Catherine of Siena

by Sigrid Undset

  “Now I know that I shall never again flinch or rest. I have held a head in my hands, and felt a sweetness which the heart cannot understand, the mouth speak of, the eyes see nor the ears hear. God has truly shown me secrets which are more holy than all that has gone before, and which it would take too long to describe.

  “You know that I went to visit him, and he gained such great strength and power that he made his confession in the right state of mind. He made me promise for the sake of God’s love I would be with him when the day of execution came, and I promised. The next day before the bells rang for the first time, I went to him, and that consoled him greatly. I went with him to Mass, and he received Holy Communion, which he had always avoided. His will was one with God’s holy will and submitted to it. He was only afraid of one thing—that his courage should fail in the crucial moment. But God’s immeasurable goodness fired such love and longing in him that he could not have enough of God’s presence. He said, Stay with me, do not go from me and I will be good, I will die happy. And he leaned his head against my breast. I was filled with joy, for it seemed to me that the perfume of his blood mixed itself with mine which I long to be able to pour out for my beloved Bridegroom Jesus. This desire grew in my soul, and when I realised that he was afraid I said to him: ‘Courage, beloved brother, for we shall soon go to the eternal marriage feast. You go to it washed in the blood of God’s Son, with the sweet name of Jesus for ever in your mind, and I shall wait for you at the place of execution.’—Oh, my father and my son, then his heart was freed from fear, the melancholy in his face changed to gladness, and in his gladness he said: ‘Where does it come from, such great mercy? Oh, my soul’s joy promises to wait for me at the holy place of execution.’—See what a light had fallen on him—he called the place of execution holy! And he added, ‘Yes, I shall go, cheerful and happy, and it seems to me that I must wait a thousand years when I think that you will be waiting for me there.’ And he said many other things which were so beautiful that I rejoiced at God’s goodness.”

  So she waited for him at the place of execution, kneeling in ceaseless prayer, and she laid her own neck on the block “but I did not receive what I desired.” Passionately she prayed Our Lady to give him light and peace in his heart at his last moment, and for herself she prayed to be allowed to see that he arrived at his final goal. She was as though drunk with joy at the gracious promises, so that she saw nothing, although there was an enormous crowd assembled.

  Niccolo came, peaceful as a lamb, and he smiled when he saw that Catherine stood there waiting for him. He asked her to make the sign of the cross over him, and she whispered to him: “My dear brother, let us go to the eternal marriage feast, to enjoy life which shall never end.” She bared his throat, and when he laid his head on the block she knelt beside him. He said nothing but “Jesus, Catherine”, and then his head fell into her hands.

  “Then I fastened my eyes upon the Divine Goodness and said: I will. Immediately I saw, as clearly as one sees the sunshine, Him who is God and Man. He was there, He received the blood. In this blood was the fire of holy desire which grace had put into his soul, and this fire was swallowed up in the fire of God’s mercy.” She saw that Niccolo was as though drawn into the treasure chamber of mercy, his pierced heart into Christ’s breast, so the great truth was made clearly apparent—that Christ receives a soul entirely because of His mercy, and not because of any merits of the soul itself. But as the soul of Niccolo entered the mystery of the Holy Trinity it turned and looked at her, as the bride does when she has come to the house of her bridegroom and with bowed head acknowledges those who have accompanied her, as a last sign of gratitude.

  Catherine remained there, with deep peace in her soul and a great longing to follow the dead youth to her heavenly Bridegroom. He must therefore not be surprised, she writes to Raimondo, that she longs to be annihilated in the fire and blood from the wound in Christ’s side. “. . . And now no more remissness, my beloved son, for in that blood is our life, Jesus.”

  XIX

  IN THE SUMMER OF 1371 Catherine and her “family” were living in the country south of Siena. At that time she had apparently formed small groups of her spiritual children, which she left in several places to work for her goal, peace between men and peace between men and their Maker, through penitence and prayer. Her mother and her old friend Cecca she left in Montepulciano—Monna Lapa had a granddaughter and Cecca a daughter in the convent of St. Agnes. Late in the summer she herself was in the impenetrable fortress of the Salimbeni, Rocca di Tentenanno, on the top of the mountain which dominates the river Orco. With her were Raimondo, Tommaso della Fonte, Fra Santo, Lisa and several other friends.

  The lady of the castle, the widowed Countess Bianchina, had sent for Catherine in the hope that she would be able to put an end to a feud between two nobles, Agnolino and Cione, who were the heads of two branches of the Salimbeni family. She wrote to them and visited Cione in his castle, and finally arranged a reconciliation between the Abbot of St. Antimo and his old enemy the dean of Montalcino. But a short while after, Raimondo went to Rome with a message from Catherine to the Pope. It was therefore Fra Santo who later described to him how she had driven out a demon from one of the Countess Bianchina’s servants. Catherine’s friends had warned the lady that Catherine was very unwilling to have anything to do with the possessed—they said it was because she was so humble. They advised the countess to have the poor wretch taken to Catherine without warning her, and then they felt sure that the virgin’s tender heart would be moved when confronted by the woman. But when the possessed woman was brought to Catherine, who was just about to go out on one of her errands as peacemaker, she turned to Bianchina: “May God forgive you, what have you done? Do you not know how often I am tortured by demons—why do you bring others to me when I suffer so much myself from their attacks?” But she went over to the possessed woman: “So that you shall not undo the good work which is already begun, lay your head on the breast of this man, and wait till I come back.” Obediently the wretched women went over and laid her head on Fra Santo’s breast. But through her mouth the evil spirit swore and cursed at his enemy who had made it impossible for him to come out of the room, although the door was wide open. The spirit then entertained the interested listeners by naming each place Catherine passed on her way out and home again. But it could not get the woman to lift her head from the breast of the pious old hermit, and when Catherine came home again and commanded him to loose his hold on the poor woman and never come near her again, he had to obey. Fra Raimondo heard this story later from over thirty people who had been present.

  Once she had stepped into the ring, Catherine fought like a valiant knight against the demons as long as she was at Rocca di Tentenanno, where innumerable insane and possessed people were brought to her. Some arrived in chains and were so wild and unmanageable that six or eight men could not always cope with them. Catherine used to sit on the grass on a terrace outside the fortress, and she always said to the warders on these occasions: “Why have you put this poor creature in chains? In Christ’s name, free him.” Even those who raged the most became quiet immediately, and when Catherine had held the poor creatures’ heads in her lap, prayed for them and wept for them, they became well again. Not only the demons which had tortured the sick men took flight, but the lice which often swarmed over their filthy bodies also left them, to the fear and horror of her family. Catherine only laughed. “Don’t bother yourselves about them, these lice will not come onto you.” She was right, as usual.

  The Salimbeni had always been disturbers of the peace, and time and again had been at open war with the republic of Siena. So Catherine’s long stay with one of their family wakened mistrust in the Sienese government—they knew of course that Catherine disapproved profoundly of many of their policies. She wrote an indignant letter of reply to the “Defenders” and Siena’s Capitano del Popolo. Once again she reminds them that men who are to guide and lead others must first be able to guide themselves. �
�How can the blind lead the blind, or the dead bury the dead?” “Yes, my dear gentlemen, he who is blind, whose intelligence is darkened by mortal sin, can know neither himself nor God, and can neither see nor correct the faults of those who are under him, or if he tries to correct them it is through the darkness and imperfection which is in him.” She tells her dear gentlemen how they ceaselessly punish innocent men and let the guilty, who have deserved punishment a thousand times, go unpunished. They complain of unworthy priests and monks, but let themselves be fooled by them, and persecute those who are good and righteous servants of God. “With regard to my return home with my spiritual children, I have heard that all sorts of doubts and accusations have been concocted, but I do not know whether I ought to believe this? If you were as interested in your own welfare as we are, you and all the inhabitants of Siena would have nothing to do with such groundless doubts and passions, and not listen to such stories. The only thing we always try to obtain is your spiritual and temporal welfare, and we offer God our pious desires with tears and sighs, to prevent the Divine Justice descending upon us with the punishment we deserve because of our imperfections. I have so little virtue that I can do nothing, except in an imperfect way; but those who are perfect and desire nothing but God’s glory and the soul’s salvation do good deeds, and the ingratitude and ignorance of the people of my own town shall not prevent us from striving after their salvation until we die. . . . I see that the devil is furious because of the losses which, by the grace of God, this journey has cost him, and will cost him in the future. I came here to tear these souls out of the hands of the devil. For this end I would sacrifice a thousand lives if I had them. I shall therefore move and act as the Holy Spirit wills me.”

  She writes to a citizen of some importance in Siena in the same vein: “Whether the devil likes it or not, I shall use my life to the glory of God and the salvation of souls, to improve the state of the world, and especially of my native town. The citizens of Siena should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves if they think that we are staying with the Salimbeni to forge secret alliances. . .”

  But Monna Lapa had again become impatient, and Catherine had to write to her mother begging her to be patient and think of Mary, the great example of an unselfish mother. “You know so well, my dearest mother, that your worthless daughter is here on earth only to do what her Creator decrees. I know that you are pleased when you see that I am obedient to Him.”

  But the mother of Fra Matteo Tolomei, who was by then a Dominican monk, was even more impatient. It was she who a year or two before had come to Catherine and begged her to save her shameless son and light-minded daughters. Now she sent Fra Matteo a furious letter commanding him to come home at once from the fortress of the Salimbeni, the archenemies of the house of Tolomei, and threatened him, if he did not obey, with his mother’s curse. In her letter to Monna Rabe, Catherine takes it for granted that she has deep religious experience—she speaks of the ladder of perfection, which is Jesus, and only at the end warns her solemnly that purely natural love for her children has led her astray and made her demand that her son should fail in his duty in the world to hurry home to her.

  Tommaso Caffarini relates how while she was at Rocca di Tentenanno Catherine suddenly discovered that she could write. Quite by accident she came upon ajar of red colour such as was used for the drawing of initials. She had learned to read several years before, and had already dictated hundreds of letters to her secretaries, so it would not be surprising if one day she suddenly wanted to try and see if she could write herself. . . . But in a letter to Raimondo in Rome she says that she had learned to write while she was in ecstasy, and that this gift had been bestowed on her as a consolation in a time when she had many very difficult trials. The learned French Dominican Père Hurtaud, who has edited the Dialogue, expresses his doubt of the whole story—especially as no letters written by Catherine’s hand have been preserved, and he is not sure that the letter to Raimondo has not been altered by the copyist. The question remains open. It does not seem unlikely that Catherine one day discovered that she herself could do what others do every day, nor that she received this ability as a special gift from God. Caffarini says that the first thing Catherine wrote with her own hand, with the red colour, was a verse, a prayer to each of the three Persons of the Trinity to fill her soul with holy love, guard her against evil thoughts, and help her in all her actions. No translation can give any idea of the loveliness of this little prayer in her own musical Tuscan dialect.

  She certainly needed heavenly consolation. Pope Gregory had become completely dependent on the Sienese virgin, who was so much more manly and courageous than himself, and now he was extremely annoyed because she had wasted all these months in the valley of the Orco, which she could have used so much more profitably for him if she had gone to Florence. In October 1377 the Florentines had won a great victory over the Pope’s mercenary army, and when ambassadors from Florence once again failed to arrange a peace on conditions favourable to the republic, the Florentines decided to disregard the interdict. Mass was said publicly in all the churches in the city, and the attitude of the Florentines to the Pope was extremely bitter.

  The Pope’s position was terrible. His temporal possessions had been reduced to Rome and a few strips of land just outside the city. He was in great financial difficulties—he even tried to borrow money from the Queen of Naples. But the obstinacy which often accompanies indecision made Gregory refuse all attempts to make peace with the Florentines under conditions which could be honourable for both sides. He was moreover so lacking in judgment that he tried to make Bernabò Visconti arbitrator at the proposed peace conference—the very man whose tyranny and intrigues started all the misery.

  Catherine wrote to the Holy Father and humbly begged his pardon for the fault she had unintentionally committed. She sent the letter to Rome with Fra Raimondo. Arriving there he was re-instated in his old position as prior of the convent of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. Catherine was only to meet her best friend and most affectionate son once again, and to be with him for a few weeks when she came to Rome some years later. For three years he had been her confessor, and their mutual respect had created riches in the souls of the brother and sister who so generously exchanged their mystical experiences.

  Fra Raimondo had come nearer than anyone to understanding this strange woman and the intense life she led, hovering on two wings, as she herself had once expressed it, over the abyss between time and eternity; she touched both shores, but was never allowed to lie down to rest on either of them. Raimondo had loyally done everything he could to meet all the needs of an extraordinary soul; he gave her permission to satisfy her ceaseless hunger for the supernatural nourishment of the Sacrament; he let his penitent follow her own inspirations as often as she convinced him that she had been given a deeper insight into the ways which her heavenly Bridegroom had chosen for His bride. Catherine loved with deep tenderness all those whom she called her sons and daughters, whether they were young men and women or people much older than herself; but they all expected her to strengthen and console them, they all depended on her. Raimondo was the only one who had been able to give her any human consolation.

  Catherine was thirty, and the fresh loveliness of the dyer’s young and healthy daughter from Fontebranda had disappeared. Her body had become a fragile, almost transparent, vase, lighted from within by her burning soul. But although Catherine was a sick woman—in spite of her indomitable energy when the Lord sent her out on His errands—it was just at this time, during her stay at Rocca di Tentenanno, that she awakened a violent erotic passion in a man. A young monk who had become her disciple was seized with the wrong kind of love for her and fell in love with her selfishly and passionately. When his desire proved to be powerless against her love for him, which was completely spiritual and full of tenderness for his soul, he was in despair, and one day in church he tried to kill her. He was disarmed by some who were standing near. But then he fled, threw off his monk’s habit and r
eturned to the fortress of his fathers. Here he succumbed completely to his despair. Two letters which Neri di Landoccio received while he was at Rocca di Tentenanno, from someone who did not sign them with his name—“for I do not know what my name is”—are perhaps from this man. It is not that he doubts or scorns religion—he has just lost the taste for all those things which once filled his soul with happiness; he can feel neither peace nor light. “I have been turned from the table because I have clothed myself in darkness. . . God in His mercy give you grace, perseverance and a holy death.”

  We hear later that this escaped monk finally went into the woods and hanged himself. And Catherine, who prayed with all her might for the son she had lost, how much did she know about it? Against her will she had been the cause of his destruction. She never said so. Some lines in a letter to Neri perhaps concern the suicide: “Do not be afraid, God does not wish that the same should happen to you as to that other.” Neri di Landoccio dei Pagliaresi was of a melancholy nature, and if the letters to him from the unhappy writer are from the monk who hanged himself, he and Neri must once have been friends.