Chapter 2

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 for three years the recluse life, not in the guarded peace of a convent, but in her own room at home, in the noisy and overcrowded house where a goodly number of her twenty-four brothers and sisters were apparently still living. And these had been years of inestimable preciousness; but they came to an end at the command of God, speaking through the constraining impulse of her love for men. From the mystical retirement in which she had long lived alone with her Beloved, she emerged into the world. And the remarkable fact is that in no respect did she blench from the situation as she found it. She "faced life steadily and faced it whole." A Europe ravaged by dissensions lay before her; a Church which gave the lie to its lofty theories, no less by the hateful worldliness of its prelates than by its indifferent abandonment of the Seat of Peter. Above this sorry spectacle the mind of Catherine soared straight into an upper region, where only the greatest minds of the day were her comrades. Her fellow-citizens were unable to entertain the idea even of civic peace within the limits of their own town; but patriotic devotion to all Italy fired her great heart. More than this--her instinct for solidarity forced her to dwell in the thought of a world-embracing brotherhood. Her hopes were centred, not like Dante's in the Emperor the heir of the Caesars, but in the Pope the heir of Christ. Despite the corruption from which she recoiled with horror, despite the Babylonian captivity at Avignon, she saw in the Catholic Church that image of a pure universal fellowship which the noblest Catholics of all ages have cherished. To the service of the Church, therefore, her life was dedicated; it was to her the Holy House of Reconciliation, wherein all nations should dwell in unity; and only by submission to its authority could the woes of Italy be healed.

Catherine's letters on public affairs--historical documents of recognised importance--give us her practical programme. It was formed in the light of that faith which she always describes as "the eye of the mind." She was called during her brief years of political activity to meet three chief issues: the absence of the Pope from Italy; the rebellion of the Tuscan cities, headed by Florence, against his authority; and at a later time the great Schism, which broke forth under Urban VI. During her last five years she was absorbed in ecclesiastical affairs. In certain of her immediate aims she succeeded, in others she failed. It would be hard to say whether her success or her failure involved the greater tragedy. For behind all these aims was a larger ideal that was not to be realised--the dream, entertained as passionately by Catherine Benincasa as by Savonarola or by Luther, of thorough Church-reform. Catherine at Avignon, pleading this great cause in the frivolous culture and dainty pomp of the place; Catherine at Rome, defending to her last breath the legal rights of a Pope whom she could hardly have honoured, and whose claims she saw defended by extremely doubtful means--is a figure as pathetic as heroic. Few sorrows are keener than to work with all one's energies to attain a visible end for the sake of a spiritual result, and, attaining that end, to find the result as far as ever. This sorrow was Catherine's. The external successes which she won--considerable enough to secure her a place in history-- availed nothing to forward the greater aim for which she worked. Gregory XI., under her magnetic inspiration, gathered strength, indeed, to make a personal sacrifice and to return to Rome, but he was of no calibre to attempt radical reform, and his residence in Italy did nothing to right the crying abuses that were breaking Christian hearts. His successor, on the other hand, did really initiate the reform of the clergy, but so drastic and unwise were his methods that the result was terrible and disconcerting--the development of a situation of which only the Catholic idealist could discern the full irony; no less than Schism, the rending of the Seamless Robe of Christ.

With failing hopes and increasing experience of the complexity of human struggle, Catherine clung to her aim until the end. There was no touch of pusillanimity in her heroic spirit. As with deep respect we follow the Letters of the last two years, and note their unflagging alertness and vigour, their steady tone of devotion and self-control, we realise that to tragedy her spirit was dedicate. Her energy of mind was constantly on the increase. Still, it is true, she wrote to disciples near and far long, tender letters of spiritual counsel--analyses of the religious life tranquilly penetrating as those of an earlier time. But her political correspondence grew in bulk. It is tense, nervous, virile. It breathes a vibrating passion, a solemn force, that are the index of a breaking heart. Not for one moment did Catherine relax her energies. From 1376, when she went to Avignon, she led, with one or two brief intermissions only, the life of a busy woman of affairs. But within this outer life of strenuous and, as a rule, thwarted activities, another life went on--a life in which failure could not be, since through failure is wrought redemption.

From the days of her stigmatization, which occurred in 1375 at Pisa, Catherine had been convinced that in some special sense she was to share in the Passion of Christ, and offer herself a sacrifice for the sins of Holy Church. Now this conception deepened till it became all-absorbing. In full consciousness of failing vital powers, in expectation of her approaching death, she offered her sufferings of mind and body as an expiation for the sins around her. By word of mouth and by letters of heartbroken intensity she summoned all dear to her to join in this holy offering. Catherine's faith is alien to these latter days. Yet the psychical unity of the race is becoming matter not only of emotional intuition, but established scientific fact: and no modern sociologist, no psychologist who realizes how unknown in origin and how intimate in interpenetration are the forces that control our destiny, can afford to scoff at her. She had longed inexpressibly for outward martyrdom. This was not for her, yet none the less really did she lay down her life on the Altar of Sacrifice. The evils of the time, and above all of the Church, had generated a sense of unbearable sin in her pure spirit; her constant instinct to identify herself with the guilt of others found in this final offering an august climax and fulfilment.

During the last months of her life--months of excruciating physical sufferings, vividly described for us by her contemporaries--the woman's rectitude and wisdom, her swift tender sympathies, were still, as ever, at the disposal of all who sought them. With unswerving energy she still laboured for the cause of truth. When we consider the conditions, spiritual and physical, of those last months, we 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 Stigmata in the Church of Santa Cristina; but the marks, at her request, remain invisible. She prophesies the Great Schism. A brief visit to Lucca.

1376. Catherine receives Stefano Maconi as a disciple, and at his instance reconciles the feud between the Maconi and the Tolomei. She attempts by correspondence to reconcile Pope Gregory XI. and the Florentines. On April 1st the Divine Commission to bear the olive to both disputants is given her in a vision. In May, at the request of the Florentines, she goes to Florence. Sent as their representative to Avignon, she reaches that city on June 18th. Gregory entrusts her with the negotiations for peace. The Florentine ambassadors, however, delay their coming, and when they come refuse to ratify her powers. Thwarted in this direction, she devotes all her efforts to persuading the Pope to return to Rome, and triumphing over all obstacles, succeeds. She leaves for home on September 13th, but is retained for a month in Genoa, at the house of Madonna Orietta Scotta. After a short visit at Pisa, she reaches Siena in December or January.

1377. Catherine converts the castle of Belcaro, conveyed to her by its owner, into a monastery. She visits the Salimbeni in their feudal castle at Rocca D'Orcia, for the purpose of healing their family feuds. While here she learns miraculously to write. She also visits Sant' Antimo and Montepulciano.

1378. Gregory, in failing health, perhaps regretting his return, becomes alienated from Catherine. He sends her, however, to Florence, where she stays in a house built for her by Niccolò Soderini, at the foot of the hill of St. George. She succeeds in causing the Interdict to be respected, but almost loses her life in a popular tumult, and keenly regrets not having won the crown of martyrdom. After the death of Gregory, and the establishment of the longed-for peace by Pope Urban, Catherine returns to Siena, where she devotes herself to composing her "Dialogue." After the outbreak of the Schism, Urban, whom she had known at Avignon, summons her to Rome. She reluctantly obeys, and takes up her abode in that city on November 28th, accompanied by a large group of disciples, her "Famiglia," who live together, subsisting on alms. From this time Catherine devotes her whole powers to the cause of Urban. She is his trusted adviser, and seeks earnestly to curb his impatient temper on the one hand, and to keep the sovereigns of Europe faithful to him on the other. She writes on his behalf to the Kings of France and Hungary, to Queen Giovanna of Naples, to the magistrates of Italian cities, to the Italian cardinals who have joined the Schism, and to others. Fra Raimondo, despatched to France, to her grief and exaltation, evades his mission through timidity, to her bitter disappointment, but does not return to Rome till after her death. Catherine's health, always fragile, gives way under her unremitting labours and her great sorrows.

1380. Catherine succeeds in quieting the revolt of the Romans against Urban. She dedicates herself as a sacrificial victim, in expiation of the sins of the Church and of the Roman people. In vision at St. Peter's, on Sexagesima Sunday, the burden of the Ship of the Church descends upon her shoulders. Her physical sufferings increase, and on April 30th she dies, in the presence of her disciples.

BRIEF TABLE OF CONTEMPORARY PUBLIC EVENTS

1368-1369. Political Revolution in Siena. The compromise government of the Riformatori is established. The Emperor Charles V. is summoned to the city by the party worsted in the Revolution, joined by certain nobles. He arrives in January, '69, but is forced to withdraw by a popular rising. The nobles are excluded from the chief power and ravaged by feuds among themselves.

1372. Gregory XI. declares war against Bernabo Visconti of Milan, and takes into his pay the English free-lance, Sir John Hawkwood. Peter d'Estaing, appointed Legate of Bologna, makes truce with Bernabo. The latter, however, continues secretly to incite Tuscany to rebel against the Pope, inflaming the indignation of the Tuscans at the arbitrary policy of the Papal Legates, and in particular of the Nuncio, Gerard du Puy, who is supporting the claims of those turbulent nobles, the Salimbeni in Siena. Catherine is in correspondence with both d'Estaing and Du Puy. On April 22nd, Gregory, in full consistory, announces his intention of returning to Rome.

1373. Italy is devastated by petty strife: "It seems as if a planet reigned at this time which produced in the world the following effects: That the Brothers of St. Austin killed their Provincial at Sant' Antonio with a knife; and in Siena was much fighting. At Assisi the Brothers Minor fought, and killed fourteen with a knife. And those of the Rose fought, and drove six away. Also, those of Certosa had great dissensions, and their General came and changed them all about. So all Religious everywhere seemed to have strife and dissension among themselves. And every Religious of whatever rule was oppressed and insulted by the world. So with brothers according to the flesh--cousins, wives, relatives, and neighbours. It seems that there were divisions all over the whole world. In Siena, loyalty was neither proposed nor observed, gentlemen did not show it among themselves nor outside, nor did the Nine among themselves or with outside persons, nor did the Twelve. The people did not agree with their own leader, nor exactly with any one else. Thus all the world was a place of shadows."--_Chronicle of Neri di Donato_.

A Crusade publicly proclaimed by the Pope.

1374. Plague and famine lay Tuscany waste. William of Noellet, the Papal Legate, refuses to allow corn to be imported into Tuscany from the Papal States. Hawkwood, probably at his instigation, ravages the country, and even threatens the city of Florence. Florence, enraged, rebels against the Pope, and appoints from the ranks of the Ghibellines a new body of Magistrates, known as the Eight of War. Meantime, Cione de' Salimbeni is raiding the country around Siena. The roads through the Maremma are insecure for peaceable folk, and the peasants are driven to take refuge in the plague-stricken town.

1375. Eighty Italian cities join a League, headed by Florence, against the Pope, with the watchword, "Fling off the foreign yoke."

1376. Gregory despatches ambassadors to the Eight of War, who scorn his proposals. Florence incites Bologna to revolt, and the Legate flees. The Papal Nuncio is flayed alive in the streets of Florence. The city is placed under an Interdict. Envoys are despatched to Avignon, who set forth eloquently, but to no avail, the grievances of the city. War is declared against Florence by the Pope, and Count Robert of Geneva, with an army of free-lances, is sent into Italy. Count Robert, laying waste the territory of Bologna, summons Hawkwood to his aid, and perpetrates the hideous massacre of Cesena. Catherine, sent to Avignon, fails to procure peace. Gregory, swayed by her representations, returns to Italy, and reaches Rome, after a difficult journey, on January 17th, 1377.

1378. Gregory, exhausted and disappointed by the continued discords in Italy, dies in March. The Archbishop of Bari, known as Urban VI., is appointed his successor. In July, peace is made with Florence, and the Interdict upon the city is raised. The harsh measures of Urban in dealing with the clergy arouse violent antagonism. In June, the Cardinals begin to circulate rumours challenging the validity of the election, and on September 20th they formally announce that the election was invalid, having been forced on them by fear, and appoint as Pope the Cardinal Robert of Geneva, who takes the name of Clement VII.