Catherine of Siena

by Sigrid Undset

  In Rome Stefano Maconi had carried the body of his beloved mother to the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. And as soon as the news spread over the town that the holy woman from Siena was dead, the Romans swarmed to the church. In wave upon wave the excited crowds pushed their way forward to touch the clothes or the feet of the dead woman. We are apt to think the way in which the faithful expressed their admiration for the saints was often most repulsive, from the earliest days of Christianity, when they dried up the blood of the martyrs and hid bits of their flesh and bones, right up to comparatively recent times. In their eagerness to acquire a relic of a popular saint they did not content themselves with tearing off bits of his clothes; they sometimes stole pieces of the body itself. To prevent such a thing happening to Catherine’s corpse, the sisters of the convent put it behind the lattice in front of St. Dominic’s chapel, and kept watch over it. “The crowd. . . who wished to do homage to her remains and to pray for her intercession, brought their sick to her. And God willed that they should not be disappointed.”

  Raimondo describes in detail eight miraculous cures which occurred in the days between Catherine’s death and her burial. There were many others, but these he had himself been able to enquire into by examining those who had been healed, or who had been eye-witnesses of the miracles. But it is obvious that Raimondo especially enjoyed recounting the story of Semia, the widow of a Roman citizen. He had known her twenty years; she was simple and honest, a deeply pious woman. It is not strange that he tells this story con amore: Semia had seen in a dream Catherine’s dazzling entrance into heaven, and afterwards she had been helped by supernatural means in her housework by the newly crowned saint, who while she lived on earth had so often taken upon herself to help ordinary people in the small difficulties of everyday life.

  This Semia had always been in the habit of praying a great deal and making pilgrimages to the different pilgrim churches in Rome when she could get a free moment from her housework. Since her husband’s death she had kept house for her five sons. The night before Catherine died she had got up as usual and prayed, and as the next day was Sunday and she wanted to go to Mass, she lay down again to sleep a little until it was time to get up for good.

  But while she lay thus between waking and sleeping, she had a wonderful vision: she saw a boy of about ten, much more beautiful than anyone she had ever seen before, and he said to her: “You must not wake and get up before you have seen what I have to show you.” Although Semia was very glad to see anyone so beautiful as this boy, she murmured: “Blessed child, let me get up, otherwise I shall be too late for the High Mass.” But the boy took no notice, and then it seemed as though he took hold of her dress and led her to a room which resembled a church. Here she saw a tabernacle of silver, richly adorned with precious stones. Another beautiful boy opened the tabernacle, while four more carried in a chair magnificently adorned like the chairs that are used when a bride is carried to her bridegroom’s home. She understood then that the boys were angels.

  Out of the tabernacle stepped a young woman, radiantly beautiful and clothed all in white and glittering jewels. On her head she had three crowns, arranged so cleverly that all were visible, one above the other; one was of silver, the second of silver and red gold, the third of pearls and diamonds. The angel who had first appeared to her asked Semia: “Do you recognise the young girl?” Semia said: “She looks like Catherine of Siena, only she is much younger.” (Semia had not seen Catherine before she came to Rome.) The girl in the vision smiled and said to the children: “See, she does not recognise me.”

  She seemed to float towards Semia: “Semia, do you not recognise me? I am Catherine of Siena, look into my face.” But then the children lifted her into the chair and floated towards heaven with her.

  As Semia watched, a throne appeared in heaven, and on the throne sat a King, crowned and clothed in radiance; in his right hand he had an open book. The boys put the chair down in front of the steps up to the throne. The young girl threw herself before the King’s feet in adoration, and the King said to her: “Welcome, Catherine, my beloved bride and daughter.” He told her to lift up her head and read in the book for as long as it takes to say a Pater Noster. The King let her stand beside his throne, and then Semia saw a procession approach—the Queen of Heaven with a great following of holy virgins. The new saint ran forward to kneel and adore, but Christ’s Mother took her in her arms, bade her welcome and kissed her, and asked her to join the procession of holy virgins, who greeted her with the kiss of peace.

  Semia assured Raimondo that she was sure she had seen this scene take place in heaven, and when she called out a loud greeting and prayer to the heavenly procession, she woke up and saw that the sun was already high—it was about terce, nine o’clock. Terribly ashamed of having slept too long, she hastened to light the fire, put on the saucepan with the dinner for her sons and hurried to the parish church, afraid she was too late for the High Mass. She said to herself that if she had missed the Mass she would take it for a sign that the dream vision was a trick sent by the old enemy of men, but if she came in time she would believe that she had been allowed to see this vision because her mother, Catherine, prayed for her. But when she got to the church they had sung the Gospel and were in the middle of the offertory. Disappointed, she went home again, sure that her dream had been a trick of the devil.

  She started the housework, but suddenly heard the bells of a neighbouring convent ringing for Mass. She was so happy that she forgot to put the vegetables she had washed and cut up into the pan, but just locked the door and hurried off to the convent church. Her house was left empty. “So it was not Satan who tricked me, as I feared.” But she was a little uneasy when she thought of the dinner for her boys, and prayed God to help her so that they would not be too cross because the dinner was a little later than usual.

  Her sons stood outside the locked door when she returned, and, sure enough, they were cross and hungry. “My dear children, wait a moment, the food will be ready in a minute.” But when she had unlocked the door and hurried in to the pan on the fire, the contents were bubbling; vegetables, meat and spices, everything was cooked exactly enough. She only needed to lay the table. The boys ate with a good appetite and said to their mother that to-day the food tasted better than usual. Semia was amazed at the strange things which had happened to her, and longed to be finished with the housework, so that she might run down to Catherine’s house and tell her all about it.

  It was many days since she had had time to visit Catherine. Semia knew that she was very ill, but like all Catherine’s other friends she had often seen her lying apparently completely exhausted, only to come suddenly to herself again and begin to work and converse with her children. It did not occur to her that there was any difference this time. But Catherine’s house was locked, and the neighbours said that she must have gone to church.

  On the way home she passed Santa Maria sopra Minerva and was astonished to see great crowds of people outside. She asked what was the matter, and someone told her that Catherine of Siena was dead and her body now lay in the church. Semia pushed into the church and elbowed her way through the crowd till she came to the lattice. Tears streamed down her face and she shouted to the women round the coffin: “Oh, cruel women, why did you not send for me so that I could come to her deathbed?” She tore her face with her nails, while she sobbed out her story—how she had seen her mother step out of the tabernacle of her body, how she was carried to heaven by angels and received by our Saviour and all the saints; and how, by a miracle, while she was at Mass, the food had prepared itself at home.

  On Thursday, in the dusk, at the hour of compline, they buried Catherine of Siena. Her body was still fresh and pure, unchanged; there was no smell of death, and her throat and limbs were as soft and supple as when she was alive. The stigmata, which she had prayed her Lord to allow to remain invisible in her lifetime, showed clearly on her dead body.

  XXIX

  CATHERINE OF SIENA was apparently
first buried in the churchyard of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. People came there to pray for her intercession and many miracles were ascribed to the dead Sister of Penitence. But some years later Raimondo had her remains moved to a grave inside the church, where they would not be exposed to the weather and winds. It was perhaps during this first moving—or translation—that her head was separated from the body, put in a beautifully made reliquary, a bust of gilded bronze, and taken to Siena. It caused jubilation over the whole of Siena, both the town and its surroundings; and the reliquary was carried in solemn procession to St. Dominic’s church. Immediately behind it walked the Mantellate, and among them was a very old woman, Lapa, the mother of the saint. One would like to know what her feelings were when this daughter whom she had loved so passionately, suffered for so bitterly, and so bravely tried to understand and follow, came home to her birthplace in triumph. This was in the spring of 1383.

  Her body was moved again to the chapel of the Rosary, and finally laid to rest where it now lies, under the high altar in Santa Maria sopra Minerva.

  Her last loving prayer to the men and women who had called her “Mother” had been: “Love each other; that is the sign by which people shall know that you are my disciples, the love which you bear each other.” The flock of Caterinati remembered these words, which their mother had borrowed from her divine Bridegroom, as they remembered everything she had said to them. They collected and copied her letters and her book, they wrote down all they could remember about her and worked for her honour, in the hope that one day she would be solemnly declared a saint by Holy Church, the Bride of Christ, for which she had lived and died.

  As Master General of the Dominicans, Raimondo of Capua had more than enough to do working in his mother’s spirit during the dark years of the schism and the perpetual invasions of Italy by the French schismatics. Nevertheless he found time to collect material for his book on the life of the Blessed Catherine. He conscientiously gives the names of the sources of all his information, some of whom had been eye-witnesses of the miracles which took place in reply to her prayers, some who had been present and seen and heard the different events he describes—whether they were still alive at the time of writing or not. He worked on the book for fifteen years. Four years later he died. His work as reformer of the Dominican Order led him to Nuremberg in the autumn of 1399, and it was there that he died. His body was brought home to Italy, and buried in the Dominican church in Naples. He has never been formally beatified, but the Dominican Order has always honoured him as the Blessed Raimondo of Capua, and on the five-hundredth anniversary of his death Pope Leo XIII officially acknowledged his cult.

  When Raimondo finished his book Monna Lapa and Catherine’s sister-in-law, Lisa Colombini, were still alive; but Alessia Saracini, Francesca di Gori and several other of the sisters from whom he received his information were already dead.

  The first of her sons to die was her Benjamin, the young Barduccio Canigiani. When Raimondo came to Rome for the first time after Catherine’s death, Barduccio appeared to have consumption. To get him away from the Roman air, which was notoriously unhealthy, Raimondo sent him back to the monastery in Siena, and there he died in 1382.

  Fra Bartolommeo Dominici was moved from the monastery in Siena a short while after Catherine’s death and given other responsible work in the order. In his place Catherine’s old foster-brother and confessor, Fra Tommaso della Fonte, was made prior in Siena. He was the first priest who publicly set up a picture of Catherine in his church, so that the people could offer her their homage (this was before the Church had acknowledged her cult). His journals have been used to great advantage by both Raimondo and Tommaso Caffarini.

  Neri di Landoccio was hindered in his vain errand to Naples, and returned to Rome too late to be present at his “mother’s” deathbed. But he followed her advice and retired to a hermitage outside Siena, where he lived alone in prayer and contemplation; but he kept up his connections with his friends among the Caterinati, especially Stefano Maconi and Francesco Malavolti, until his death in 1406.

  After the death of his wife and child, Francesco Malavolti entered the Carthusian monastery on Monte Oliveto, but after a while he changed over to the Benedictine order.

  A little less than a year after Catherine’s death Stefano Maconi entered a Carthusian monastery outside Siena. He was chosen as prior of his monastery almost as soon as he had finished his novitiate. He translated into Italian the biography of Catherine which Tommaso Caffarini had written in Latin, and worked with Ser Cristofano di Gano Guidini on a Latin translation of Catherine’s Dialogue. Ser Cristofano was then a lay brother in the congregation of Santa Maria della Scala, and worked as a nurse and helper of the poor. Stefano was later chosen as Prior-General for the Carthusian order, and he succeeded in leading his order back to obedience to Rome.

  Tommaso Caffarini, Catherine’s fellow-citizen and one of her oldest friends, was sent after her death to the Dominican monastery in Venice. He too worked eagerly for his mother’s honour. Among other things he succeeded in reorganising the third order of St. Dominic—the order to which the young Catherine had so passionately wished to be attached, and in which she had lived her strange life of mysticism and energetic practical activity. The rules which Tommaso Caffarini gave the order in Venice have to a great extent been followed by Dominican tertiaries up to our own day.

  When complaints were made against the Dominican order for acting against canon law by doing public honour to a member who was not yet canonised, a council was held in Venice. The result was that in January 1413 the Dominican order was given solemn permission to celebrate a feast day for the Blessed Catherine of Siena.

  In 1461 she was canonised by Pope Pius II—born Enea Silvio de’ Piccolomini of Siena. She thereupon became St. Catherine of Siena for the whole Church. It was acknowledged that the life and teachings of the Sienese Popolana were worthy to be held as examples for all Christians, whether or not their life outwardly developed through actions and circumstances which resembled her own. For, as Catherine said, Christ taught us regarding Himself: I am the way. Therefore the way to heaven should be heaven for those who love Him.

  Both Raimondo and Tommaso Caffarini maintained that Catherine lived and died as a martyr of the Faith. In the official language of the Catholic Church the expression “martyr” means a man or a woman who chooses to die a violent death rather than deny the Christian faith. But we have got used to using the expression in a much less precise way, and speak of people as being martyrs for any cause whatsoever for which they have suffered, voluntarily or involuntarily. (Sometimes also, very inaccurately, of people who suffer from misfortunes which they have definitely neither chosen nor wished to choose as their lot.) It is certain that Catherine voluntarily—and few women have ever had such an inflexible will—chose to suffer ceaselessly for all she believed in, loved and desired: unity with God, the glory and honour of His name, His kingdom on earth, the eternal happiness of all mankind, and the re-birth of Christ’s Church to the beauty which it possesses when the radiance of its soul shines freely through its outward form—that form which was then stained and spoilt by its own degenerate servants and rebellious children. As Catherine expressed it: the strength and beauty of its mystical body can never diminish, for it is God; but the jewels with which its mystical body are adorned are the good accomplished by its sincere and faithful children.

  The fact that the saints have been so willing to suffer, that they often in fact seemed to be in love with suffering and chose it as their inheritance on earth, is often looked upon by non-Catholics—that is to say non-Catholic Christians—as incomprehensible, and, in the eyes of many, extremely unsavoury. If God is goodness, if Christ died on the cross to save us from our sins, why should Christians have to suffer—and suffer not merely ordinary opposition, which may have an educational value for the sufferer, but, though innocent, suffer for others’ sins? One thing is certain, that all the saints have maintained that they suffered for their own sins,
although we cannot see it otherwise than that they suffered for the sins of others. It is only among the saints that we find any who have the right to say, “Nothing human is foreign to me.” Nevertheless, we may all, at any moment, find that we have to suffer for what in our eyes are exclusively the sins of others. Two world wars, and their aftermath, spread over almost the whole of the world, should have made this truth understandable—emphatically understandable—even for the simplest and most self-satisfied of souls.

  Since Jesus Christ redeemed mankind with His precious blood we can be saved if we are willing to let Him save us. But even St. Paul had to point out to the Colossians that Christ’s sufferings sometimes overflow into our life, so that we in our flesh may be forced to “fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ”. There is nothing in the experience of man which shows that the raw material of human nature has ever changed. It is eternally dragged down by our desire for the things which escape our grasp, or if we manage to grasp some of them we find that we are still not satisfied. Satisfied desire produces new desire until old age puts a stop to the chase, and death ends all. We are shown frequent glimpses of our nature which remind us of our origin, and in whose image we were created. From the image of God in us we have creative energy, the spring of unselfish love—unselfish in spite of the shadow of egoism which is inseparable from all our impulses; the longing to create our world to an ordered pattern, to live according to the law, and to see our ideals of justice realised. (When West European man in the course of the last few centuries developed new and better tools with which to investigate the material world, and learned more and more of the apparently stable law between cause and effect in the physical world, he gave what he had discovered the name of one of the things which he had loved most dearly and hated most intensely, served most self-sacrificingly and betrayed most shamefully—he spoke of the “laws of nature”.) We men have ceaselessly stained and crippled this image of God in ourselves: we have succumbed to our desire for power and flattery, to our passions, hate and revenge, lust and ambition. Or we have grown tired of what we achieved and fought for, and capriciously destroyed what we have created. We are afraid of change, and afraid of stagnation. We love old things and institutions, and will have something which is new and different. In the clash with our own human nature our most noble ideals and our boldest dreams of Utopia always crumble to nothing—until our last and boldest dreams of Utopia have put in our hands the weapon with which we are able to destroy our world completely if we will—and who can tell what the destructive instinct of mankind will shrink from doing? On that day which the Church has foretold from the beginning, when the Son of Man shall come again to judge the world with fire, it is perhaps we ourselves who will provide the fire.