Catherine has missed her chance at martyrdom. Schism is threatening, and
she knows it: "I seem to have heard that discord is arising yonder between
Christ on earth and his disciples: from which thing I receive an
intolerable grief.... For everything else, like war, dishonour, and other
tribulations, would seem less than a straw or a shadow in comparison with
this. Think! For I tremble only to think of it ... I tell you, it seemed
as if my heart and life would leave their body through grief." So she
writes, out of trance, to the Cardinal Pietro di Luna--himself destined to
become later the antipope Benedict XIII.
The present sorrowful letter is to a hermit who had sinned violently in
youth, and repented passionately through many years of strictest
discipline. Catherine pours out her heart to him. The words in which
Shelley's Fury drives home to the agonizing Prometheus the apparent
tragedy of existence were fulfilled before her eyes:
"Hypocrisy and custom make their minds
The fanes of many a worship now outworn:
* * * *
The good want power but to weep barren tears,
The powerful goodness want--worse need for them:
The wise want love; and those who love want wisdom;
And all best things are thus confused to ill."
With unflinching clear-sightedness she presents the situation, turning in
vain to every quarter whence help might come. To the whole body of the
priesthood; to the timid monastic orders; to pious laymen honestly devout,
yet touched by no flame of sacrificial passion such as she felt might
bring salvation. It is never the sins of the world that most torture
Catherine: always, as here, the sins of the Church. She does not pause
till she comes to the terrible climax: "I see the Christian religion lying
like a dead man, and I neither mourn nor weep over him." It is the very
light of most holy faith that has confused the vision of men. And again we
hear the familiar refrain, "I believe that my iniquities are the cause of
it."
In the Name of Jesus Christ crucified and of sweet Mary:
Dearest 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 an hungered for souls, on the table of the most holy
Cross, in company with the humble and immaculate Lamb. I do not see,
father, that this sweet food can be eaten anywhere else. Why not? Because
we cannot eat it truly without enduring much; it must be eaten with the
teeth of true patience and the lips of holy desire, on the Cross of many
tribulations, from whatsoever side they may come--complaints, or the
scandals in the world; and we must endure all things till death. Now is
the time, dearest father, to show whether we are lovers of Christ
crucified and rejoice in this food or not. It is time to give honour to
God and our toils to our neighbour: toils, I say, of the body, with much
endurance, and toils of the mind, with grief and bitterness offering tears
and sweats, humble and continual prayer, and suffering desire, before God.
For I do not see that in any other way the wrath of God may be pacified
toward us, and His mercy inclined, and through His mercy the many sheep
recovered who are perishing in the hands of devils, unless in the way I
said, through great grief and compassion of heart, and the very greatest
devotion in prayer.
Therefore I invite you, dearest father, on behalf of Christ crucified, to
begin anew with me to lose ourselves, and to seek only the honour of God
in the salvation of souls, without any slavish fear: never to slacken our
steps either on account of our sufferings, or in order to please our
fellow-creatures, or because we might have to bear death, or for any other
reason; but let us run, as inebriate with love and grief over the
persecution that is wrought upon the Blood of Christ crucified. For on
whatever side we turn we see it persecuted. If I turn me toward ourselves,
rotten members that we are, we are persecuting it with our many faults,
and such stench of mortal sins and empoisoned self-love as poisons the
whole world. And if I turn me to the ministers of the Blood of the sweet
and humble Lamb, my tongue cannot even narrate their faults and sins. If I
turn me to the ministers who are under the yoke of obedience, I see them
so imperfect--the accursed root of self-love not being yet dead in them--
that not one has come to the point of wishing to give his life for Christ
crucified; but they have encouraged fear of death and pain rather than
holy fear of God and reverence for the Blood. And if I turn me to the
secular people who have already released their affections from the world,
they have not exercised virtue enough to leave the place where they were,
or suffer death rather than to do that which ought not to be done. They
have behaved so through imperfection, or else they are doing so through
prudence. If I had to teach them prudence, I should advise them that if
they wanted to reach perfection they should rather choose death, and if
they felt themselves weak, they should flee the place and cause of sin,
just as far as we can. This same counsel, if any chance came in your way,
I should think that you and every servant of God ought to give. For you
know that it is never lawful for us to commit a little sin in any way,
surely not for fear of suffering or death, since not even for
accomplishing some great good. So, then, on whatever side we turn us, we
find nothing but faults. For I do not doubt that if one single person had
had perfection enough to give his life, during the events which have
happened and are happening every day, the Blood would have called for
mercy, and bound the hands of divine justice, and broken those Pharaoh-
hearts which are hard as diamond stone; and I see no way in which they can
break other than through blood.
Ah me, ah me, misfortunate my soul! I see the Christian religion lying a
dead man, and I neither weep nor mourn over him. I see darkness invading
the light, for by the very light of most holy faith, received in the Blood
of Christ, I see men's sight become confused and the pupil of their eye
dried up; so that we see them fall as blind men into the ditch, into the
mouth of the wolf of Hell, stripped of virtue and dead by cold; being
stripped of the love of God and their neighbour, and released from the
bond of love, and lost to all reverence for God and for the Blood. Ah me!
I believe that my iniquities have been the cause of it.
So I beg you, dearest father, to pray God for me, that He take from me so
great iniquities, and that I be not the cause of so great ill: or may He
give me death. And I beg you to lift these sons of ours as dead up to the
table of the most holy Cross, and there do you eat this food, bathed in
the Blood of Christ crucified. I tell you that if you and the other
servants of God, and all of us, do not persuade ourselves with many
prayers, and others, to correct themselves of evils so great, divine
judgment will come, and divine justice will draw forth its rod. Indeed, if
we open our eyes, one of the greatest judgments that we can know in this
life is already befallen--that is, that we are deprived of light, and do
not see the loss and ill of soul and body. He who does not see cannot
correct himself, because he does not hate evil or love true good. So, not
correcting himself, he falls from bad to worse. So it seems to me that we
are doing, and we are at a worse point now than the first day. It is
essential, then, that we should never stop, if we are true servants of
God, in our much endurance and true patience, and in giving our toils to
our neighbour, and honour to God, with many prayers and grieving desire;
let sighs be food to us and tears our drink, upon the table of the Cross;
for another way I do not see. Therefore I said to you that I desired to
see you an hungered for souls upon the table of the most holy Cross.
I beg that your and my dearest sons be commended to you--those yonder, and
those here. Nourish them and make them grow in great perfection, so far as
your power goes. And let us strive to run, dead to all self-will,
spiritual and temporal; that is, not seeking our own spiritual
consolations, but only the food of souls, rejoicing in the Cross with
Christ crucified and giving our life, if need be, for the glory and
praise of His Name. I for my part die and cannot die, hearing and seeing
the insults to my Lord and Creator; therefore I ask an alms from you, that
you pray God for me, you and the others. I say no more to you. Remain in
the holy and sweet grace of God. Sweet Jesus, Jesus Love.