By this time Catherine has evidently more than an inkling of the character
of the man she is addressing. Gregory had been, if anything, only too
susceptible to influences from varying quarters: Urban's arbitrary and
headstrong nature resented any interference. He was making extraordinary
blunders in tact and policy; but woe to the audacious person who sought to
point them out!
Catherine's letters to this new Pope, if less familiarly affectionate than
those to the old, show the same amazing combination of candour and
reverence. True to her constant principles in the interpretation of
character, she insists on putting the best possible construction on his
actions, ascribing his impatient vehemence and bad temper to a noble and
partially impersonal cause. One suspects that Urban had lost his temper
with poor Fra Bartolomeo because the friar had used too great freedom of
speech rather than too little, as Catherine suggests. Despite her
generosity, however, she can rebuke pungently enough, as this letter
shows. On another occasion, we find her sending to Urban a tangible
allegory in the form of bitter oranges, candied within and gilded without,
doubtless by her own hands, with a pretty letter to point the moral. And
again she wrote: "Mitigate a little, for the love of Christ crucified,
those sudden impulses which nature forces on you. In holy virtue, throw
nature aside. As God has given you a great heart naturally, so I beg and
want you to make it great supernaturally: with zealous desire for virtue
and the reform of Holy Church, do you establish the manly heart you have
gained in true humility. In this way you will have both natural and
supernatural gifts--for the one without the other would avail little, but
would rather inspire us with wrath and pride: and when it came to
correcting our intimates it would slacken its pace and become cowardly."
In the Name of Jesus Christ crucified and of sweet Mary:
Most holy and sweet 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 and royal ruler of your flock, whom you have
to nourish with the Blood of Christ crucified. Your Holiness has to see to
it with great diligence to whom you administer that Blood, and by what
means it is given; that is, I say, most holy father, that when shepherds
are to be appointed in the garden of Holy Church, let them be people who
seek God, and not benefices: and let the means of asking for the post be
such as act openly in the truth and not in falsehood.
Most holy father, have patience when you are talked to about these things.
For they are only said to you for the honour of God and for your
salvation, as a son ought to speak who loves his father tenderly, and
cannot bear that anything should be done which should turn to the loss or
shame of his father; but watches constantly, with intent earnestness,
because he sees well that his father, who has to rule a large family, can
see no more than one man sees. So if his lawful sons were not earnest in
caring for his honour and welfare, he would be deceived many a time and
oft. So it stands, most holy father. You are father and lord of the
universal body of the Christian religion; we are all under the wings of
your Holiness: as to authority, you can do everything, but as to seeing,
you can do no more than one man; so your sons must of necessity watch and
care with clean hearts and without any servile fear over what may be for
the honour of God and the safety and honour of you and the flocks that are
beneath your crook. And I know that your Holiness is very desirous of
having people to help you; but you must be patient in listening to them.
I am certain that two things must give you pain and make your mind angry,
and I am not in the least surprised. The one is that when you hear that
sins are committed, it hurts you that God should be wronged, for the wrong
and the faults displease you, and you experience a piercing of your heart.
In this case we ought not to be patient, or to refrain from grieving over
the wrongs that are shown to God. No; for so it would seem as if we
conformed us to these same vices. The other thing that might hurt you is
when the son who comes to tell you what he feels to be turning into wrong
against God and loss to souls and little honour to your holiness, commits
such ignorance that he conscientiously obliges himself, in the presence of
your Holiness, not to tell you clearly the absolute truth as it is; for
nothing should be secret nor hidden from you.
I beg you, holy father, that when your ignorant son offends in this point,
your pain should be without any excitement on your part: correct him in
his ignorance. I say this, because according to what Master Giovanni told
me of Brother Bartolomeo, he annoyed you and made you angry by his faults
and his scrupulous conscience; for which he and I have been extremely
sorry, since he thought that he had offended your Holiness. I beg you, by
the love of Christ crucified, to punish in me every pain that he may have
given you; I am ready for any discipline and correction which shall please
your Holiness. I believe that my sins were the reason why he showed
himself so ignorant, therefore I ought to bear the penalty; and he is very
desirous to come penitently to you wherever it might please your Holiness.
Have patience to bear his faults and mine. Bathe you in the Blood of
Christ crucified; comfort you in the sweet flame of His charity. Pardon my
ignorance.
I ask you humbly for your benediction. I thank the Divine Goodness and
your Holiness for the favour that you granted me on the day of St. John.
Remain in the holy and sweet grace of God. Sweet Jesus, Jesus Love.