These informal little notes were written probably in the autumn of 1377
while Catherine was making a visit to the feudal stronghold of the
Salimbeni family, about twenty-three miles from Siena, among the foothills
of Monte Amiata. The young "populana" was admitted to the intimate
counsels of these great nobles, leaders of the opposition to the popular
government with which her own sympathies would naturally have lain. It
must have been a new experience to the town-bred girl--life in this
castle-eyrie among the hills, where mercenary troops and rude peasants
thronged the courtyard, and manners, one surmises, must have been at once
more artful and more brutal than among her bourgeois friends. We hear of
picturesque scenes, where men and women afflicted of demons are brought
writhing into her presence, to be welcomed, cared for, and healed. She had
the comfort of the company of several confessors; the first of these
letters shows them labouring with homely eagerness, quaintly expressed,
for the religious welfare of the wild soldiery. Absorbed, as ever, in the
inward life, Catherine was as tranquilly at home here in the mountains,
among the great ladies of the Salimbeni family, as in Siena or in the
papal court.
Meantime, good Monna Lapa grumbled as of old over the separation from her
daughter; and evidently Catherine's sister mantellate were also
disconsolate. She writes them very gently, very simply, trying to
reconcile them by the reminder of like sorrows borne by that first group
of disciples to whom she and her friends loved to compare themselves. To
her beloved Alessa she expresses herself more freely, giving just the
details of health and mental state that intimate love would crave. These
were sad days in her private life; for she had parted from Fra Raimondo,
who had been called to other service. Her words to Alessa reflect her
sadness, and also her entire submission. It is noticeable that she
respects the secrets of her hosts with dignity, giving no hint on the
matters that occupied her beyond the reticent statement to her mother: "I
believe that if you knew the circumstances you yourself would send me
here."
This is not the only time by any means that Catherine had to meet similar
complaints. Wherever she bore her strong vitality, limitless sympathy and
peculiar charm, new friends gathered around her and clung to her with an
unreasoning devotion that cried out in exacting hunger for her presence,
and often proved to her a real distress. For Catherine, swiftly responsive
as she was to individual affections, perfect in loyalty as she always
showed herself, moved, nevertheless, in a region where unswerving service
of a larger duty might at any moment force her to refuse to gratify, at
least in outward ways, the personal claim. This was very hard for her
friends to understand; one is sorry for them. At the same time, one feels
more than a little pathos in her efforts to bring these simpler minds into
understanding sympathy with that high sense of vocation which underlay all
her doings: "Know, dearest mother, that I, your poor little daughter, am
not put on earth for anything else than this; to this my Creator has
chosen me. I know you are content that I should obey Him." But Monna Lapa
never was quite content--not to the very end.
TO MONNA LAPA HER MOTHER AND TO MONNA CECCA
IN THE MONASTERY OF SAINT AGNES AT MONTEPULCIANO, WHEN SHE WAS AT ROCCA
In the Name of Jesus Christ crucified and of sweet Mary:
Dearest mother and daughter in Christ sweet Jesus: I Catherine, servant
and slave of the servants of Jesus Christ, write to you in His precious
Blood: with desire to see you so clothed in the flames of divine charity
that you may bear all pain and torment, hunger and thirst, persecution and
injury, derision, outrage and insult, and everything else, with true
patience; learning from the Lamb suffering and slain, who ran with such
burning love to the shameful death of the Cross. Do you then keep in
companionship with sweetest Mother Mary, who, in order that the holy
disciples might seek the honour of God and the salvation of souls,
following the footsteps of her sweet Son, consents that they should leave
her presence, although she loved them supremely: and she stays as if
alone, a guest and a pilgrim. And the disciples, who loved her beyond
measure, yet leave her joyously, enduring every grief for the honour of
God, and go out among tyrants, enduring many persecutions. And if you ask
them: "Why do you carry yourselves so joyously, and you are going away
from Mary?" they would reply: "Because we have lost ourselves, and are
enamoured of the honour of God and the salvation of souls." Well, dearest
mother and daughter, I want you to do just so. If up to now you have not
been, I want you to be now, kindled in the fire of divine charity, seeking
always the honour of God and the salvation of souls. Otherwise you would
fall into the greatest grief and tribulation, and would drag me down into
them. Know, dearest mother, that I, your poor little daughter, am not put
on earth for anything else; to this my Creator has elected me. I know you
are content that I should obey Him. I beg you that if I seemed to stay
away longer than pleased your will, you will be contented; for I cannot do
otherwise. I believe that if you knew the circumstances you yourself would
send me here. I am staying to find help if I can for a great scandal. It
is no fault of the Countess, though; therefore do you all pray God and
that glorious Virgin to send us a good result. And do you, Cecca, and
Giustina, drown yourselves in the Blood of Christ crucified; for now is
the time to prove the virtue in your soul. God give His sweet and eternal
benediction to you all. I say no more. Remain in the holy and sweet grace
of God. Sweet Jesus, Jesus Love.