Catherine of Siena

by Sigrid Undset

  We learn from a letter which Catherine wrote to her mother that Don Giovanni Tantucci and Fra Bartolommeo Dominici also had the same illness. Monna Lapa longed desperately for her daughter, who had now been away from her for months—and so far away, in a strange and enemy country, God knows in what terrible and strange dangers: naturally the old mother was wild with anxiety. So she got someone to write to Catherine for her. The daughter’s reply is most touching, childishly respectful and tender—but nevertheless one cannot help wondering whether poor Lapa was as greatly consoled by the letter as she felt in duty bound to appear, when she received the epistle.

  Four of Catherine’s letters to her mother have been preserved, and the key-word to them all is patience—the virtue which Catherine has called the very marrow of piety, but which her hasty mother obviously lacked natural talent for. In her letter from Genoa she greets her beloved mother in the sweet Jesus Christ and tells her how greatly she longs to see in her a true mother, not only of her body, but of her soul. “I think that if you loved my soul more than my body all exaggerated tenderness in you would die, and you would not suffer so much when you lack my presence in the flesh. You would find consolation, and you would be able to bear the sorrow I cause you for the glory of God, when you thought that I was seeking grace and strength for my soul in working for the glory of God.” She reminds her of Mary, the loving mother, who for the glory of God and the salvation of mankind gave her beloved Son to death on the cross—and was later left by the disciples who had to go out on her Son’s errands. “I know that you wish me to obey the will of God. It was His will that I should go, my absence was ordained by the secret plans of Providence, and has not been without the most valuable results.” The length of her absence was not caused by the will of man, but the will of God, and if anyone says anything else it is a lie. “Remember what you did for temporal gain when you let your children go far from you to win riches, and now that it is to win eternal life you suffer so much that you say you will die if I do not reply at once.” It is because the flesh in which she has clothed Catherine is more dear to her than her soul, which her child received from God. But beyond the consolation of religion Catherine can finally console her mother with the fact that they are already on the way home, and if it had not been for all the sickness among the company they would have been home before.

  But Stefano Maconi’s mother also longed impatiently for her son and worried about him just as much as Lapa did for her daughter. And presumably Corrado Maconi’s wife was not so used as Lapa to seeing her children going their own ways far from home and loving parents. Catherine replied to a letter from Stefano’s mother, calling the woman who could easily have been her own mother, her “daughter”. She demands no less of her than that she must overcome her natural maternal love which wants to possess her children for its own material reasons. “Children, and other creatures, must only be loved out of love for Him who created them, not from self-love or love for the children. You must never offend God for their sake. . . . A mother who loves her children in the wrong, worldly way, often says, ‘I have nothing against my children serving God, but they must serve the world too.’. . . Such people try to make laws and rules for the Holy Spirit.” As consolation Catherine assures his mother that she has taken good care of Stefano and will continue to do everything she can for him until her last hour. “You, his mother, bore him once; I shall give him and you, and all your family, a new birth in ceaseless prayer, tears and zeal for your salvation.”

  Such are the paradoxes of Christianity that it is completely possible that both mothers agreed that Catherine wrote nothing but the purest truth. But to live and feel in accordance with what one knows to be the truth, when it becomes difficult and painful, is another matter: our hearts, which are of flesh and blood, refuse to obey. When Catherine went to Rome for the last time Lapa accompanied her, although she was so old, and it is good to know that the mother was not parted from her daughter in the last days of Catherine’s life. But before Stefano Maconi could join those who were gathered round Catherine’s deathbed, he had many difficulties with his mother, who would not let him leave Siena.

  In spite of the illness which prevailed among her travelling companions the people of Genoa crowded to the Palazzo Scotti to see Catherine. By now she was far too famous to enjoy anything resembling the peace of private life—her wasted body, and her soul which now was only able to rest with the Beloved when she was in ecstasy, had never a moment’s peace from importunate guests who expected her to cope with their sorrows and difficulties, or who came merely to satisfy their curiosity, filled with the very human wish to be able to say, “I too have met this celebrity whom everyone talks about.” In spite of the fact that one after another of her secretaries, Neri, Stefano, Bartolommeo, became unable to work because of illness, a stream of letters issued from Catherine’s lodging—with good advice, encouragement, spiritual direction, or in reply to letters which she had received. The woman who had once had no other wish than to live the life of a hermit was now as occupied with the problems of her time as any ruling queen, and obediently she took upon her thin shoulders everything which she knew her Bridegroom laid upon her.

  She considered herself His unworthy little servant, sinful, secretly full of self-love, which she considered to be the root of all the misery of the world. What she had achieved, God had achieved in spite of having to use such a miserable tool—for she could not possibly doubt that great things had been achieved by her as a tool in the hand of God.

  Late one evening a man dressed as an ordinary priest came to Palazzo Scotti and asked to be taken to Catherine Benincasa’s room. He entered, and Catherine fell at the feet of the Vicar of Christ. The Pope told her to stand up, and late into the night the two of them sat alone talking. When Gregory left her he had been “strengthened and edified”.

  He had landed at Genoa after a stormy journey from Marseilles—the crossing had been so bad that it had taken sixteen days. In Genoa Gregory was received with bad tidings; from Rome came the news of a rising, and the Florentine armies had beaten those of the Pope in several battles. The Doge of Genoa had refused to join the league, and had promised friendly neutrality. The French cardinals did everything they could to persuade Gregory to go back to Avignon. They interpreted the storm they had met at sea as a warning sent from God, and they exaggerated the rumours of the various misfortunes as much as they possibly could.

  Gregory called together a council, and was on the point of giving in to his cardinals. But he knew that Catherine was in town, and his conscience would not allow him to make any decision before he had asked her advice. In order not to cause any scandal the head of the Church, immediately after the council, put on a simple priest’s robe and went alone to the Sienese woman to let her decide his fate and the fate of the Church for many years to come.

  On October 29th he sailed to Leghorn, and on December 5th he landed in Corneto in the Papal States. He decided to remain there for Advent and to celebrate his first Christmas in his own kingdom in Corneto.

  XVIII

  CATHERINE TOO EMBARKED in Genoa for Leghorn, the port of Pisa. She too almost suffered shipwreck on the way, for there was a storm and raging seas. Her companions and even the pilot on board were afraid, but Catherine remained as calm as usual: “What are you so afraid of? Do you think that you have to save yourselves?” and to the pilot: “Turn over the rudder in God’s name, and sail with the wind heaven sends us.” The next morning they came safe and sound into harbour and the monks and priests sang a Te Deum.

  In Pisa Catherine once again had to make a stay of some weeks. While he was in Leghorn the Pope had received Pietro Gambacorti and the ambassadors from Lucca, who tried to negotiate a peace with Florence and the league. But the news from the fronts regarding the league’s war against him had angered Pope Gregory so much that the negotiators of peace had not much of a chance.

  In Pisa Catherine was joined by her mother and Tommaso della Fonte. As soon as she knew that her daught
er was on her way home Monna Lapa was willing to face any danger and to make the long journey so that she might be as soon as possible with the child she had missed so terribly.

  It was probably from Pisa that Catherine wrote to the Pope in Corneto to try to give him courage. She begs him to show firmness, strength and patience; Christ has chosen him to be His Vicar, to work and fight for His honour, for the souls of men and for the rebirth of the Church. “You know well, Most Holy Father, that when you took the Church to be your wife you agreed to suffer opposition, pain and antagonism for her sake.” “Peace, peace, Most Holy Father, and may Your Holiness be pleased to receive your sons who have displeased their father. Your goodness will triumph over your pride and wickedness. . . and Father, no more war of any kind. . . . I hope that Our Lord will work so strongly in you that your and my desires may be fulfilled. I desire nothing in life but the glory of God, your peace, the re-birth of the Holy Church and a life of grace for all God’s creatures.” For the wretched town which has always been the beloved daughter of His Holiness (she must mean Pisa) she begs for peace and forgiveness. “They know that they have sinned, but the force of circumstances made them do things which they now regret.” Finally she begs for his blessing for herself and her great family.

  But it was not until 1377 that she finally came home again to Siena.

  Stefano Maconi had been sent on ahead. Among other things he was to arrange a ridotto—a little room which was to serve as a chapel for Catherine. Catherine had brought with her from Avignon the Pope’s permission to have Mass said for her at a portable altar, wherever she might be staying. The three priests who were always to be among her travelling companions were now Fra Raimondo, Fra Bartolommeo Dominici and Dom Giovanni Tantucci.

  The knowledge that Siena was now in collaboration with the enemies of the Pope must have cast a shadow over her joy at meeting her old friends again. During the absence of his “mamma” Francesco Malavolti had let himself be tempted back to his old sinful ways. She wrote to him and begged him tenderly to think of his true happiness.

  On January 17, 1377, Pope Gregory XI made his entry into Rome, riding on a white mule. The Romans, who had remained loyal to the Vicar of Christ in spite of all the attempts to win them over to the other side, and in spite of all the misery they had suffered at the hands of his unworthy deputies, were wild with delight. Showers of flowers and confetti greeted the true lord of the town on his arrival. Throughout the night there was dancing in the streets, which shone from the light of thousands of torches and lamps. Even the French cardinals in the Pope’s retinue were moved. . . .

  But the war continued, and news of towns which had been conquered and plundered with orgies of murder and cruelty streamed in from all over Italy. Early in the spring Catherine was in the new convent, Santa Maria degli Angeli, which she had founded in the old castle of Belcaro—the gift to her of Nanni di SerVanni—and from Belcaro she again wrote to the Pope in Rome. She compares him with a cellarer, because he has been allotted the keys of the Church which administers the blood of God’s Son; and with a mother, because it is he who has to feed all the children of the Holy Church with the milk of divine love. And therefore peace, peace. The mild and amiable Word of God did not let Himself be hindered by our ingratitude, so, for the sake of Christ’s love, follow in His footsteps. It seems to her that the devil has this world in his power, not by his own will, for he is powerless, but through our help because we obey him. The evil aroma arising from the degenerate priests and monks, and the wars which are waged by Christians against Christians, are the same as war against God. So cleanse the Church, create peace, think of the spiritual and not the temporal gains, she says to the Pope yet once again. She longs to see him, but affairs which are of importance for the Church prevent her. Peace, peace, for the sake of the love of the crucified Christ, and not war; that is the only solution.

  From Belcaro she wrote a letter on Maundy Thursday to all the prisoners in Siena. To her beloved sons in sweet Jesus Christ, Catherine, God’s servants’ servant and slave, speaks of our sins against God—not of their greater or smaller sins against the community. According to her way of seeing it, what they need is to be reconciled and at peace with their Creator, and this they need neither more nor less than she herself needs it, or the Pope needs it, or any of the great ones of this world, to whom she has written and is to write later, with always the same message: Be converted. Her letter to the prisoners seems to be full of an even deeper concern for their salvation; it is written with even more earnestness and a more urgent wording than usual. “Sin has caused the death of Christ. God’s Son did need to follow the way of the cross, for the poison of sin was not in Him, and He possesses eternal life, but we wretches had lost it because of our sins, and between God and us was war.” Rebellion against their Creator had made men weak and sickly, so that they could not swallow the bitter medicine which was essential for the cure of their faults. God had to give up His Son; His Word and His endless mercy made the divine nature one with our human nature. Christ came to suffer that we might be healed; our doctor was our Saviour who healed us with His blood. She compares Christ with a wet-nurse who swallows the bitter medicine which her infant is too small and too weak to take—the infant must take it through the nurse’s milk. In the milk of divine love, we, the poor children of God, receive the bitter medicine which is Christ’s suffering on the cross, the only remedy for our mortal illness—sin. She compares Christ, too, with a knight who has ridden out to fight for us; for our sake He came down from Heaven to fight and triumph over the devil. The crown of thorns is His helmet, His flayed flesh His mail, the nails in His hands and feet His gauntlet and spurs. So we should follow our Knight and take new courage in our trials and difficulties. “Bathe in the blood of Jesus Christ. . . . Then you will be able to bear your misery with patience, for in the memory of this blood all that is bitter becomes sweet, and all burdens are lightened.”

  Obviously the communities of the Middle Ages had to protect themselves against crime. The punishments which the criminals were given were often brutal and cruel—imprisonment for a fixed period was as yet unknown: when people were thrown into prison they lay there to await their sentence. They could be condemned to pay fines and damages, to be outlawed or banished, or to physical punishment such as whipping, torture or death. But although most people accepted the official cruelty as the fitting reward for criminals, they hoped at the same time that the criminals would be converted and escape eternal punishment. Even victims of brutal crimes usually felt horror when their enemies refused to receive the Church’s help and went to their death hating God and man. But even the most terrible criminals were offered spiritual help—every government regarded it as a duty to give priests and monks free admission to the cells of the condemned and to follow them on their last journey to the place of execution. Even the two robbers whom Catherine’s spirit followed on their journey in the cart while her body lay unconscious in the home of Alessia Saracini, were accompanied by priests who tolerated the sinners’ blasphemy and curses during the slow torture, and received a princely reward when the two condemned men gave in to the prayers of the ecstatic virgin, and immediately turned towards the priests, willing to be reconciled with their Creator before they went to meet Him.

  The Riformati government in Siena was just as sensitive about its worthiness as most governments. They had therefore condemned the young Niccolo di Toldo of Perugia to execution because this offspring of a foreign nobility had spoken flippantly and derisively in his cups of the citizens who governed in Siena. But Tommaso Caffarini had free access to the boy in prison and tried to reconcile him with his bitter fate. Niccolo refused point blank to be reconciled. He was wild with rage and despair over the crazy justice of this wretched government who wanted to take his life for such a trifle. No, he would not make his confession—he had not confessed since as a young boy he had for the first and last time received Holy Communion; and he would not go to Communion now, he would not bow himself to t
he will of God if it were God’s will to take his life from him in the very flower of his youth. . . .

  So Catherine went to him. She wrote to Fra Raimondo in Rome of this matter, certainly the best-known, and the most often misunderstood, in the strange life of Catherine. It is the story of how a woman, still young, of unusually attractive personality, tames a passionate and despairing young man who rebels against his hard fate and against all the powers of heaven and earth which have caused it. But Catherine had already tamed so many wild and despairing men, and what she did for Niccolo she would have done for any soul whose future in eternity wavered in the balance between Heaven and hell. Consciously or unconsciously di Toldo had perhaps been influenced by the knowledge that his guest was the young woman who by sheer spiritual strength had moved the papal seat from Avignon back to Rome; or it may have been the aura of holiness which surrounded this girl, both mother and sister to any and everyone in the world who was in need. We know the story of his conversion solely from Catherine’s description, and she saw in it only the mystery of God’s grace, and the cleansing power of Christ’s blood. What she writes to Raimondo is a song of praise to the heart of God’s Son.

  “O heart, O cup which runs over and intoxicates and satisfies the desire of all love! You give joy, you throw light over reason, you fill our minds and capture them so that it is impossible to think of anything else, to understand or to love anything else but the good and gentle Jesus. O blood, O fire, love without end, how my soul would rejoice if I saw you [Raimondo] annihilated in it! I wish you to be as one who scoops up water with a ladle to pour it out over others. Yes, pour the water of holy desire over the heads of your brothers who are united with us in the body of the Church. . . and beware of the spells of the devil, for I know that he would like to prevent you.” On various occasions before Catherine had warned Raimondo against a certain weakness in his nature. She tells him of her meeting with Niccolo to rouse his courage in all situations, however frightening, and his continued perseverance, if necessary until he sees blood flowing—his own or another’s—blood which will be spilled from tender and loving desire.