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Letters of Catherine Benincasa by Catherine Benincasa

C >> Catherine Benincasa >> Letters of Catherine Benincasa






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.

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.

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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