Her only sin had been that she had loved her child’s health more than her soul. And now that she had made up her mind to atone for this, Lapa besieged the Sisters of Penitence with passionate determination and the full power of her rhetoric. The secret battles which she had silently waged for years with a husband who was too good for this world, and a daughter whose behaviour was an inexplicable riddle to her, had sharpened Lapa’s wits and senses. She finally got the sisters to promise that they would think the matter over, as much for Lapa’s sake as for the girl’s. If she were unusually beautiful there could of course be no question of giving Catherine the robes of the order—Lapa knew well enough what cruel tongues were. She was cunning enough to tell the sisters to come and see for themselves. Poor Catherine, who lay there with her face swollen by the hideous rash, certainly did not appear to be a dangerous beauty.
The sisters chose three or four of the most experienced and careful among themselves and sent them to visit the girl and test her mind. Catherine looked almost ugly. But when they had talked with her for a while, they understood how ardently she longed to join them, how unusually pious, mature and understanding she was, and they went home happy and amazed to tell their companions what they had seen and heard. After they had received the consent of the brothers, the sisters met to vote on the matter. It was unanimously agreed that Catherine Benincasa should be received in the third order of St. Dominic as one of the Sisters of Penitence. When Lapa brought this news to her daughter, Catherine thanked her Bridegroom and St. Dominic, and wept for joy—they had kept their promise so wonderfully. Until now she had borne her illness with indefatigable patience, but now she prayed to be quickly well again, for she longed for the day when she should be robed. She recovered completely in the space of a couple of days. Lapa still tried to gain time. But she had to give in to her daughter’s prayers, and so the day and hour of the ceremony were appointed.
Catherine was at home in her cell, praying and thinking of the moment when the desire of her heart should be satisfied. It was towards sundown; the narrow lane outside her window would soon be filled with a gentle dusk, and she would hear, in her solitude, the voices of people chattering and enjoying themselves after their day’s work. And suddenly he who is the arch-fiend of God and all mankind threw himself upon the young girl who once again was to renounce everything she had been willing to renounce ever since she was a small child. She had met the devil and his armies before in her visions—in completely intellectual visions as well as in physical visions and apparitions. But until now she had never experienced anything but fear and aversion at the sight. Now the tempter came to her in the likeness of a young man, not to frighten her but to persuade. The beautiful youth unfolded in front of her all the wonders that the Italian weavers and embroiderers could create, and finally stretched out a garment towards her, a cloak heavy with gold and precious stones, more wonderful than she had ever seen in reality: “All this could be yours. . .” As though in a dream Catherine stared at these examples of earthly magnificence—symbols of the power and the joy the world can offer a young woman who is attractive and intelligent, with boundless possibilities of experiencing passion and love. . . .
But then it was as though she suddenly awakened. Violently she flung the tempter from her. But the temptation remained.
She was a grown girl now, on the threshold of womanhood, and perhaps for the first time she really understood the nature of the earthly happiness which she was renouncing. However deeply convinced she was that earthly joy is an obstacle, however surely she knew that all these things which now seemed so tempting were in reality nothing—dreams which would vanish, which would surely change from happiness to pain and fear—nevertheless they were tempting.
She threw herself before the crucifix and begged her Bridegroom to come to her help. “You know that I love You, and only You. . .” But she felt no consolation, it was as though the Man on the crucifix were deaf and dumb however long she prayed. But suddenly another sight appeared before her—a woman clothed in radiance, the Queen of heaven herself. She offered Catherine a cloak; it shone like the sun, and pearls and precious stones gleamed on it. “Daughter, this cloak was hidden in the wound in the side of my Son as though in a golden casket. I drew it out of my Son’s heart and sewed these pearls on it with my own hands.” Humbly the girl bowed to the ground and Our Lady slipped the heavenly garment over her head. . .
Some days later at dawn Lapa and Catherine went up the hill and into the Dominican church. The Friars Preachers were assembled, and among them was surely Fra Tommaso della Fonte, who had once been brought up with her, and was now her confessor. In the presence of them and the assembled Sisters of Penitence Catherine Benincasa received the white robe and veil which stand for purity of body and soul, and the black cape which is the symbol of humility and death to this world.
It is not known on what day this occurred, and students of Catherine’s life are not even in agreement upon the year. It is most likely that it was in 1366, and that Catherine was in her nineteenth year.
IV
DURING THE NEXT THREE YEARS the young Sister of Penitence lived a life of complete solitude in the little room at the back of the Benincasa house. She only left the house to go to early Mass at the Dominican church on the hill.
Spring and summer, autumn and winter, cast their changing colours over the lovely town and filled the steep and narrow streets with varying patterns of light and shade. The town is built on three hills; on the highest the slim spire of the town hall rises towards the sky, and the cathedral stands like a noble and imperishable crown. Proud Siena looks out from behind its city walls over the beautiful surroundings—those surroundings which the Sienese had so many times defended with force of arms. Siena and the Tuscan plain, and the hills which are spread round the town, seem like a magic world to us, a world where everything is filled with the dream-like beauty of the past. The town awakened no dream of the romantic past in the mind of Catherine—it was the world she lived in and prayed for, where passions and pride raged, and where precious souls struggled to love God or to turn from Him. For Catherine’s countrymen, for her father and brothers, it was their own beloved town, the welfare and honour of which lay close to their hearts. It was so for Catherine too, in her own way When at the break of day she climbed the steep streets towards the church she surely conversed with her Bridegroom and asked Him to bless her town and her people with His heavenly truth.
It is possible that she had already begun to remain in church for hours at a time after the Mass—a habit which came to annoy even the sisters of her own order and many of the friars. Once at home she retired to her cell and did not go out again until the next morning. The small amount of food which she ate—it was just a few raw vegetables with a drink of water—she had sent into the cell. Cut off from the world in silence and prayer, she never spoke to anyone except her confessor, Tommaso della Fonte, and her own family in so far as it was absolutely necessary. Yet she loved her family so much. . .
But now she could not see other people, or herself either, except in God, and it was only in God that she thought of herself and others. As Raimondo expresses it, with a simile which he takes from Catherine herself: “He who dives into the sea and swims under the water neither sees nor has contact with anything except the waters of the ocean and that which has sunk beneath them. He neither sees, feels, nor touches anything outside those waters. It is only when what is outside is reflected in the water that he can see it, and then only through the water, and as long as its reflection remains there. So it is with the right and proper love which we should have for ourselves and all other of God’s creatures.” Raimondo confesses that he was not sure that he had quite understood what Catherine meant by this simile. In the years to come Catherine was to show how limitless is the love possessed by a soul which has dived into the sea of heavenly love.
A favourite theme of the Italian painters towards the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Renaissance was the
so-called Holy Conversation—Santa Conversazione. A number of saints stand round Christ on the cross, or on a throne, or as a child at His mother’s knee. This picture is an attempt to interpret the saints’ experience of the presence of Christ, as Catherine now experienced it so that it filled her life in the solitary cell. The memory of pictures of this kind which she had seen affected the visual form in which her spiritual experiences were crystallised.
The first whom Catherine told of her spiritual experience in these early years of solitude was Tommaso della Fonte. He made a mass of notes of what she told him—several volumes full. They have disappeared, but were used by her biographers Raimondo of Capua and Tommaso Caffarini. Many of the conversations which she had with her Lord, and which filled her life in these years, she repeated and expounded in the book which she dictated towards the end of her life during several days of almost ceaseless ecstasy, and which came to be known as the Dialogue of the Holy Catherine of Siena. But the fundamental truth upon which she built her whole life was already revealed to her at this early stage.
One day while Catherine was praying, Jesus appeared to her and said: “Daughter, do you know who you are and who I am? If you know these two things you will be very happy. You must know that you are that which is not, but I am That Which Is. If your soul is possessed of this knowledge the devil will never be able to cheat you, and you shall escape all his snares and all his cunning without suffering. You will never consent to anything which is against My commands. Without difficulty you will attain all the gifts of grace and all the virtues of love.”
God has created all life out of nothing, and if the mercy of God did not sustain its existence it would immediately return to nothing. If we are left to ourselves, without the mercy of God, we fall into sin, which is also nothingness. By ourselves we can neither think of nor achieve anything which is virtuous or good. It is therefore true that that which is created is in itself nothing.
But because God is the foundation and origin of everything, it is only He Who Is. As soon as a creature through the light of belief has come to understand this truth he may call himself blessed. For eternal blessedness consists of this: knowing God as He really is. As Jesus said to Catherine’s namesake, the virgin martyr of Alexandria, when He visited her in prison: “My daughter, know thy Creator.”
It seemed to Catherine that once a soul is possessed of this truth it ought to receive willingly and patiently everything which seems hard and bitter, out of love of the Highest Good who created us from nothing, and who from His boundless mercy offers us, whom He has raised from nothingness, eternal bliss in His own kingdom.
At times Catherine was tormented by the doubt that perhaps her visions were the work of the devil, for it is written of him that he can take on the likeness of an angel. In her humility she could not think that she was worthy to receive such special grace from God. But her Bridegroom understood her doubt, and promised to teach her how she could always differentiate between visions sent by Him and the mirages which the enemy of mankind could conjure up. “My visions are always accompanied at first by a certain amount of fear, but as they unfold they bring a growing feeling of security. First comes bitterness, but later come strength and consolation. The visions which come from the devil create at first a feeling of security and sweetness, but they end in terror and bitterness. My way is the way of penitence. At first it seems hard and difficult to follow, but the further you pursue it, the happier and sweeter it appears. The way of the devil, on the other hand, is sweet and happy to begin with, but as the soul pursues the way of sin it goes from bitterness to bitterness, and the end is eternal damnation. And because I am the Truth My visions always lead to a greater knowledge of the Truth, and it is of the greatest necessity that a soul gains knowledge of Me and of itself. This makes the soul honour Me and despise itself, and that is the meaning of humility. Visions which come from the devil make the soul which he visits proud, for he is the father of lies and of pride, and the soul is filled with vanity which is the core of all pride.”
Later Our Lord taught her other axioms: “My daughter, think always of Me, and I promise to think of you.” “Empty your heart of all other cares and thoughts, think only of Me and rest in Me. And be assured that I think of you, I who can and will provide you richly with everything you need.”
Long ago the neighbours had jokingly called the little Catherine Benincasa “Euphrosyne”, because she was always so happy and sweet-tempered. In the months and years of solitary days when the young girl “swam under the water in the sea of God’s love” this natural happiness changed to the supernatural joy which was later to make such a deep impression on her children of the spirit. They found the most astonishing and delightful characteristic of their beloved “mother” was this joy which ceaselessly flowed from her, even when she had to bear an inhuman burden of work, apparent defeat and disappointment, terrible physical and spiritual suffering—the martyrdom which the holy Catherine of Siena had to suffer before her heavenly Bridegroom called His bride to Him.
As yet, Catherine had no idea that her Bridegroom would one day call her from this life of solitude and silence and send her out to fight His war on one front after another. But without knowing anything of the purpose which she was finally to serve, she submitted herself humbly and happily to His teaching. Again and again Catherine assured her confessors, who were amazed at finding such wisdom and insight into the secrets of the faith, such familiarity with the teachings of the Bible, in an unschooled young girl, that she had never had any teacher other than her Lord. All her knowledge had come to her from the Holy Spirit, from the lips of Jesus when He talked with His servant and bride.
At times her visions were completely intellectual—an insight into metaphysical reality which came to her without visions of sight or sound. When she knelt in the quiet cell while her physical ears were deaf to the noise coming from the house and the street outside her window, she heard the voice of her Beloved with the “ears of her soul”, and answered, prayed, and asked Him questions without moving her lips. But at other times her visions were pictures which she saw and words which she heard; she saw Christ on the cross; or He appeared to her and walked in her cell while He talked to her. Sometimes He came alone, but at other times His blessed mother was with Him; or He came with some of His saints. Catherine had always had a special love for Mary Magdalen. Now she appeared in Catherine’s cell with Christ, who said to His bride that He would give her Mary Magdalen as her “spiritual mother”.
While she prepared herself for a fate of which as yet she knew nothing Catherine pondered over the two kinds of love—for she knew that “we cannot live without loving.” There was the true and proper love of the Reality which is God, and the false love towards oneself and the world—love for things which have no real existence. She understood clearly that the pursuit of the first kind of love was a task which no one can complete as long as the soul is in the body, even though God may give richly of His grace. Therefore she prayed earnestly for strength. Her Bridegroom spoke to her in answer to her prayers. “My dear daughter, if you earnestly wish to win strength you must follow Me and imitate Me. It is true that I could have put My enemies to shame through My divine powers, but I would not do this, and did not fight against them with any weapons save those of the cross. . . Therefore, my daughter, for My sake shall you let all that is bitter seem sweet, and all that is sweet seem bitter. Then you need be afraid of nothing, for you will be strong in all adversities.”
A short time after this conversation Catherine was attacked by terrible temptations. She had seen and fought against the arch-fiend often before, but now the demons attacked her with a violence of which she had never dreamed. She was a grown woman now, with a strong and healthy body—Lapa’s greatest joy was to tell her biographers how from the time she was fully grown Catherine had easily carried huge sacks of corn, such as one loads onto a donkey, from the front door right up to the loft. Now the flattering voices of demons whispered to her that she did hersel
f wrong in choosing such a difficult and painful life. “If you continue in this way you will never manage to hold out to the end”, they said to her. “You will simply bring yourself to an early death. God does not ask it of you; you cannot please Him with such suicidal self-discipline.” They reminded her how many a saintly woman had won God’s favour through virtues practised in marriage. Catherine knew this was true—but she knew too that God had ordained another way for her. She never replied to the tempters, but only tried to pray even more earnestly, and chastised her body with firm and strict discipline. Only when the evil spirit said to her, “It is impossible for you to hold out to the end”, she replied, “I do not depend upon myself, but on my Lord Jesus Christ.”
She was thereupon attacked by a crowd of sensual and unchaste thoughts, of abominable visions and devilish illusions. She saw before her men and women who openly before her eyes committed disgusting and infamous acts, while they tried with threatening words and touches to force her to join in their orgies.
During these dreadful sufferings she lacked the consolation of the visits of her Beloved. She prayed ceaselessly, but felt that her prayers were not heard. It seemed that He was not near her. She fled to the church, and remained there for hours after Mass was over—it seemed to her that the demons had less power there. But as soon as she came home to her own cell again it was as though the hosts of hell were let loose.