Letters of Catherine Benincasa

Name: Letters of Catherine Benincasa
Author: Catherine, of Siena, Saint

Catherine, of Siena, Saint

Catherine, of Siena, Saint, 1347-1380 -- Correspondence; Christian women saints -- Italy -- Siena -- Correspondence

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.




TO DON GIOVANNI OF THE CELLS OF VALLOMBROSA


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:

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

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

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.




TO DON GIOVANNI OF THE CELLS OF VALLOMBROSA


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:

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Letters of Catherine Benincasa

Letters of Catherine Benincasa

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