Letters of Catherine Benincasa by Catherine Benincasa

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Oh me, miserable! Was it our relatives or friends or any fellow-being who
bought us? No; Christ crucified alone was the Lamb who with love
unsearchable sacrificed His Body, making Him our Purification and Healing,
our Food and Raiment, and the Bed where we can rest. He had no regard to
love of self nor fleshly joy, but abased Himself in pain, enduring shames
and insults, seeking the honour of the Father and our salvation. It ill
befits that we poor miserable men should hold by another way than that
held by the Sweet Primal Truth.

You know that God is not found in luxuries and pleasures. We perceive that
when Our Saviour was lost in the Temple, going to the Feast, Mary could
not find Him among friends or relatives, but found Him in the Temple
disputing with the doctors. And this He did to give us an example--for He
is our Rule, and the Way we should follow. Notice that it says that He was
lost when going to the Feast. Know, most beloved sister, that, as was
said, God is not found at feasts or balls or games or weddings or places
of recreation. Nay, going there is a very sure means of losing Him, and
falling into many sins and faults, and inordinate frivolous self-
indulgence. Since this is the reason that has made us lose God by grace,
is there any way to find Him again? Yes; to accompany Mary. Let us seek
Him with her, in bitterness and pain and distaste for the fault committed
against our Creator, to condescend to the will of men. It befits us then
to go to the Temple, and there He is found. Let our hearts, our minds, and
desires be lifted up with this Company of Bitterness, and let us go to the
Temple of our soul, and there we shall know ourselves. Then the soul,
recognizing itself not to be, will recognize the goodness of God towards
it, who is He who is. Then the will shall be uplifted with zeal, and shall
love what God loves and hate what God hates. Then, as it enters into
reason with itself, it will rebuke the memory which has held in itself the
gaieties and pleasures of the world, and has nor held nor retained the
favours and gifts and great benefits of God, who has given Himself to us
with so great fire of love. It will rebuke the mind, which has given
itself to understand the will of fellow-creatures, and the shows and
observances of the world, rather than the will of its Creator, and
therefore will and fleshly love have turned them to love and desire those
gross things of sense, which pass like the wind. The soul should not do
thus, but should note and know the will of God, which seeks and wants
naught but our sanctification, and has therefore given us life.

God has not set you free from the world, for you are smothered and drowned
in the world by your affections and inordinate desires. Now, have you more
than one soul? No. If you had two, you might give one to God and the other
to the world. Nor have you more than one body, and this gets tired over
every little thing.

Be a dispenser to the poor of your temporal substance. Submit you to the
yoke of holy and true obedience. Kill, kill your own will, that it may not
be so tied to your relatives, and mortify your body, and do not so pamper
it in delicate ways. Despise yourself, and have in regard neither rank nor
riches, for virtue is the only thing that makes us gentlefolk, and the
riches of this life are the worst of poverty when possessed with
inordinate love apart from God. Recall to memory what the glorious Jerome
said about this, which one can never repeat often enough, forbidding that
widows should abound in daintiness, or keep their face anointed, or their
garments choice or delicate. Nor should their conversation be with vain or
dissolute young women, but in the cell: they should do like the turtle-
dove, who, when her companion has died, mourns for ever, and keeps to
herself, and wants no other company. Limit your intercourse, dearest and
most beloved Sister, to Christ crucified; set your affection and desire on
following Him by the way of shame and true humility, in gentleness,
binding you to the Lamb with the bands of charity.

This my soul desires, that you may be a true daughter, and a bride
consecrated to Christ, and a fruitful field, not sterile, but full of the
sweet fruits of true virtues. Hasten, hasten, for time is short and the
road is long. And if you gave all you have in the world, time would not
pause for you from running its course. I say no more. Remain in the holy
and sweet grace of God. Pardon me if I have said too many words, for the
love and zeal that I have for your salvation have made me say them. Know
that I would far rather do something for you than merely talk. May God
fill you with His most sweet Favour. Sweet Jesus, Jesus Love.

TO BROTHER RAIMONDO OF CAPUA
OF THE ORDER OF THE PREACHERS

The following is one of the famous letters of the world. The record in art
and literature of the scene which it depicts has carried knowledge of
Catherine to many who otherwise would have but the vaguest idea of her
personality. The letter has been frequently translated, but most of the
translators have avoided the opening and closing paragraphs, with their
amazing, confused, and to our modern taste almost shocking metaphors.
Surely, however, we want the whole just as Catherine poured it out; full
of intense excitement, her emotions clearer than her ideas, lifted into a
region where taste and logic have no meaning, and using, to convey the
inexpressible feelings quickened by the events she describes, homeliest
figures of speech, such as her commercial surroundings naturally suggest
to her. For the matter of that, modern congregations sing with no
distress:

"Jesus let me still abide
In Thy heart and Wounded Side."

The reiteration of the figure of the Blood is here psychologically
inevitable. Catherine writes still quivering from close contact with the
victim of a mediaeval execution.

A young gentleman from Perugia, Niccolo Tuldo by name, had been condemned
to death for speaking critically of the Sienese Government. It does not
appear that he was a serious political conspirator, but simply a young man
whose aristocratic sympathies led him thoughtlessly to the use of haughty
or bitter speech. But a _parvenu_ Government is always sensitive. We hear
of a man at this time being condemned and executed because he had not
invited one of the Riformatori to a feast!

Death was lightly inflicted in those days: probably it was no more lightly
suffered than in our own. We have vivid accounts of the incredulity with
which Niccolo Tuldo received his sentence--incredulity leading to horror,
to rage, to rebellion, to black despair. Then Catherine went to him; her
own words tell the rest. As one reads of the wonderful effect of her
soothing presence, as one sees the terrified youth becoming quiet and
subdued, clinging wistfully to the spiritual strength of this frail woman,
and catching at the end not only her spirit of calm submission, but even
something of her exaltation, one is irresistibly reminded of another
scene--George Eliot's marvellous description in "Adam Bede" of Dinah's
ministry to Hetty in the prison. But this scene is real, that only
imagined; and here no third person, but the consoler herself, reveals the
meaning of the experience to her own spirit.

In bringing Niccolo Tuldo to so illumined an end that he recognized the
judgment-place as holy, and died in full accord with the will of God,
Catherine achieved a great marvel which only Christianity can compass: she
lifted one of those seemingly purposeless and cruel accidents of destiny
which stagger faith, into unity with the organic work of the world's
redemption.

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

Most beloved and dearest father and dear my son in Christ Jesus: I
Catherine, servant and slave of the servants of Jesus Christ, write to
you, commending myself to you in the precious Blood of the Son of God;
with desire to see you inflamed and drowned in that His sweetest Blood,
which is blended with the fire of His most ardent charity. This my soul
desires, to see you therein, you and Nanni and Jacopo my son. I see no
other remedy by which we may reach those chief virtues which are necessary
to us. Sweetest father, your soul, which has made itself food for me--(and
no moment of time passes that I do not receive this food at the table of
the sweet Lamb slain with such ardent love)--your soul, I say, would not
attain the little virtue, true humility, were it not drowned in the Blood.
This virtue shall be born from hate, and hate from love. Thus the soul is
born with very perfect purity, as iron issues purified from the furnace.

I will, then, that you lock you in the open side of the Son of God, which
is an open treasure-house, full of fragrance, even so that sin itself
there becomes fragrant. There rests the sweet Bride on the bed of fire and
blood. There is seen and shown the secret of the heart of the Son of God.
Oh, flowing Source, which givest to drink and excitest every loving
desire, and givest gladness, and enlightenest every mind and fillest every
memory which fixes itself thereon! so that naught else can be held or
meant or loved, save this sweet and good Jesus! Blood and fire,
immeasurable Love! Since my soul shall be blessed in seeing you thus
drowned, I will that you do as he who draws up water with a bucket, and
pours it over something else; thus do you pour the water of holy desire on
the head of your brothers, who are our members, bound to us in the body of
the sweet Bride. And beware, lest through illusion of the devils--who I
know have given you trouble, and will give you--or through the saying of
some fellow-creature, you should ever draw back: but persevere always in
the hour when things look most cold, until we may see blood shed with
sweet and enamoured desires.

Up, up, sweetest my father! and let us sleep no more! For I hear such news
that I wish no more bed of repose or worldly state. I have just received a
Head in my hands, which was to me of such sweetness as heart cannot think,
nor tongue say, nor eye see, nor the ears hear. The will of God went on
through the other mysteries wrought before; of which I do not tell, for it
would be too long. I went to visit him whom you know: whence he received
such comfort and consolation that he confessed, and prepared himself very
well. And he made me promise by the love of God that when the time of the
sentence should come, I would be with him. So I promised, and did. Then in
the morning, before the bell rang, I went to him: and he received great
consolation. I led him to hear Mass, and he received the Holy Communion,
which he had never before received. His will was accorded and submitted to
the will of God; and only one fear was left, that of not being strong at
the moment. But the measureless and glowing goodness of God deceived him,
creating in him such affection and love in the desire of God that he did
not know how to abide without Him, and said: "Stay with me, and do not
abandon me. So it shall not be otherwise than well with me. And I die
content." And he held his head upon my breast. I heard then the rejoicing,
and breathed the fragrance of his blood; and it was not without the
fragrance of mine, which I desire to shed for the sweet Bridegroom Jesus.
And, desire waxing in my soul, feeling his fear, I said: "Comfort thee,
sweet my brother; since we shall soon arrive at the Wedding Feast. Thou
shalt go there bathed in the sweet Blood of the Son of God, with the sweet
Name of Jesus, which I will never to leave thy memory. And I await thee at
the place of justice." Now think, father and son, his heart then lost all
fear, and his face changed from sorrow to gladness; and he rejoiced, he
exulted, and said: "Whence comes such grace to me, that the sweetness of
my soul will await me at the holy place of justice?" See, that he had come
to so much light that he called the place of justice holy! And he said: "I
shall go wholly joyous, and strong, and it will seem to me a thousand
years before I arrive, thinking that you are awaiting me there." And he
said words so sweet as to break one's heart, of the goodness of God.

I waited for him then at the place of justice; and waited there with
constant prayer, in the presence of Mary and of Catherine, Virgin and
martyr. But before I attained, I prostrated me, and stretched my neck upon
the block; but my desire did not come there, for I had too full
consciousness of myself. Then up! I prayed, I constrained her, I cried
"Mary!" for I wished this grace, that at the moment of death she should
give him a light and a peace in his heart, and then I should see him reach
his goal. Then my soul became so full that although a multitude of people
were there, I could see no human creature, for the sweet promise made to
me.

Then he came, like a gentle lamb; and seeing me, he began to smile, and
wanted me to make the sign of the Cross. When he had received the sign, I
said: "Down! To the Bridal, sweetest my brother! For soon shalt thou be in
the enduring life." He prostrated him with great gentleness, and I
stretched out his neck; and bowed me down, and recalled to him the Blood
of the Lamb. His lips said naught save Jesus! and, Catherine! And so
saying, I received his head in my hands, closing my eyes in the Divine
Goodness, and saying, "I will!"

Then was seen God-and-Man, as might the clearness of the sun be seen. And
He stood wounded, and received the blood; in that blood a fire of holy
desire, given and hidden in the soul by grace. He received it in the fire
of His divine charity. When He had received his blood and his desire, He
also received his soul, which He put into the open treasure-house of His
Side, full of mercy; the primal Truth showing that by grace and mercy
alone He received it, and not for any other work. Oh, how sweet and
unspeakable it was to see the goodness of God! with what sweetness and
love He awaited that soul departed from the body! He turned the eye of
mercy toward her, when she came to enter within His Side, bathed in blood
which availed through the Blood of the Son of God. Thus received by God
through power--powerful is He to do! the Son also, Wisdom the Word
Incarnate, gave him and made him share the crucified love with which He
received painful and shameful death through the obedience which he showed
to the Father, for the good of the human race. And the hands of the Holy
Spirit locked him within.

But he made a gesture sweet enough to draw a thousand hearts. And I do not
wonder, for already he tasted the divine sweetness. He turned as does the
Bride when she has reached the threshold of her bridegroom, who turns back
her head and her look, bowing to those who have accompanied her, and with
the gesture she gives signs of thanks.

When he was at rest, my soul rested in peace and in quiet, in so great
fragrance of blood that I could not bear to remove the blood which had
fallen on me from him.

Ah me, miserable! I will say no more. I stayed on the earth with the
greatest envy. And it seems to me that the first new stone is already in
place. Therefore do not wonder if I impose upon you nothing save to see
yourselves drowned in the blood and flame poured from the side of the Son
of God. Now then, no more negligence, sweetest my sons, since the blood is
beginning to flow, and to receive the life. Sweet Jesus, Jesus Love.

TO GREGORY XI

This is the first letter to Gregory which has come down to us; it may or
may not have been the first which Catherine wrote him. That she had had
relations with him earlier seems fairly certain. As early as 1372 we find
her writing to Gerard du Puy, a relative of the Pope and Papal Legate in
Tuscany. This letter is evidently a reply, and contains passages which she
apparently expected du Puy to share with Gregory. Perhaps Gregory had made
approaches to her through his cousin. There was nothing unlikely at that
time in such action on the part of a great churchman, who, man of the
world though he was, retained a sincere reverence for humble men and
women.

Be this as it may, Catherine in her letter to Gerard du Puy writes
concerning the condition of the Church in the strain of indignant sorrow
which she was to hold till her death: "In reply to the first of the three
things you ask me, I will say that I believe that our sweet Christ on
earth should do away entirely with two things which ravage the Bride of
Christ. The first is the over-great tenderness and care for relatives,
which ought to be entirely mortified. The other is that over-great good
nature which is founded on too great mercy.... Christ holds three vices as
especially evil--impurity, avarice, and swollen pride, which reign in the
Bride of Christ among the prelates, who care for nothing but luxuries and
honours and vast riches. A strong justice is needed to correct them, for
too great pity is the greatest cruelty. As to the other question, I say:
When I told you that you should toil for Holy Church, I was not thinking
only of the labours you should assume about temporal things, but chiefly
that you and the Holy Father ought to toil and do what you can to get rid
of the wolfish shepherds who care for nothing but eating and fine palaces
and big horses. Oh me, that which Christ won upon the wood of the Cross is
spent with harlots! I beg that if you were to die for it, you tell the
Holy Father to put an end to such iniquities. And when the time comes to
make priests or cardinals, let them not be chosen through flatteries or
moneys or simony; but beg him, as far as you can, that he notice well if
virtue and a good and holy fame are found in the man; and let him not
prefer a gentleman to a tradesman, for virtue is the thing that makes a
man gentle." Savonarola could hardly say more.

This present letter must date from 1375, for the rebellion of the Tuscan
cities was gathering when she wrote. It is evident that Catherine at the
time had never met the Pope personally. She must, however, have gained
from hearsay a fairly just idea of his character; in the letter--one of
the most carefully composed which we have from her--we see her approaching
him with frankness, dignity, and courage, and also with a rare degree of
tact. It was one thing to speak her mind out through Gerard du Puy: it
must have been another to speak directly to the Head of Christendom. How
Catherine acquits herself the reader may judge. The hint that the "sweet
Christ on earth," the father of the faithful, lacks self-knowledge, is
made so delicately that offence could not be taken; yet as she proceeds
the indirect suggestion becomes unmistakable. Gregory is that weak prelate
in whom through self-indulgence holy justice is dead or dying; the smooth,
peaceable man, who to avoid incurring displeasure, shuts his eyes to the
corruption of the Church and the sins of her priests; he is the indolent
physician who anoints when he should cauterize. As soon as she deems his
mind prepared, comes the direct statement: "I hope by the goodness of God,
venerable father mine, that you will quench this [self-love] in yourself,
and will not love yourself for your own sake, nor your neighbour, nor
God." Nor does she shrink from more specific mention of the dangers which
beset him, in his devotion to the interests of "friends and parents," and
considerations of temporal policy.

It is with relief, here as ever, that Catherine passes from criticism
implied or explicit to a strain of high enthusiasm by which she tries to
rouse the soul to all of latent manhood it may possess. She heartens
Gregory with stirring appeal to the memories of his great predecessors--
yet more with impassioned reminder of that mystery of divine love and
sacrifice from which their strength was drawn. All that was possible to
them is possible to him, "for the same God is now that was then." "And if
up to this time we have not stood very firm," she says--associating
herself, as usual, with the weakness she would condemn--"I wish and pray
in truth that you deal manfully with the moment of time which remains,
following Christ, whose vicar you are." Gentle encouragement, and a
curious tone of almost maternal tenderness, pervade the rest of the
letter. In dealing with the political situation which Gregory confronted,
Catherine speaks without reserve. The suggestions concerning practical
matters with which the letter closes are lucid and to the point.
Altogether, it is a masterly document which the daughter of Jacopo
Benincasa despatches to the Head of Christendom. Reading it, one finds no
difficulty in understanding the influence which, as the sequel shows, she
established over the sensitive and religious if weak spirit of Gregory XI.

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

To you, most reverend and beloved father in Christ Jesus, your unworthy,
poor, miserable daughter Catherine, servant and slave of the servants of
Jesus Christ, writes in His precious Blood; with desire to see you a
fruitful tree, full of sweet and mellow fruits, and planted in fruitful
earth--for if it were out of the earth the tree would dry up and bear no
fruit--that is, in the earth of true knowledge of yourself. For the soul
that knows itself humbles itself, because it sees nothing to be proud of;
and ripens the sweet fruit of very ardent charity, recognizing in itself
the unmeasured goodness of God; and aware that it is not, it attributes
all its being to Him who Is. Whence, then, it seems that the soul is
constrained to love what God loves and to hate what He hates.

Oh, sweet and true knowledge, which dost carry with thee the knife of
hate, and dost stretch out the hand of holy desire, to draw forth and kill
with this hate the worm of self-love--a worm that spoils and gnaws the
root of our tree so that it cannot bear any fruit of life, but dries up,
and its verdure lasts not! For if a man loves himself, perverse pride,
head and source of every ill, lives in him, whatever his rank may be,
prelate or subject. If he is lover of himself alone--that is, if he loves
himself for his own sake and not for God--he cannot do other than ill, and
all virtue is dead in him. Such a one is like a woman who brings forth her
sons dead. And so it really is; for he has not had the life of charity in
himself, and has cared only for praise and self-glory, and not for the
name of God. I say, then: if he is a prelate, he does ill, because to
avoid falling into disfavour with his fellow-creatures--that is, through
self-love--in which he is bound by self-indulgence--holy justice dies in
him. For he sees his subjects commit faults and sins, and pretends not to
see them and fails to correct them; or if he does correct them, he does it
with such coldness and lukewarmness that he does not accomplish anything,
but plasters vice over; and he is always afraid of giving displeasure or
of getting into a quarrel. All this is because he loves himself. Sometimes
men like this want to get along with purely peaceful means. I say that
this is the very worst cruelty which can be shown. If a wound when
necessary is not cauterized or cut out with steel, but simply covered with
ointment, not only does it fail to heal, but it infects everything, and
many a time death follows from it.

Oh me, oh me, sweetest "Babbo" mine! This is the reason that all the
subjects are corrupted by impurity and iniquity. Oh me, weeping I say it!
How dangerous is that worm we spoke of! For not only does it give death to
the shepherd, but all the rest fall into sickness and death through it.
Why does that shepherd go on using so much ointment? Because he does not
suffer in consequence! For no displeasure visits one and no ill will, from
spreading ointment over the sick; since one does nothing contrary to their
will; they wanted ointment, and so ointment is given them. Oh, human
wretchedness! Blind is the sick man who does not know his own need, and
blind the shepherd-physician, who has regard to nothing but pleasing, and
his own advantage--since, not to forfeit it, he refrains from using the
knife of justice or the fire of ardent charity! But such men do as Christ
says: for if one blind man guide the other, both fall into the ditch. Sick
man and physician fall into hell. Such a man is a right hireling shepherd,
for, far from dragging his sheep from the hands of the wolf, he devours
them himself. The cause of all this is, that he loves himself apart from
God: so he does not follow sweet Jesus, the true Shepherd, who has given
His life for His sheep. Truly, then, this perverse love is perilous for
one's self and for others, and truly to be shunned, since it works too
much harm to every generation of people. I hope by the goodness of God,
venerable father mine, that you will quench this in yourself, and will not
love yourself for yourself, nor your neighbour for yourself, nor God; but
will love Him because He is highest and eternal Goodness, and worthy of
being loved; and yourself and your neighbour you will love to the honour
and glory of the sweet Name of Jesus. I will, then, that you be so true
and good a shepherd that if you had a hundred thousand lives you would be
ready to give them all for the honour of God and the salvation of His
creatures. O "Babbo" mine, sweet Christ on earth, follow that sweet
Gregory (the Great)! For all will be possible to you as to him; for he was
not of other flesh than you; and that God is now who was then: we lack
nothing save virtue, and hunger for the salvation of souls. But there is a
remedy for this, father: that we flee the love spoken of above, for
ourselves and every creature apart from God. Let no more note be given to
friends or parents or one's temporal needs, but only to virtue and the
exaltation of things spiritual. For temporal things are failing you from
no other cause than from your neglect of the spiritual.

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