Letters of Catherine Benincasa by Catherine Benincasa

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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."

And the pain and fire of her desire increasing, she cried in the sight of
God, saying: "What can I do, O unsearchable Fire?" And His benignity
replied: "Do thou offer thy life anew. Thou canst refrain from ever giving
thyself repose. To this work I have appointed thee--thee and all who
follow thee or are to follow. Take ye then heed never to relax, but always
to increase in desires; for I, impelled by love, am taking good heed to
aid you with My bodily and spiritual grace. And in order that your minds
may not be occupied by anything else, I have made provision, arousing her
whom I have appointed to govern you, and I have led her, and put her to
this work by mysteries and in new ways; so that she serves My Church with
temporal substance, and you with continual humble faithful prayer, and
with what activities shall be needed, which shall be appointed to thee and
to them by My Goodness, to each according to his rank. Devote, then, thy
life and heart and mind wholly to that Bride, for Me, with no regard to
thyself. Contemplate Me, and behold the Bridegroom of this Bride, that is
the highest Pontiff, and see his holy and good intention--an intention
without reserves. And as the Bride is alone, so also is the bridegroom. I
permit him to cleanse Holy Church by methods which he applies
immoderately, and by fear, with which he inspires his subjects. But
another shall come, who shall draw close to her in love, and shall fulfil
her. It shall befall this Bride as it befalls the soul; for first fear
possesses her, but when she is divested of sins, then love fills her and
clothes her with virtue. All this it shall do, with sweet sustaining,
sweet and suave, of those who shall nourish them at her breast in truth.
But do thou this: Say to My Vicar that he pacify himself to the extent of
his power, and grant peace to whosoever will receive it. And to the
columns of Holy Church say that if they wish to remedy great disasters
they are to do thus: let them unite, and form a cloak to cover the methods
of their father that may seem faulty. And let them adopt a well-ordered
life, close to those who fear and love Me, and cling together, casting
their lower natures aside. If they do thus, I who am Light will give them
the light needful to Holy Church. And seeing that there is something which
ought to be done among them, let them refer it to My Vicar in true unity,
quickly, boldly, and after much reflection. He then will be constrained
not to resist their goodwills; for he really has a holy and good
intention."

The tongue does not suffice to narrate such mysteries, nor what intellect
saw and affection conceived. And the day passing by, full of marvel, the
evening came. And I, feeling that the heart was so drawn by the force of
love that I could offer no resistance to going to the place of prayer, and
feeling that disposition come upon me which was at the time of my death,
prostrated me with great compunction because I had served the Bride of
Christ with much ignorance and negligence, and had been cause that others
had done the same. And rising, with the impression of what I have said
before the eye of my mind, God placed me before Himself--not but that I am
always before Him, because He contains everything in Himself--but in a new
way, as if memory, intellect, and will had nothing whatever to do with my
body. And this Truth was reflected in me with such light that in that
abyss were then renewed the mysteries of Holy Church, and all the graces
received in my life, past and present, and the day in which my soul was
wedded to Him. All which then vanished from me through the increase of the
inward fire: and I paid heed only to what should be done, that I should
make a sacrifice of myself to God for Holy Church and for the sake of
removing ignorance and negligence from those whom God had put into my
hands. Then the devils called out havoc upon me, seeking to hinder and
slacken with their terrors my free and burning desire. So these beat upon
the shell of the body; but desire became the more kindled, crying, "O
Eternal God, receive the sacrifice of my life in this mystical body of
Holy Church! I have naught to give save what Thou hast given to me. Take
then my heart, and may Thy Bride lean her face upon it!" Then Eternal God,
turning the eyes of His mercy, removed my heart, and offered it to Holy
Church. And He had drawn it to Himself with such force that had He not at
once bound it about with His strength--not wishing that the vessel of my
body should be broken--my life would have gone. Then the devils cried
much more clamorously, as if they had felt an intolerable pain; forcing
themselves to leave terror with me, threatening me so to disport them that
such an act as this could not be wrought. But because Hell cannot resist
the virtue of humility with the light of most holy faith, the spirit
became more single, and worked with tools of fire, hearing in the sight of
the Divine Majesty words most charming, and promises to give gladness. And
because in truth it was thus in so great a mystery, the tongue henceforth
can suffice to speak of it no more.

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