people are approaching this Bride only for her outer raiment--that is, for temporal possessions. But thou seest her wholly deserted by those who seek her very essence--that is, the fruit of Blood. He who pays not the price of charity with true humility and the light of most holy faith, would share this, not unto life, but unto death; he would do like the thief, who takes what is not his. For the fruit of Blood is for those who pay the price of love, because she is founded in love, and is Very Love itself. And I will," said Eternal God, "that every one give to her through love, according as I give to My servants to minister in diverse ways, even as they have received. But I grieve that I find none who ministers there. Nay, it seems that every one has abandoned her. But I will be the Mediator once more."