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Letters of Catherine Benincasa by Catherine Benincasa

C >> Catherine Benincasa >> Letters of Catherine Benincasa




This is not the only time by any means that Catherine had to meet similar
complaints. Wherever she bore her strong vitality, limitless sympathy and
peculiar charm, new friends gathered around her and clung to her with an
unreasoning devotion that cried out in exacting hunger for her presence,
and often proved to her a real distress. For Catherine, swiftly responsive
as she was to individual affections, perfect in loyalty as she always
showed herself, moved, nevertheless, in a region where unswerving service
of a larger duty might at any moment force her to refuse to gratify, at
least in outward ways, the personal claim. This was very hard for her
friends to understand; one is sorry for them. At the same time, one feels
more than a little pathos in her efforts to bring these simpler minds into
understanding sympathy with that high sense of vocation which underlay all
her doings: "Know, dearest mother, that I, your poor little daughter, am
not put on earth for anything else than this; to this my Creator has
chosen me. I know you are content that I should obey Him." But Monna Lapa
never was quite content--not to the very end.



TO MONNA LAPA HER MOTHER AND TO MONNA CECCA
IN THE MONASTERY OF SAINT AGNES AT MONTEPULCIANO, WHEN SHE WAS AT ROCCA


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

Dearest mother and daughter 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 so clothed in the flames of divine charity
that you may bear all pain and torment, hunger and thirst, persecution and
injury, derision, outrage and insult, and everything else, with true
patience; learning from the Lamb suffering and slain, who ran with such
burning love to the shameful death of the Cross. Do you then keep in
companionship with sweetest Mother Mary, who, in order that the holy
disciples might seek the honour of God and the salvation of souls,
following the footsteps of her sweet Son, consents that they should leave
her presence, although she loved them supremely: and she stays as if
alone, a guest and a pilgrim. And the disciples, who loved her beyond
measure, yet leave her joyously, enduring every grief for the honour of
God, and go out among tyrants, enduring many persecutions. And if you ask
them: "Why do you carry yourselves so joyously, and you are going away
from Mary?" they would reply: "Because we have lost ourselves, and are
enamoured of the honour of God and the salvation of souls." Well, dearest
mother and daughter, I want you to do just so. If up to now you have not
been, I want you to be now, kindled in the fire of divine charity, seeking
always the honour of God and the salvation of souls. Otherwise you would
fall into the greatest grief and tribulation, and would drag me down into
them. Know, dearest mother, that I, your poor little daughter, am not put
on earth for anything else; to this my Creator has elected me. I know you
are content that I should obey Him. I beg you that if I seemed to stay
away longer than pleased your will, you will be contented; for I cannot do
otherwise. I believe that if you knew the circumstances you yourself would
send me here. I am staying to find help if I can for a great scandal. It
is no fault of the Countess, though; therefore do you all pray God and
that glorious Virgin to send us a good result. And do you, Cecca, and
Giustina, drown yourselves in the Blood of Christ crucified; for now is
the time to prove the virtue in your soul. God give His sweet and eternal
benediction to you all. I say no more. Remain in the holy and sweet grace
of God. Sweet Jesus, Jesus Love.




TO MONNA CATARINA OF THE HOSPITAL AND TO GIOVANNA DI CAPO IN SIENA


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

Dearest daughters 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 obedient daughters, united in true and perfect charity.
This obedience and love will dissipate all your suffering and gloom; for
obedience removes the thing which gives us suffering, that is our own
perverse will, which is wholly destroyed in true holy obedience. Gloom is
scattered and consumed by the impulse of charity and unity, for God is
true charity and highest eternal light. He who has this true light for his
guide, cannot miss the road. Therefore, dearest daughters, I want, since
it is so necessary, that you should study to lose your own will and to
gain this light.

This is the doctrine which I remember has always been given you, although
you have learned little of it. That which is not done, I beg you to do,
dearest daughters. If you did not, you would abide in continual
sufferings, and would drag poor me, who deserve every suffering, into them
too.

We must do for the honour of God as the holy apostles did. When they had
received the Holy Spirit, they separated from one another, and from that
sweet mother Mary. Although it was their greatest delight to stay
together, yet they gave up their own delight, and sought the honour of God
and the salvation of souls. And although Mary sends them away from her,
they do not therefore hold that love is diminished, or that they are
deprived of the affection of Mary. This is the rule that we must take to
ourselves. I know that my presence is a great consolation to you.
Nevertheless, as truly obedient, you should not seek your own consolation,
for the honour of God and the salvation of souls: and do not give place to
the devil, who makes it look to you as if you were deprived of the love
and devotion which I bear to your souls and bodies. Were it otherwise,
true love would not be built on you. I assure you that I do not love you
otherwise than in God. Why do you fall into such unregulated suffering
over things which must necessarily be so? Oh, what shall we do when it
shall befit us to do great deeds if we fail so in the little ones? We
shall have to be together or separated according as things shall befall.
Just now our sweet Saviour wills and permits that we be separated for His
honour.

You are in Siena, and Cecca and Grandma are in Montepulciano. Frate
Bartolomeo and Frate Matteo will be there and have been there. Alessa and
Monna Bruna are at Monte Giove, eighteen miles from Montepulciano; they
are with the Countess and Monna Lisa. Frate Raimondo and Frate Tommaso and
Monna Tomma and Lisa and I are at Rocca among the Free-lances. And so many
incarnate demons are being eaten up that Frate Tommaso says that his
stomach aches over it! With all this they cannot be satisfied, and they
are hungry for more, and find work here at a good price. Pray the Divine
Goodness to give them big, sweet and bitter mouthfuls! Think that the
honour of God and the salvation of souls is being sweetly seen. You ought
not to want or desire anything else. You could do nothing more pleasing to
the highest eternal will of God, and to mine, than feeling thus. Up, my
daughters, begin to sacrifice your own wills to God! Don't be ready always
to stay nurselings--for you should get the teeth of your desire ready to
bite hard and musty bread, if needs be.

I say no more. Bind you in the sweet bands of love, so you will show that
you are daughters--not otherwise. Comfort you in Christ sweet Jesus, and
comfort all the other daughters. We will come back as soon as we can,
according as it shall please the Divine Goodness. Remain in the holy and
sweet grace of God. Sweet Jesus, Jesus Love.




TO MONNA ALESSA
CLOTHED WITH THE HABIT OF SAINT DOMINIC, WHEN SHE WAS AT ROCCA


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

Dearest daughter in Christ sweet Jesus: I Catherine, servant and slave of
the servants of Jesus Christ, write to thee in His precious Blood: with
desire to see thee follow the doctrine of the Spotless Lamb with a free
heart, divested of every creature-love, clothed only with the Creator, in
the light of most holy faith. For without the light thou couldst not walk
in the straight way of the Slain and Spotless Lamb. Therefore my soul
desires to see thee and the others clean and virile, and not blown about
by every wind that may befall. Beware of looking back, but go on steadily,
holding in mind the teaching that has been given thee. Be sure to enter
every day anew into the garden of thy soul with the light of faith to pull
up every thorn that might smother the seed of the teaching given thee, and
to turn over the earth; that is, every day do thou divest thy heart. It is
necessary to divest it over and over; for many a time I have seen people
who seemed to have divested themselves, whom I have found clothed in sin,
by evidence rather of deed than of words. The opposite might appear by
their words, but deeds showed their affections. I want, then, that thou
shouldst divest thy heart in truth, following Christ crucified. And let
silence abide on thy lips. I have taken note; for I believe that the other
woman holds to it very little. I am very sorry for that. If it is so, as
it seems to me, my Creator wills that I should bear it, and I am content
to do so: but I am not content with the wrong done to God.

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 didst tell me to write thee if I were suffering
and had my usual infirmities at this time. I reply that God has cared for
me marvellously, within and without. He has cared very much for my body
this Advent, causing the pains to be diverted by writing; it is true that,
by the goodness of God, they have been worse than they used to be. If He
made them worse, He saw to it that Lisa was cured as soon as Frate Santi
fell ill--for he has been at the point of death. Now, almost miraculously,
he has grown so much better that he can be called cured. But apparently my
Bridegroom, Eternal Truth, has wished to put me to a very sweet and
genuine test, inward and outward, in the things which are seen and those
which are not--the latter beyond count the greater. But while He was
testing us, He has cared for us so gently as tongue could not tell.
Therefore I wish pains to be food to me, tears my drink, sweat my
ointment. Let pains make me fat, let pains cure me, let pains give me
light, let pains give me wisdom, let pains clothe my nakedness, let pains
strip me of all self-love, spiritual and temporal. The pain of lacking
consolations from my fellow-creatures has called me to consider my own
lack of virtue, recognizing my imperfection, and the very perfect light of
Sweet Truth, who gives and receives, not material things, but holy
desires: Him who has not withdrawn His goodness toward me for my little
light or knowledge, but has had regard only to Himself, the One supremely
Good.

I beg thee by the love of Jesus Christ crucified, dearest my daughter, do
not slacken in prayer: nay, redouble it--for I have greater need thereof
than thou seest--and do thou thank the Goodness of God for me. And pray
Him to give me grace that I may give my life for Him, and to take away, if
so please Him, the burden of my body. For my life is of very little use to
anyone else; rather is it painful and oppressive to every person, far and
near, by reason of my sins. May God by His mercy take from me such great
faults, and for the little time that I have to live, may He make me live
impassioned by the love of virtue! And may I in pain offer before Him my
dolorous and suffering desires for the salvation of all the world and the
reformation of Holy Church! Joy, joy in the Cross with me! So may the
Cross be a bed where the soul may rest: a table where may be tasted
heavenly food, the fruit of patience with quietness and assurance.

Thou didst send to me saying ... I was consoled by this thing, both by her
life, hoping that she is correcting herself and living with less vanity of
heart than she has done till now, and also by the children's having been
brought to the light of Holy Baptism. May God give them His sweetest
grace, and grant them death if they are not to be good! Bless them, and
comfort her, in Christ sweet Jesus: and tell her to live in the holy and
sweet fear of God, and to recognize the grace she has received from God,
which has not been small but very great. Were she to be ungrateful, it
would much displease God, and perhaps He would not leave her unpunished.

I commend to thee ... I have had no news at all of them, I do not know
why. The will of God be done! Our Saviour has put me on the Island, and
the winds beat from every side. Let everyone rejoice in Christ crucified,
however far one from the other. Shut thee into the house of self-
knowledge. I say no more. Remain in the holy and sweet grace of God. Sweet
Jesus, Jesus Love.




TO GREGORY XI


There is no evidence as to the date of this letter, but the tone is such
that Catherine's latest editor is probably right in placing it after the
return of the Pope to Italy. It suggests that a long relation is drawing
to a close, and closing, so far as Catherine is concerned, in
disappointment. Never, in her earlier relations with Gregory, would she
have gone such lengths as here, in her amazing hint that he would better
resign the Papacy if he finds himself unable to sustain the moral burdens
it imposes. The Pope is at Rome, but he has changed his sky and not his
mind. Catherine's letter is a brief and powerful summary of oft-reiterated
pleas. In the solemnity and authority of its adjurations, in the
distinctness of its accusations, it is surely one of the most surprising
epistles ever written by a devout and wholly faithful subject to her
acknowledged head. Such a letter proceeds, indeed, from a spiritual region
where all earthly distinctions--ecclesiastical as well as intellectual or
social--are lost to sight, and the illiterate daughter of the dyer can
rebuke and exhort as by her natural right him whom with unwavering faith
she believed to be the God-appointed father of all Christian people.
Catherine's patience, one feels, is near the breaking point: and heart-
break for her is in truth not many years away.


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

Most holy and sweet father, your poor unworthy daughter Catherine in
Christ sweet Jesus, commends herself to you in His precious Blood: with
desire to see you a manly man, free from any fear or fleshly love toward
yourself, or toward any creature related to you in the flesh; since I
perceive in the sweet Presence of God that nothing so hinders your holy,
good desire and so serves to hinder the honour of God and the exaltation
and reform of Holy Church, as this. Therefore, my soul desires with
immeasurable love that God by His infinite mercy may take from you all
passion and lukewarmness of heart, and re-form you another man, by forming
in you anew a burning and ardent desire; for in no other way could you
fulfil the will of God and the desire of His servants. Alas, alas,
sweetest "Babbo" mine, pardon my presumption in what I have said to you
and am saying; I am constrained by the Sweet Primal Truth to say it. His
will, father, is this, and thus demands of you. It demands that you
execute justice on the abundance of many iniquities committed by those who
are fed and pastured in the garden of Holy Church; declaring that brutes
should not be fed with the food of men. Since He has given you authority
and you have assumed it, you should use your virtue and power: and if you
are not willing to use it, it would be better for you to resign what you
have assumed; more honour to God and health to your soul would it be.

Another demand that His will makes is this: He wills that you make peace
with all Tuscany, with which you are at strife; securing from all your
wicked sons who have rebelled against you whatever is possible to secure
without war--but punishing them as a father ought to punish a son who has
wronged him. Moreover, the sweet goodness of God demands from you that you
give full authority to those who ask you to make ready for the Holy
Crusade--that thing which appears impossible to you, and possible to the
sweet goodness of God, who has ordained it, and wills that so it be.
Beware, as you hold your life dear, that you commit no negligence in this,
nor treat as jests the works of the Holy Spirit, which are demanded from
you because you can do them. If you want justice, you can execute it. You
can have peace, withdrawing from the perverse pomps and delights of the
world, preserving only the honour of God and the due of Holy Church.
Authority also you have to give peace to those who ask you for it. Then,
since you are not poor but rich--you who bear in your hand the keys of
Heaven, to whom you open it is open, and to whom you shut it is shut--if
you do not do this, you would be rebuked by God. I, if I were in your
place, should fear lest divine judgment come upon me. Therefore I beg you
most gently on behalf of Christ crucified to be obedient to the will of
God, for I know that you want and desire no other thing than to do His
will, that this sharp rebuke fall not upon you: "Cursed be thou, for the
time and the strength entrusted to thee thou hast not used." I believe,
father, by the goodness of God, and also taking hope from your holiness,
that you will so act that this will not fall upon you.

I say no more. Pardon me, pardon me; for the great love which I bear to
your salvation, and my great grief when I see the contrary, makes me speak
so. Willingly would I have said it to your own person, fully to unburden
my conscience. When it shall please your Holiness that I come to you, I
will come willingly. So do that I may not appeal to Christ crucified from
you; for to no other can I appeal, for there is no greater on earth.
Remain in the holy and sweet grace of God. I ask you humbly for your
benediction. Sweet Jesus, Jesus Love.




TO RAIMONDO OF CAPUA
OF THE ORDER OF THE PREACHERS


This letter confirms what history elsewhere indicates--that Gregory, after
his return to Italy, turned against Catherine. She no longer addresses her
"dear Babbo" personally, with the old happy familiarity; rather, she sends
through Fra Raimondo formal and almost tremulous messages to "his
Holiness, the Vicar of Christ." Raimondo, apparently from his connection
with her, is evidently included in the papal displeasure. Catherine writes
to give him courage and comfort; in her touching advice as to the best way
of preparing one's self to meet contentions and injustice, we may
recognize the secret source of her own rare self-control.

Catherine's attitude toward the angered Pope is a compound of contrition
and firmness. No words could express swifter readiness to accept rebuke or
a more passionate humility: none could more vigorously maintain the
unwelcome convictions which had given offence. There are various surmises
as to the exact occasion of the misunderstanding to which this letter
refers: were we to add one, we might suspect that the audacity of the
preceding letter had been too much, even for Gregory. But the general
situation speaks for itself. Gregory was strong enough, under her
inspiration, to make the great physical and moral effort of returning to
Italy: he was, as we have seen, not strong enough to cope with what he
found there. Enfeebled by ill-health, hampered by his lack of knowledge of
Italian, rendered desperate by the difficulties he encountered, it is
small wonder that, as many another weak nature would have done, he turned
in rage or cold displeasure against the instrument of his return. There is
a story that Gregory on his deathbed warned the bystanders against
Catherine, and whether it be true or not, it suggests the contemporary
impression as to his tone toward her during his last days. Here is sad
ending to a relation that during its earlier phases possessed a singular
beauty. How sorely Catherine must have been hurt we may well imagine. Her
brief triumph was all turned to bitterness: less, we may be sure, from her
personal loss of the Pope's confidence--though she was human enough to
feel this keenly--than from the utter failure of the hopes she had built
on his return.

In this letter her genuine self-abasement before Gregory's displeasure
changes with dramatic suddenness to another tone. The accuser becomes the
judge once more, and speaks with the old authority: "God demands that you
do this--as you know that you were told." Her personal feeling for the man
breaks forth in the appeal: "To whom shall I have recourse should you
abandon me? Who would help me?" But in the same breath comes her
magnificent assurance, that though she may offend Christ's Vicar, the Head
of the Church, she may yet flee with confidence to Christ Himself, and
rest secure upon the bosom of His Bride.


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

Dearest and sweetest 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 you a true combatant against the wiles and
vexations of the devil, and the malice and persecution of men, and against
your own fleshly self-love, which is an enemy that, unless a man drives it
away by virtue and holy hate, prevents him from ever being strong in the
other battles which we encounter every day. For self-love weakens us, and
therefore it is imperative that we drive it away with the strength of
virtue, which we shall gain in the unspeakable love that God has shown us,
through the Blood of His only-begotten Son. This love, drawn from the
divine love, gives us light and life; light, to know the truth when
necessary to our salvation and to win great perfection, and to endure with
true patience and fortitude and constancy until death--for by such
fortitude, won from the light that makes us know the truth, we win the
life of divine grace. Drink deep, then, in the Blood of the Spotless Lamb,
and be a faithful servant, not faithless, to your Creator. And fear not,
nor turn back, for any battle or gloom that may come upon you, but
persevere in faith till death; for well you know that perseverance will
give you the fruit of your labours.

I have understood from a certain servant of God who holds you in continual
prayer before Him, that you have met very great battles, and that gloom
has fallen upon your mind through the crafts and wiles of the devil, who
wishes to make you see wrong as right and right as wrong; this he does in
order that you may fail in your going and not reach the goal. But comfort
you, for God has provided and shall provide, and His providence shall not
be lacking. Be sure that in all things you have recourse to Mary,
embracing the holy Cross, and never let yourself fall into confusion of
mind, but sail in a stormy sea in the ship of divine mercy. I understand:
if from men religious or secular, even in the mystical body of Holy
Church, you have suffered persecution or displeasure, or have been visited
with the indignation of the Vicar of Christ, either on your own account,
or if you have had something to bear on my account with all these people--
you are not to resist, but bear it patiently, leaving at once, and going
into your cell, there to know yourself in holy meditation; reflecting that
God is making you worthy to endure for the love of truth, and to be
persecuted for His Name, deeming yourself in true humility worthy of
punishment and unworthy to gain results. And do all the things that you
have to do prudently, holding God before your eyes; do and say what you
have to say and do in the Presence of God and of your own thought with the
help of holy prayer. There shall you find the Master, the Holy Spirit,
rich in clemency, who shall pour upon you a light of wisdom that shall
make you discern and choose what shall be to his honour. This is the
doctrine given to us by the Sweet Primal Truth, caring for our need with
measureless love.

If it happened, dearest father, that you found yourself in the presence of
his Holiness the Vicar of Christ, our very sweet and holy father, humbly
commend me to him. I hold myself in fault before his Holiness for much
ignorance and negligence which I have committed against God, and for
disobedience against my Creator, who summoned me to cry aloud with
passionate desire, and to cry before Him in prayer, and to put myself in
word and in bodily presence close to His Vicar. In all possible ways I
have committed measureless faults, on account of which, yes, on account of
my many iniquities, I believe that he has suffered many persecutions, he
and Holy Church. Wherefore if he complains of me he is right, and right in
punishing me for my defects. But tell him that up to the limits of my
power I shall strive to correct my faults, and to fulfil more perfectly
his obedience. So I trust by the divine goodness that He will turn the
eyes of His mercy upon the Bride of Christ and His Vicar, and upon me,
freeing me from my defects and ignorance; but upon His Bride, by giving
her the refreshment of peace and renewal, with much endurance (for in no
way without toils can be uprooted the many thorny faults that choke the
garden of Holy Church), and that God will give him grace in those parts
where he wants to be a manly man, and not to look back, for any toil or
persecution that may befall him from his wicked sons; constant and
persevering, let him not avoid weariness, but let him throw himself like a
lamb into the midst of the wolves, with hungry desire for the honour of
God and the salvation of souls, putting far from him care for temporal
things, and watching over spiritual things alone. If he does so, as divine
goodness demands of him, the lamb will lord it over the wolves, and the
wolves will turn into lambs; and thus we shall see the glory and praise of
the name of God, the good and peace of Holy Church. In no other way can
these be won; not through war, but through peace and benignity, and such
holy spiritual punishment as a father should inflict on a son who does
wrong.

John Crace digests A Question of Upbringing by Anthony Powell

My English teacher is wearing a barrister's wig. He turns and points towards me as I sit trembling in the dock. "Members of the jury, I put it to you that this man, Tom Robinson, is innocent," he says, rather lugubriously. I want to protest. I want to shout that no, I am not Tom Robinson, but yes, I am innocent! But the words won't come out.

Then I wake up. It's another literary dream – one that's troubled me ever since I studied Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird for GCSE.

Most of the time I'm disappointed to leave my literary dreams, waking to realise that I'm not really ensconced with with the boozing Welsh pensioners from Kingsley Amis's The Old Devils or haven't really been thrashing Harry Potter's Quidditch team. I remember with fondness a skiing trip with William Shakespeare and the delightful discovery that Don DeLillo was serving drinks behind the bar in my local pub.

It's not all sunshine, though. Tom Wolfe once ruined a trip to New York, shouting at me across Fifth Avenue: "You're not even familiar with my work – get outta town, asshole!" But that's nothing on Howard Jacobson. I spent a summer discovering his novels during my waking hours and bumping into him in my sleep. I'd see him in a local restaurant and tell him how much I was enjoying his novels. "Oh right," he'd snap, "that old chestnut, huh?" When I met him for real last year he was, in fact, charm personified. I didn't tell him about the dreams.

But enough about my subconscious, what about yours? It's Friday: forget about work and tell me all about your literary dreams. Don't hold back – it's not like we'll read anything into it.

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