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:

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.

LETTERS ANNOUNCING PEACE

Amid the horrors which darkened Europe during her last years, one episode of pure joy was vouchsafed to Catherine. The decisiveness of Urban brought to an end the vacillating negotiations of the Papal See with the Florentines, and peace was proclaimed at last.

The first of these notes announces the first step toward a satisfactory end--the observance of the Interdict, placed by Gregory upon the city, and contumaciously broken by the rebels. In the second, the news of the establishment of peace has just been brought. Catherine's first impulse is to bid the friends at home rejoice with her in news great in itself, and greater because it may clear the way for the realization of wider hopes. It is noteworthy that the instant the end for which she has long been straining is achieved, her loyal and aspiring spirit reverts to her old dreams, and summons her companions to resume prayer for a Crusade.

The arrival of the olive of peace, of which Catherine sends a portion to her friends, is the fit close to the long drama which had opened when Christ placed the Cross on her shoulder and the olive in her hand, and sent her to bear His command of reconciliation "to one and to the other people."