Letters of Catherine Benincasa

Table of Persons Addressed St. Catherine of Siena as seen in her letters Chief Events in the life of St. Catherine Brief Outline of Contemporary Public Events To Monna Alessa de...

Not so Catherine Benincasa. She had known that temptation and conquered it. After her reception as a Dominican Tertiary, she had possessed the extraordinary resolution to live f...

1379-1380. The Great Schism divides Europe. England remains faithful to Urban: France and Naples, after wavering, declare for Clement. War rages between the two Popes. The schis...

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 the desire to see you establishe...

Prayer is of three sorts. The one is perpetual: it is the holy perpetual desire, which prays in the sight of God, whatever thou art doing; for this desire directs all thy works,...

Then the soul, enamoured and tormented with love, runs to the table of holy desire, and sees not itself in itself, seeking private consolation, spiritual or temporal, but, as on...

Belief in the wrath to come is sufficiently real to Catherine, and the current demonology of her day slips readily from her tongue. These things she accepted as she found them....

Of the three secretaries, Neri was the first to enter Catherine's service. It was he who introduced to her most of the people who later became her disciples, and many letters ye...

The following is one of the famous letters of the world. The record in art and literature of the scene which it depicts has carried knowledge of Catherine to many who otherwise...

This is what I wish to see in you. And if up to this time, we have not stood very firm, I wish and pray in truth that the moment of time which remains be dealt with manfully, fo...

Now suppose there should be a soul that did not have to endure many labours and temptations, from whatever direction and in whatever wise God may grant them. No virtue would be...

Dost thou know why it must not be chief? That the soul may not serve God with a thing that can be taken from it and that is finite: but with holy desire, which is infinite, thro...

I remember that I heard this said once to a servant of God, and it was said to her by the Sweet Primal Truth, when she was abiding in very great pain and temptation, and among o...

I tell you, dearest fathers, and I beg you, not to choose to hinder the grace of the Holy Spirit, which by no merits of yours He by His clemency is disposed to give you. You mig...

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...

Sometimes He will do us the grace by giving it to us in effect though not in feeling. He uses this means with foresight, because He knows that if a man felt himself to possess i...

Then, as she saw such greatness and generosity in the goodness of God, and perceived what ought to be done to please Him more, the flame of desire so increased that had it been...

Thou didst write me that God seemed to constrain thee in thy orisons to pray for me. Thanks be to the Divine Goodness, who shows such unspeakable love to my poor soul! Thou dids...

Nor, therefore, does he suppress the flame of holy desire, nor cast from him the pearl of justice, lucid and one with mercy, which he bears upon his breast. Were justice without...

So, dearest and sweetest father, let us divest us and clothe us in truth, so we shall be faithful lovers. I tell you that today I will to begin again, in order that my sins may...

Saturday evening one olive came at one o'clock at night; and to-day at vespers came the other. And Saturday evening that friend of ours was caught with a companion, so that at o...

We should know this truth in two chief ways--although it befits us to know it in everything--that is, everything which exists should love itself in God and through God, who is T...

"To Stefano di Corrado Maconi, her ignorant and most ungrateful son": "To Stefano Maconi, her most ungrateful and unworthy son, when she was at Rome": so run the superscriptions...

You need not be afraid of luxuries or of great consolations; for you are coming to endure, and not to enjoy yourselves, except with the joy of the Cross. Lean your head out, and...

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...

"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...

Now I pray and constrain you, father, and son given by that sweet Mother, Mary, that you feel that if God is turning the eye of His mercy upon me, He wills to renew your life; a...