Letters of Catherine BenincasaCatherine, of Siena, Saint
Religion
Letters of Catherine Benincasa
Catherine, of Siena, Saint
Catherine, of Siena, Saint, 1347-1380 -- Correspondence; Christian women saints -- Italy -- Siena -- Correspondence
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
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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