There is no evidence as to the date of this letter, but the tone is such
that Catherine's latest editor is probably right in placing it after the
return of the Pope to Italy. It suggests that a long relation is drawing
to a close, and closing, so far as Catherine is concerned, in
disappointment. Never, in her earlier relations with Gregory, would she
have gone such lengths as here, in her amazing hint that he would better
resign the Papacy if he finds himself unable to sustain the moral burdens
it imposes. The Pope is at Rome, but he has changed his sky and not his
mind. Catherine's letter is a brief and powerful summary of oft-reiterated
pleas. In the solemnity and authority of its adjurations, in the
distinctness of its accusations, it is surely one of the most surprising
epistles ever written by a devout and wholly faithful subject to her
acknowledged head. Such a letter proceeds, indeed, from a spiritual region
where all earthly distinctions--ecclesiastical as well as intellectual or
social--are lost to sight, and the illiterate daughter of the dyer can
rebuke and exhort as by her natural right him whom with unwavering faith
she believed to be the God-appointed father of all Christian people.
Catherine's patience, one feels, is near the breaking point: and heart-
break for her is in truth not many years away.
In the Name of Jesus Christ crucified and of sweet Mary:
Most holy and sweet father, your poor unworthy daughter Catherine in
Christ sweet Jesus, commends herself to you in His precious Blood: with
desire to see you a manly man, free from any fear or fleshly love toward
yourself, or toward any creature related to you in the flesh; since I
perceive in the sweet Presence of God that nothing so hinders your holy,
good desire and so serves to hinder the honour of God and the exaltation
and reform of Holy Church, as this. Therefore, my soul desires with
immeasurable love that God by His infinite mercy may take from you all
passion and lukewarmness of heart, and re-form you another man, by forming
in you anew a burning and ardent desire; for in no other way could you
fulfil the will of God and the desire of His servants. Alas, alas,
sweetest "Babbo" mine, pardon my presumption in what I have said to you
and am saying; I am constrained by the Sweet Primal Truth to say it. His
will, father, is this, and thus demands of you. It demands that you
execute justice on the abundance of many iniquities committed by those who
are fed and pastured in the garden of Holy Church; declaring that brutes
should not be fed with the food of men. Since He has given you authority
and you have assumed it, you should use your virtue and power: and if you
are not willing to use it, it would be better for you to resign what you
have assumed; more honour to God and health to your soul would it be.
Another demand that His will makes is this: He wills that you make peace
with all Tuscany, with which you are at strife; securing from all your
wicked sons who have rebelled against you whatever is possible to secure
without war--but punishing them as a father ought to punish a son who has
wronged him. Moreover, the sweet goodness of God demands from you that you
give full authority to those who ask you to make ready for the Holy
Crusade--that thing which appears impossible to you, and possible to the
sweet goodness of God, who has ordained it, and wills that so it be.
Beware, as you hold your life dear, that you commit no negligence in this,
nor treat as jests the works of the Holy Spirit, which are demanded from
you because you can do them. If you want justice, you can execute it. You
can have peace, withdrawing from the perverse pomps and delights of the
world, preserving only the honour of God and the due of Holy Church.
Authority also you have to give peace to those who ask you for it. Then,
since you are not poor but rich--you who bear in your hand the keys of
Heaven, to whom you open it is open, and to whom you shut it is shut--if
you do not do this, you would be rebuked by God. I, if I were in your
place, should fear lest divine judgment come upon me. Therefore I beg you
most gently on behalf of Christ crucified to be obedient to the will of
God, for I know that you want and desire no other thing than to do His
will, that this sharp rebuke fall not upon you: "Cursed be thou, for the
time and the strength entrusted to thee thou hast not used." I believe,
father, by the goodness of God, and also taking hope from your holiness,
that you will so act that this will not fall upon you.
I say no more. Pardon me, pardon me; for the great love which I bear to
your salvation, and my great grief when I see the contrary, makes me speak
so. Willingly would I have said it to your own person, fully to unburden
my conscience. When it shall please your Holiness that I come to you, I
will come willingly. So do that I may not appeal to Christ crucified from
you; for to no other can I appeal, for there is no greater on earth.
Remain in the holy and sweet grace of God. I ask you humbly for your
benediction. Sweet Jesus, Jesus Love.
TO RAIMONDO OF CAPUA
OF THE ORDER OF THE PREACHERS
This letter confirms what history elsewhere indicates--that Gregory, after
his return to Italy, turned against Catherine. She no longer addresses her
"dear Babbo" personally, with the old happy familiarity; rather, she sends
through Fra Raimondo formal and almost tremulous messages to "his
Holiness, the Vicar of Christ." Raimondo, apparently from his connection
with her, is evidently included in the papal displeasure. Catherine writes
to give him courage and comfort; in her touching advice as to the best way
of preparing one's self to meet contentions and injustice, we may
recognize the secret source of her own rare self-control.
Catherine's attitude toward the angered Pope is a compound of contrition
and firmness. No words could express swifter readiness to accept rebuke or
a more passionate humility: none could more vigorously maintain the
unwelcome convictions which had given offence. There are various surmises
as to the exact occasion of the misunderstanding to which this letter
refers: were we to add one, we might suspect that the audacity of the
preceding letter had been too much, even for Gregory. But the general
situation speaks for itself. Gregory was strong enough, under her
inspiration, to make the great physical and moral effort of returning to
Italy: he was, as we have seen, not strong enough to cope with what he
found there. Enfeebled by ill-health, hampered by his lack of knowledge of
Italian, rendered desperate by the difficulties he encountered, it is
small wonder that, as many another weak nature would have done, he turned
in rage or cold displeasure against the instrument of his return. There is
a story that Gregory on his deathbed warned the bystanders against
Catherine, and whether it be true or not, it suggests the contemporary
impression as to his tone toward her during his last days. Here is sad
ending to a relation that during its earlier phases possessed a singular
beauty. How sorely Catherine must have been hurt we may well imagine. Her
brief triumph was all turned to bitterness: less, we may be sure, from her
personal loss of the Pope's confidence--though she was human enough to
feel this keenly--than from the utter failure of the hopes she had built
on his return.
In this letter her genuine self-abasement before Gregory's displeasure
changes with dramatic suddenness to another tone. The accuser becomes the
judge once more, and speaks with the old authority: "God demands that you
do this--as you know that you were told." Her personal feeling for the man
breaks forth in the appeal: "To whom shall I have recourse should you
abandon me? Who would help me?" But in the same breath comes her
magnificent assurance, that though she may offend Christ's Vicar, the Head
of the Church, she may yet flee with confidence to Christ Himself, and
rest secure upon the bosom of His Bride.
In the Name of Jesus Christ crucified and of sweet Mary:
Dearest and sweetest father 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 a true combatant against the wiles and
vexations of the devil, and the malice and persecution of men, and against
your own fleshly self-love, which is an enemy that, unless a man drives it
away by virtue and holy hate, prevents him from ever being strong in the
other battles which we encounter every day. For self-love weakens us, and
therefore it is imperative that we drive it away with the strength of
virtue, which we shall gain in the unspeakable love that God has shown us,
through the Blood of His only-begotten Son. This love, drawn from the
divine love, gives us light and life; light, to know the truth when
necessary to our salvation and to win great perfection, and to endure with
true patience and fortitude and constancy until death--for by such
fortitude, won from the light that makes us know the truth, we win the
life of divine grace. Drink deep, then, in the Blood of the Spotless Lamb,
and be a faithful servant, not faithless, to your Creator. And fear not,
nor turn back, for any battle or gloom that may come upon you, but
persevere in faith till death; for well you know that perseverance will
give you the fruit of your labours.
I have understood from a certain servant of God who holds you in continual
prayer before Him, that you have met very great battles, and that gloom
has fallen upon your mind through the crafts and wiles of the devil, who
wishes to make you see wrong as right and right as wrong; this he does in
order that you may fail in your going and not reach the goal. But comfort
you, for God has provided and shall provide, and His providence shall not
be lacking. Be sure that in all things you have recourse to Mary,
embracing the holy Cross, and never let yourself fall into confusion of
mind, but sail in a stormy sea in the ship of divine mercy. I understand:
if from men religious or secular, even in the mystical body of Holy
Church, you have suffered persecution or displeasure, or have been visited
with the indignation of the Vicar of Christ, either on your own account,
or if you have had something to bear on my account with all these people--
you are not to resist, but bear it patiently, leaving at once, and going
into your cell, there to know yourself in holy meditation; reflecting that
God is making you worthy to endure for the love of truth, and to be
persecuted for His Name, deeming yourself in true humility worthy of
punishment and unworthy to gain results. And do all the things that you
have to do prudently, holding God before your eyes; do and say what you
have to say and do in the Presence of God and of your own thought with the
help of holy prayer. There shall you find the Master, the Holy Spirit,
rich in clemency, who shall pour upon you a light of wisdom that shall
make you discern and choose what shall be to his honour. This is the
doctrine given to us by the Sweet Primal Truth, caring for our need with
measureless love.
If it happened, dearest father, that you found yourself in the presence of
his Holiness the Vicar of Christ, our very sweet and holy father, humbly
commend me to him. I hold myself in fault before his Holiness for much
ignorance and negligence which I have committed against God, and for
disobedience against my Creator, who summoned me to cry aloud with
passionate desire, and to cry before Him in prayer, and to put myself in
word and in bodily presence close to His Vicar. In all possible ways I
have committed measureless faults, on account of which, yes, on account of
my many iniquities, I believe that he has suffered many persecutions, he
and Holy Church. Wherefore if he complains of me he is right, and right in
punishing me for my defects. But tell him that up to the limits of my
power I shall strive to correct my faults, and to fulfil more perfectly
his obedience. So I trust by the divine goodness that He will turn the
eyes of His mercy upon the Bride of Christ and His Vicar, and upon me,
freeing me from my defects and ignorance; but upon His Bride, by giving
her the refreshment of peace and renewal, with much endurance (for in no
way without toils can be uprooted the many thorny faults that choke the
garden of Holy Church), and that God will give him grace in those parts
where he wants to be a manly man, and not to look back, for any toil or
persecution that may befall him from his wicked sons; constant and
persevering, let him not avoid weariness, but let him throw himself like a
lamb into the midst of the wolves, with hungry desire for the honour of
God and the salvation of souls, putting far from him care for temporal
things, and watching over spiritual things alone. If he does so, as divine
goodness demands of him, the lamb will lord it over the wolves, and the
wolves will turn into lambs; and thus we shall see the glory and praise of
the name of God, the good and peace of Holy Church. In no other way can
these be won; not through war, but through peace and benignity, and such
holy spiritual punishment as a father should inflict on a son who does
wrong.
Alas, alas, alas, most holy father! The first day that you came to your
own place, you should have done so. I hope in the goodness of God and in
your holiness that what is not done you will do. In this way both
temporalities and spiritualities are won back. God demanded that you do
this--as you know that you were told--that you care for the reformation of
Holy Church, punishing its sins and establishing good shepherds; and that
you make holy peace with your wicked sons in the best way and most
pleasing to God that could be done; so that then you might see to
uplifting with your arms the standard of the most holy Cross against the
infidels. I believe that our negligence and our not doing what could be
done--not cruelly nor quarrelsomely, but in peace and benignity--(always
punishing a man who has done wrong, not in proportion to his deserts, for
he could not endure what he deserves, but in proportion to what the sick
man is in a condition to bear)--are, perhaps, the reason why such
disaster and loss and irreverence toward Holy Church and her ministers has
befallen. And I fear that unless a remedy is found by doing what has been
left undone, our sins may deserve so much that we shall see greater
misfortunes; such I say as would grieve us much more than to lose temporal
possessions. Of all these evils and sorrows, wretched I am the cause,
through my little virtue and my great disobedience.
Most holy father, look in the light of reason and truth at your
displeasure against me, not as punishment, but as displeasure. To whom
shall I have recourse should you abandon me? Who would help me? To whom do
I flee, should you cast me out? My persecutors pursue me, and I flee to
you, and to the other sons and servants of God. Should you abandon me,
assuming displeasure and wrath against me, I will hide me in the wounds of
Christ crucified, whose Vicar you are: and I know that He will receive me,
for He wills not the death of a sinner. And, when I am received by Him,
you will not drive me out; nay, we shall abide in our own place to fight
manfully with the weapons of virtue for the sweet Bride of Christ. In her
I wish to end my life, with tears, with sweats, with sighs, giving my
blood and the marrow of my bones. And should all the world drive me out, I
will not care, reposing with plaints and great endurance on the breast of
that sweet Bride. Pardon, most holy father, all my ignorance, and the
wrong that I have done to God and to your Holiness. It is Truth that
excuses me and sets me free; Truth Eternal. Humbly I ask your benediction.
To you, dearest father (Raimondo), I say: when it is possible to you, keep
a manly heart in the presence of his Holiness, without any pain or servile
fear; remain first a while in your cell, in the presence of Mary and of
the most holy Cross, in holy and humble prayer, in true knowledge of
yourself, with living faith and will to endure; and then go (to the Pope)
in security. And do what you can for the honour of God and the salvation
of souls, to the point of death. Announce to him what I write you in this
letter as the Holy Spirit shall guide you. I say no more. Remain in the
holy and sweet grace of God. Sweet Jesus, Jesus Love.