In the Name of Jesus Christ crucified and of sweet Mary:
Dearest daughters 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 obedient daughters, united in true and perfect charity.
This obedience and love will dissipate all your suffering and gloom; for
obedience removes the thing which gives us suffering, that is our own
perverse will, which is wholly destroyed in true holy obedience. Gloom is
scattered and consumed by the impulse of charity and unity, for God is
true charity and highest eternal light. He who has this true light for his
guide, cannot miss the road. Therefore, dearest daughters, I want, since
it is so necessary, that you should study to lose your own will and to
gain this light.
This is the doctrine which I remember has always been given you, although
you have learned little of it. That which is not done, I beg you to do,
dearest daughters. If you did not, you would abide in continual
sufferings, and would drag poor me, who deserve every suffering, into them
too.
We must do for the honour of God as the holy apostles did. When they had
received the Holy Spirit, they separated from one another, and from that
sweet mother Mary. Although it was their greatest delight to stay
together, yet they gave up their own delight, and sought the honour of God
and the salvation of souls. And although Mary sends them away from her,
they do not therefore hold that love is diminished, or that they are
deprived of the affection of Mary. This is the rule that we must take to
ourselves. I know that my presence is a great consolation to you.
Nevertheless, as truly obedient, you should not seek your own consolation,
for the honour of God and the salvation of souls: and do not give place to
the devil, who makes it look to you as if you were deprived of the love
and devotion which I bear to your souls and bodies. Were it otherwise,
true love would not be built on you. I assure you that I do not love you
otherwise than in God. Why do you fall into such unregulated suffering
over things which must necessarily be so? Oh, what shall we do when it
shall befit us to do great deeds if we fail so in the little ones? We
shall have to be together or separated according as things shall befall.
Just now our sweet Saviour wills and permits that we be separated for His
honour.
You are in Siena, and Cecca and Grandma are in Montepulciano. Frate
Bartolomeo and Frate Matteo will be there and have been there. Alessa and
Monna Bruna are at Monte Giove, eighteen miles from Montepulciano; they
are with the Countess and Monna Lisa. Frate Raimondo and Frate Tommaso and
Monna Tomma and Lisa and I are at Rocca among the Free-lances. And so many
incarnate demons are being eaten up that Frate Tommaso says that his
stomach aches over it! With all this they cannot be satisfied, and they
are hungry for more, and find work here at a good price. Pray the Divine
Goodness to give them big, sweet and bitter mouthfuls! Think that the
honour of God and the salvation of souls is being sweetly seen. You ought
not to want or desire anything else. You could do nothing more pleasing to
the highest eternal will of God, and to mine, than feeling thus. Up, my
daughters, begin to sacrifice your own wills to God! Don't be ready always
to stay nurselings--for you should get the teeth of your desire ready to
bite hard and musty bread, if needs be.
I say no more. Bind you in the sweet bands of love, so you will show that
you are daughters--not otherwise. Comfort you in Christ sweet Jesus, and
comfort all the other daughters. We will come back as soon as we can,
according as it shall please the Divine Goodness. Remain in the holy and
sweet grace of God. Sweet Jesus, Jesus Love.
TO MONNA ALESSA
CLOTHED WITH THE HABIT OF SAINT DOMINIC, WHEN SHE WAS AT ROCCA
In the Name of Jesus Christ crucified and of sweet Mary:
Dearest daughter in Christ sweet Jesus: I Catherine, servant and slave of
the servants of Jesus Christ, write to thee in His precious Blood: with
desire to see thee follow the doctrine of the Spotless Lamb with a free
heart, divested of every creature-love, clothed only with the Creator, in
the light of most holy faith. For without the light thou couldst not walk
in the straight way of the Slain and Spotless Lamb. Therefore my soul
desires to see thee and the others clean and virile, and not blown about
by every wind that may befall. Beware of looking back, but go on steadily,
holding in mind the teaching that has been given thee. Be sure to enter
every day anew into the garden of thy soul with the light of faith to pull
up every thorn that might smother the seed of the teaching given thee, and
to turn over the earth; that is, every day do thou divest thy heart. It is
necessary to divest it over and over; for many a time I have seen people
who seemed to have divested themselves, whom I have found clothed in sin,
by evidence rather of deed than of words. The opposite might appear by
their words, but deeds showed their affections. I want, then, that thou
shouldst divest thy heart in truth, following Christ crucified. And let
silence abide on thy lips. I have taken note; for I believe that the other
woman holds to it very little. I am very sorry for that. If it is so, as
it seems to me, my Creator wills that I should bear it, and I am content
to do so: but I am not content with the wrong done to God.
Thou didst write me that God seemed to constrain thee in thy orisons to
pray for me. Thanks be to the Divine Goodness, who shows such unspeakable
love to my poor soul! Thou didst tell me to write thee if I were suffering
and had my usual infirmities at this time. I reply that God has cared for
me marvellously, within and without. He has cared very much for my body
this Advent, causing the pains to be diverted by writing; it is true that,
by the goodness of God, they have been worse than they used to be. If He
made them worse, He saw to it that Lisa was cured as soon as Frate Santi
fell ill--for he has been at the point of death. Now, almost miraculously,
he has grown so much better that he can be called cured. But apparently my
Bridegroom, Eternal Truth, has wished to put me to a very sweet and
genuine test, inward and outward, in the things which are seen and those
which are not--the latter beyond count the greater. But while He was
testing us, He has cared for us so gently as tongue could not tell.
Therefore I wish pains to be food to me, tears my drink, sweat my
ointment. Let pains make me fat, let pains cure me, let pains give me
light, let pains give me wisdom, let pains clothe my nakedness, let pains
strip me of all self-love, spiritual and temporal. The pain of lacking
consolations from my fellow-creatures has called me to consider my own
lack of virtue, recognizing my imperfection, and the very perfect light of
Sweet Truth, who gives and receives, not material things, but holy
desires: Him who has not withdrawn His goodness toward me for my little
light or knowledge, but has had regard only to Himself, the One supremely
Good.
I beg thee by the love of Jesus Christ crucified, dearest my daughter, do
not slacken in prayer: nay, redouble it--for I have greater need thereof
than thou seest--and do thou thank the Goodness of God for me. And pray
Him to give me grace that I may give my life for Him, and to take away, if
so please Him, the burden of my body. For my life is of very little use to
anyone else; rather is it painful and oppressive to every person, far and
near, by reason of my sins. May God by His mercy take from me such great
faults, and for the little time that I have to live, may He make me live
impassioned by the love of virtue! And may I in pain offer before Him my
dolorous and suffering desires for the salvation of all the world and the
reformation of Holy Church! Joy, joy in the Cross with me! So may the
Cross be a bed where the soul may rest: a table where may be tasted
heavenly food, the fruit of patience with quietness and assurance.
Thou didst send to me saying ... I was consoled by this thing, both by her
life, hoping that she is correcting herself and living with less vanity of
heart than she has done till now, and also by the children's having been
brought to the light of Holy Baptism. May God give them His sweetest
grace, and grant them death if they are not to be good! Bless them, and
comfort her, in Christ sweet Jesus: and tell her to live in the holy and
sweet fear of God, and to recognize the grace she has received from God,
which has not been small but very great. Were she to be ungrateful, it
would much displease God, and perhaps He would not leave her unpunished.
I commend to thee ... I have had no news at all of them, I do not know
why. The will of God be done! Our Saviour has put me on the Island, and
the winds beat from every side. Let everyone rejoice in Christ crucified,
however far one from the other. Shut thee into the house of self-
knowledge. I say no more. Remain in the holy and sweet grace of God. Sweet
Jesus, Jesus Love.