The Catholic World, Vol. 04, October, 1866 to March, 1867Various
Religion
The Catholic World, Vol. 04, October, 1866 to March, 1867
Various
Catholic Church -- Periodicals
She was reserved for further labors, and for a martyrdom of another
kind in the same cause; and she had soon the consolation of seeing
that her mission to Florence had not been fruitless. The death of
Gregory XI. dispersed the congress of Sarzona; but the Florentines
remained, amid all their intestine troubles, firm in their resolution
to make peace with the Holy See. Before the outbreak of which we have
just spoken, they had arranged terms with Catharine, and ambassadors
had been chosen to go to Rome to treat with the new Pope. Catharine,
who had known Urban VI. when she was at Avignon, now wrote to him
earnestly entreating him to accept the terms; she was afraid lest the
scenes of violence and bloodshed that had lately taken place might
make him less inclined to peace. Her entreaties were successful. The
terms of peace were honorable to the Holy See. Everything was to
return to the state in which it had been before the war; the
Florentines were to pay 150,000 florins--a very moderate indemnity for
the mischief they had caused in the Papal States; and two legates were
to be sent to absolve the city from the censures it had incurred.
Catherine, full of joy, returned to Siena. She had refused to leave
the Florentine territory after the outbreak in which her life was
threatened, saying that she was there by order of the Pope; but she
had withdrawn for a while to the monastery of Vallombrosa.
The peace with Florence was of immense importance to the church at
that moment. The great storm which Catharine had predicted was already
gathering; she herself was to be called on for still greater exertions
in the cause of the papacy, and within a year and a half to be in a
true sense the victim of the struggle. After leaving Florence, she
spent a few months in repose at Siena, during which she dictated to
her disciples her only formal work, known by the name of the Dialogue.
It has always been a great treasure of spiritual doctrine, though
never so widely popular as the collection of her marvellous Letters.
It is in the course of these few months that an author as fitted as
any other to decide the question of time places a remarkable anecdote
of the saint, to which we have already alluded, and which shall form
the subject of the conclusion of this paper. [Footnote 31]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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