THE FACTS OF THE CASE.
Little reliable information as to the real unmiraculous events of Catherine Benincasa's life is to be obtained, as has been seen, from the pages of her professed biographer. But there is another pietistic work, forming part of the same "Ecclesiastical Library," in which Father Raymond's book has been recently reprinted, that offers somewhat better gleanings to the inquirer into the facts of the case. This is a reprint in four volumes (Milan, 1843–4) of the Saint's Letters, with the annotations of the Jesuit, Father Frederick Burlamacchi. These letters had been already several times published, when the learned Lucchese Jesuit undertook to edit them in the beginning of the eighteenth century. The former editions were imperfect, incorrect, and uncommented. But the Jesuit, jesuitlike, has done his work well; and his notes, appended to the end of each letter, contain abundant information respecting the persons to whom they are addressed, the events and people alluded to in them, and, wherever attainable, the dates at which they were written. To the labours therefore of Father Burlamacchi is due most of the information thrown together in the following concise account of Catherine's career; in which it is intended, leaving aside saintship and miracles for a moment, to give the reader a statement of those facts only which a sceptical inquirer may admit to be historical.
Thus denuded of all devotional "improvement," and of all those portions of the narrative which alone clerical writers have for the most part thought much worth preserving, the story can present but a very skeleton outline indeed; for the notices of the Saint to be met with in contemporary lay writers are singularly few and scanty.
Catherine was one of the youngest of a family of twenty-five children. Her twin sister died a few days after her birth. At a very early age she was observed to be taciturn, and solitary in her habits; and was remarkable for the small quantity of nourishment she took. At about twelve years old she manifested her determination to devote herself to a religious life. The modes of this manifestation, and the difficulties she encountered in carrying her wishes into execution against the opposition of her family, as related by her biographer, are curious; but cannot be admitted into this chapter of "facts."
Some few years later than this, it should seem,—but Father Raymond's aversion to dates does not permit us to ascertain exactly at what age,—Catherine, with much difficulty, and being confined to her bed by illness at the time, persuaded her mother to go to certain religious women attached to the order of St. Dominic, and prefer to them her petition to be admitted among them. These devotees were termed—"Mantellate di S. Domenico,"—"the cloaked women of St. Dominic;" and they appear to have been bound by the vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience. But they were not strictly nuns, as they were not cloistered, but lived each in her own habitation, and went about the city freely. On these grounds the Mantellate made much difficulty about receiving Catherine into their society; alleging, that they conferred their habit only on widows, or elderly single women, as scandal would be caused by a young woman leading a single but uncloistered life. On being further urgently entreated, however, on the behalf of Catherine, they agreed to send a deputation of their body to visit the sick girl, promising to receive her, if it should be found that, though young, she was not pretty. The deputed judges came; and to Catherine's great delight pronounced favourably as to the absence of any disqualifying personal charms; though the more gallant confessor insinuates, that their decision was in great part influenced by the effects of illness on the candidate's appearance. She was accordingly made a sister of St. Dominic, and placed under the spiritual guidance and direction of the friars of that order.
Then we have exceedingly copious accounts of penitences, austerities, and abstinence, which, though in all probability true to a frightful degree, yet, certainly cannot, as related by Father Raymond, be accepted as unmiraculous truths. One circumstance mentioned by him, however, at this point of his narrative, does not seem liable to any suspicion, and is worth noting. Her early confessors, he says, did not believe the miraculousness of her fasts and sufferings.
From this period to the end of her life we have accounts of her frequent, apparently daily, "ecstasies," or fits. And it is interesting to observe, that the descriptions of these seizures given by her biographer on more than one occasion, show them to have been very evidently of a cataleptic nature. The Dominican monk of course has not, or at least does not manifest, the least suspicion that these "ecstasies" were attributable to any other than a directly miraculous cause. But his account is sufficiently accurate to render the matter satisfactorily clear to modern readers.
The passage, in which he first speaks of these fits, of his own doubts concerning the nature of them, and especially of the mode he adopted to arrive at a correct decision on this point, is sufficiently curious.
"Shortly[10] afterwards," he says, having been telling the story of some vision, "she lost the use of her corporal senses and fell into ecstasy. Hence proceeded all the wonderful things that subsequently took place, both as regards her abstinence, such as is not practised by others, her admirable teaching, and the manifest miracles, which Almighty God, even during her lifetime, showed before our eyes. Wherefore, since here is the foundation, the root, and the origin of all her holy works.... I sought every means and every way, by which I might investigate whether her operations were from the Lord, or from another source,—whether they were true or fictitious. For I reflected, that now was the time of that third beast with the leopard's skin, by which hypocrites are pointed out; and that in my own experience I had found some, especially among the women, who easily deceive themselves, and are more readily seduced by the enemy, as was manifested in the case of the first mother of us all. Other matters also presented themselves to my mind, which constrained me to remain uncertain and dubious concerning this matter. While I was thus in doubt, unable to acquire a strong conviction on either side of the question, and anxiously wishing to be guided by Him, who can neither deceive nor be deceived, it struck me, that if I could be certain, that by means of her prayers I had obtained from the Lord a great and unusual sense of contrition for my sins, beyond anything I was wont to feel, this should be for me a perfect proof that all her operations proceeded from the Holy Ghost."
He then recounts at length, what may be as well told in a few words,—how he besought her to pray for him, telling her, that he desired to have a proof of the efficacy of her prayer by being conscious of an unusually strong sense of contrition within himself,—how she promised that he assuredly should have this proof,—how he was next day confined to his bed by illness, and so weak as to be hardly able to speak; and how, being then visited and exhorted by Catherine, who herself left with difficulty a sick bed to come to him, he did feel especially and unusually contrite; and so the required proof was complete, and he was ever after ready to accept any amount of miraculous performance on the part of the Saint with perfect faith in its reality and sanctity.
Did the diplomatist General of the Dominicans really think that he had obtained the proof, he says he wished for? Were the other women, whom he had deemed impostors or dupes of the evil one, equally devoted to and in the hands of the Dominican Order, equally fervent and promising in their vocation of saintship, and equally endowed with the strength of character and will, which united to her physical infirmities, rendered Catherine so rarely and highly valuable an instrument for the promotion of "religion" and the glory of the order?—questions, which must be left to the consideration of the reader. On a subsequent occasion, Father Raymond describes[11] more at length the nature of the seizure, to which Catherine was subject. We are told that,—
"Whenever the remembrance of her sacred husband,"—by which phrase thousands of times repeated in the course of his work, the monk always alludes to our Saviour,—"became a little refreshed in that holy mind, she withdrew herself as much as she could from her corporal senses; and her extremities, that is to say, her hands and her feet became contracted and deadened; her fingers first. Then her limbs became so strongly fixed both in themselves, and attached to the places which they touched, that it would have been more possible to break them to pieces than to remove them in any wise. The eyes also were perfectly closed; and the neck was rendered so rigid, that it was not a little dangerous to her to touch her neck at such moments."
The frequency and duration of these attacks appear to have increased. At a later period[12] of his narrative, Father Raymond tells us that "the inferior and sensitive part of her nature abandoned her for the greater part of her time, and left her deprived of sensation. Of which," he says, "we are assured a thousand times by seeing and touching her arms and her hands so rigidified, that it would have been easier to break the bone, than remove them from the position in which they were. The eyes were completely shut; the ears did not hear any sound however great, and all the bodily senses were entirely deprived of their proper action."
These passages will leave little doubt on the minds of any who have witnessed the phenomena of catalepsy, that Catherine was habitually subject to attacks of that complaint. The hint to be derived from the writer's declaration, that she threw herself into this state "as much as she could," is worthy of notice; and will not seem surprising to those who have studied this form of disease. Those also, who have watched the physical phenomena of animal magnetism, will not fail to remark the similarity of the facts recorded of Catherine, to those they have been accustomed to observe.
For several years of her life after her profession, and previous to 1376, we find various undated intimations of her being in different cities of Tuscany; and Father Raymond has recorded her complaints, that people both secular and of "the order," had been scandalised by her frequent travelling, whereas she had never gone any whither, she declares, except for the salvation of souls. But when it is remembered what travelling was in those days, and that to go from Siena to Florence, Pisa, or Lucca, was to cross the frontier of her own country, and traverse the dominions of foreign and often hostile states, it seems strange, that a young girl of obscure origin, and necessarily with small pecuniary resources at her command, should have found the means of travelling about the world, accompanied, as she appears always to have been, by a suite of confessors and other ecclesiastical followers. To render these journeyings yet more difficult and puzzling, we find contemporary mention of her frequent illness. She is again and again confined to her bed by fever, and "her ordinary infirmities," and "accustomed sufferings;"—a state of things that would seem to put out of the question for her the wandering mendicant friar's ordinary inexpensive mode of locomotion.
Not a word, however, is to be found throwing light on any such difficulties; and they must be left to the reader, as they present themselves. It may be noted, however,—rather, though, to the increase than to the lessening of the strangeness of the circumstances,—that by special Papal Bull she was permitted to carry with her a portable travelling altar, and the confessors who accompanied her were specially licensed to absolve all such penitents as came to the Saint for spiritual advice and edification.
In the year 1376 Catherine was in her twenty-ninth year; and we then come to the most important and most remarkable incident in her career. At that time Gregory XI., the last of seven French popes, who had succeeded one another in the chair of St. Peter, was living at Avignon, where for the last seventy-three years the Papal Court had resided to the infinite discontent and considerable injury of Italy. To put an end to this absenteeism, and bring back the Pontiff, and all the good things that would follow in his train, was the cherished wish of all good Italians, and especially of all Italian churchmen. Petrarch had urgently pressed Gregory's predecessor, Urban V., to accomplish the desired change; Dante had at an earlier period laboured to accomplish the same object. But it was not altogether an easy step to take. The French Cardinals who surrounded the Pope at Avignon were of course eager to keep him and the Court in their own country. The King of France was equally anxious to detain him. The French Pope's likings and prejudices of course pointed in the same direction. Rome too was very far just then from offering an agreeable or inviting residence. The dominions of the Church were in a state of almost universal rebellion. The turbulence of the great Roman barons was such, that going to live among them seemed as safe and as pleasant as finding a residence in a den of ruffians.
Thus all the representations of the Italian Church, and all the spiritual and temporal interests, which so urgently needed the ruler's presence in his dominions, had for some years past not sufficed to bring back the Pope to Rome. Under these circumstances Catherine, the obscure Sienese dyer's illiterate daughter, determined to try her powers of persuasion and argument on the Pontiff, and proceeded to Avignon for that purpose in the summer of 1376. In the September of that same year, the Pope set out on his return to Rome! The dyer's daughter succeeded in her enterprise, and moved the centre of Europe once more back again to its old place in the eternal city!
It should seem, that she was also charged by the government of Florence, then at war with the Pope, to make their peace with him. And this object also, though it was not accomplished on the occasion of her visit to Avignon, she appears to have subsequently contributed to bring to a satisfactory termination. But it is remarkable, that in none of the six letters to Gregory, written in the early months of 1376, does she speak a word on the subject of Florence. The great object of her anxiety is the Pope's return to Rome. There are four letters extant written by her[13] to Gregory, while she was in Avignon. But neither in these is the business of the Florentines touched on. So that we must suppose, says Father Burlamacchi in his notes to Letter VII., that this affair was treated by the Pope and the Saint in personal interviews,[14] or in other letters now lost.
But it seems strange, that she should write elaborate letters to a person inhabiting the same town, and with whom she was doubtless in the habit of having frequent personal intercourse. And the suspicion naturally arises that these compositions were intended, at all events in great measure, for the perusal of others besides the person to whom they were avowedly written. One of them is extant in the form of a Latin translation by Father Raymond. It is true, that that language was probably the only medium of communication between the Italian Saint and the French Pope. Nevertheless, the question,—Did this letter ever originally exist in any other form than the Dominican's Latin presents itself.
The following testimony however of the historian Ammirato, who wrote about two hundred years after the events of which we are speaking, seems to show decisively, that from her own time to that of the author, she was generally considered to have been the principal cause of the restoration of the Papal Court to Rome.
"There was living," he writes,[15] "in those days a young virgin born in Siena, who from the great austerity of her life, from the fervour of her zeal of charity, and indefatigable perseverance in all good works, was even in her lifetime deemed holy by all, and is so by the writer of these lines, though the reader may perceive, that he has no special devotion to her. Nor was this opinion conceived without the appearance to many persons of wonderful signs of a miraculous and supernatural character." Having briefly described these wonders in words, which certainly do not reveal any disbelief of them in his own mind, he continues thus:—
"It came into the minds therefore of those, who then governed Florence, that she might be of use in effecting a treaty of peace with the Pope. And if they had themselves no really sincere desire for this, yet the employment of her in the matter served to prove to others, who were opposed to the war with the Pope, that no efforts were wanting on their part to obtain peace. Being, therefore, urged by the war[16] commissioners to proceed to Avignon on this mission, she did not refuse to undertake it, but went thither, as is related by herself in one of her letters. And it is a certain fact, not only that she was well received and affectionately listened to by the Pope, but that by her instances he was induced to restore the Apostolic seat to Rome."
Not having been able to bring the negotiation for peace to a conclusion, she returned to Florence in the autumn of 1376, and remained there living in a house provided for her by Niccolò Soderini[17] and others connected with the government, while she continued to use her influence in every possible way for the conclusion of a treaty. Becoming thus well known to the Florentines, she was, says Ammirato, "considered by some to be a bad woman, as in more recent times, similar opinions have been held respecting Jerome Savonarola."
It should seem, however, that Catherine must have been favourably known in Florence some years before this time from an incidental notice of the chronicler, Del Migliore, who has recorded that in 1370 her brothers were publicly presented with the freedom of the city. And it is difficult to suppose that such an honour could have been conferred on them on any other grounds than the celebrity of their saintly sister.
Muratori also testifies,[18] that Catherine contributed much to the restoration of the Papal Court to Rome, saying that she wrote to the Pope on the subject. He appears not to have been aware that she went thither.
Again, Maimbourg, who took the contrary side in the great schism, which so soon afterwards divided the Church into two camps, and who is far from being prejudiced in favour of Catherine, admits that the Pope, "resolved at last to re-establish the see in Rome, in consequence of the urgent and repeated solicitations of St. Catherine of Siena."[19]
The Abate Ughelli bears his testimony[20] also to the efficacy of Catherine's exertions in this matter.
"The greatest part," he says, "of the praise due to Gregory's return to Rome belongs to Catherine of Siena, who with infinite courage made the journey to Avignon, and at last induced the Pontiff to return, and by his presence dispel those evils which had shockingly overrun all Italy in consequence of the absence of the popes. So that it is not surprising, that writers, who rightly understood the matter, should have said that Catherine, the virgin of Siena, brought back to God the abandoned Apostolical seat oil her shoulders."
It should appear, then, that it must be admitted, strange as it may seem, among the facts of the Saint's life, that the restoration of the Pope and his Court to Rome, that great change so important to all Europe, so long battled and struggled for and against by kings, cardinals, and statesmen, was at last brought about by her.
Without pausing at present to look further into a result so startling, it will be better to complete this chapter, by briefly adding the few other authentically known facts of her story which remain to be told.
Gregory XI. died on the 27th of March, 1378. On the 7th of April sixteen cardinals entered into conclave for the election of his successor. Of these, eleven were Frenchmen, and all of course anxious to elect a Frenchman. But seven out of the eleven being Limousins, were bent on creating one of their number Pope. The other four Frenchmen were opposed to this; and by favour of this dissension the Italians succeeded in placing an Italian, Bartolomeo Prignani, in the sacred chair, who took the name of Urban VI.
This took place while Catherine was still at Florence. There are two letters written by her thence to the new Pope. In one of them she alludes to a "scandalo," which had occurred; and was in truth nothing less than a city tumult, in which some turbulent rioters of the anti-church party had threatened her life. It is recorded,[21] that the Saint intrepidly presented herself before the mob, saying, "I am Catherine. Kill me, if you will!"—on which they were abashed and slunk off.
Two other letters to Urban VI. follow, which appear to have been written from Siena; and on the 28th of November, 1378, in obedience to the Papal commands, she arrived in Rome. There are then four more letters written to the Pope after that date; and on the 29th day of April, 1380, she died at the age of thirty-three, after long and excruciating sufferings.
Father Raymond was at Genoa at that time; and declares that in that city at the hour of her death, he heard a voice communicating to him a last message from Catherine, which he afterwards found she had uttered on her death-bed, word for word as he heard it. "And of this," he adds, solemnly, "let that Eternal Truth, which can neither deceive nor be deceived, be witness." Nevertheless, some may be inclined to think that this statement has no right to be included among the facts of the case. Such sceptics may, however, be reminded that it is a certain and not altogether unimportant fact, that Father Raymond makes this solemn assertion.
The extant letters of the Saint, 198 in number, are also facts, of a very singular and puzzling nature. But it will be more convenient to defer any examination of this part of the subject to a future and separate chapter.
THE CHURCH VIEW OF THE CASE.
Authentic history, conceiving herself justified, probably, in leaving a saint in the hands of her own professional advisers and chroniclers, has meddled so little with Catherine biographically, that it was easy to give within the limits of a short chapter a tolerably complete summary of all that can be said to be really known of her story. The professional records of her career as Saint and Thaumaturgist on the other hand are exuberant, minute in detail, and based on abundance of that sort of evidence to their veracity, which the writers of such narratives are wont to consider as most irrefragable and conclusive. And these stories are by no means deficient in interest even to those, whose habits of mind lead them to distinguish widely between such and the materials for what they would admit to be history. For it is a genuine historical fact, and one of no light importance, that these things were believed, were written by men of learning, and are still believed by thousands. It is an historical, as well as a very curious psychological fact, that the statements in question were considered by the writers and thousands of readers of them during many generations to have been proved to be true by the evidence adduced. And it is an historical question, far more interesting, unfortunately, than easy to be solved, who were the believers of the officially received narrative, and who were not.
For these reasons the Church view of the case, is at least as important a part of any satisfactory account of the Saint as the lay view, which was the subject of the last chapter. But all attempt to state the former with the completeness with which it has been sought to lay the latter before the reader, would, within any limits endurable by Englishmen of the nineteenth century, be wholly futile. It will be necessary to proceed by way of specimen-giving. And in the present case that compendious mode of examination will not be so unsatisfactory as it sometimes is found to be. For the masses of visions, penitences, revelations, and miracles recorded, with their respective confirmatory evidences, are so perfectly homogeneous in their nature, that the handful may very confidently be accepted as a fair sample of the contents of the sack.
The austerities and self-inflictions by which she prepared herself for her career internally, and at the same time gave proof of her vocation externally to those around her, began at an almost incredibly early age, and went on increasing gradually in intensity and monstrosity till they pass from the probable to the highly improbable, and thence to the manifestly impossible and miraculous. The line of demarcation which limits the latter, will be differently drawn by different minds. But the perfectly authentic records of human achievement in this department, are such as warn us against absolutely refusing our belief to any horrible self-torment under which life may possibly be retained.
At five years old, it was her practice in going up stairs to kneel at each step to the Virgin.
She habitually flogged herself, and induced other children to imitate her in doing so, at six years of age. At seven, she deprived herself of a great portion of her food, secretly giving it to her brother, or throwing it to the cats. At the same age, she would watch from the window to see when a Dominican monk passed, and as soon as ever he had moved on, she used to run out and kiss the spot on the pavement on which he had placed his feet.
At twelve years old, being then marriageable, her mother begged her to comb her hair and "wash her face oftener." But this she steadfastly refused to do, till her mother having requested a married sister for whom Catherine had the warmest affection, to use her influence with her, she yielded, and began to pay some attention to the cleanliness of her person and the neatness of her dress. "When she afterwards confessed this fault to me," says the "Blessed" Raymond, "she spoke of it with such sighs and tears, that you would have supposed she had been guilty of some great sin. And as I know that, now that she is in heaven, it is lawful for me to reveal such things as redound to her praise, though they were heretofore secret, I have determined to insert here what passed between her and me on this subject. For she frequently made a general[22] confession to me, and always when she came to this point, she bitterly accused herself with sobs and tears. So that although I knew that it is the peculiarity of virtuous souls to believe that sin exists where in truth it does not,"—(observe the morality and think a little of the practical and psychological consequences of it)—"and to deem it great, where it is in fact small, nevertheless, since Catherine accused herself as meriting eternal punishment for the above fault, I was obliged to ask her, whether in acting as she had done, she had at all proposed or wished to violate her vow of chastity? To which she replied, that no such thought had ever entered her heart. I again asked her, whether, since she had no intention of transgressing her vow of virginity, she had done this in order to please any man in particular, or all men in general? And she answered that nothing gave her so much pain, as to see men, or be seen by them, or to be where any of them were. So that whenever any of her father's workmen, who lived in the house with him, came into any place where she chanced to be, she used to run from them, as if they had been serpents, so that all wondered at her." (Note the general state of manners and individual state of mind indicated by the fact, that such conduct should be deemed a praiseworthy proof of maidenly purity!) "She never," she said, "placed herself at the window, or at the door of the house to look at those who passed."—(Surely the Saint forgot her pious habit of looking out for the Dominicans, in order to kiss their footsteps.)—"Then I asked her in reply, for what reason this act of having attended to her dress, especially if it were not done in excess, merited eternal punishment? She answered, that she had loved her sister too much, and appeared to love her more than she loved God, for which reason she wept inconsolably, and did most bitter penance. And on my wishing to reply, that, although there might have been some excess, yet seeing that there had been no bad or even vain intention, there was nothing contrary to divine precept, she lifted up her eyes and voice to God, crying, 'O Lord my God, what kind of spiritual father have I now, who excuses my sins? Was it right then, Father, that this bad and most worthless creature, who without labour or merit of her own has received so many favours from her Creator, should spend her time in adorning this putrid flesh, at the instigation of any mortal? Hell, I think, would have been no sufficient punishment for me, if the divine mercy had not shown me pity.' Thereupon," concludes the conscientious confessor, "I was constrained to be silent." He felt that his penitent's view of her sin was the just one, as indeed was sufficiently shown by the following conclusion of the story of the Saint's temporary backsliding.
Her sister continued to persuade her to pay attention to her person. "But the omnipotent Lord not being able any longer to endure that his chosen bride should in any way be kept at a distance from him, removed that obstacle which prevented her from uniting herself to God. For Bonaventura, the Saint's married sister, who instigated her to vanity, being near the time of her confinement, died in child-birth, young as she was. Observe, O reader, how displeasing and hateful to God it is to impede or divert those who wish to serve him. This Bonaventura was, as has been said, a very worthy woman, both in her conduct and in her conversation; but because she endeavoured to draw back to the world her who wished to serve God, she was smitten by the Lord, and punished with a very painful death." Take care, therefore, what you do, all mothers and sisters, of any who may seem to have a vocation for the cloister, lest you share the fate of Bonaventura Benincasa, doomed by God to a fearful death for having persuaded her sister to wash her face!
And to such practical teaching is the Saint's story moralised to this day even as 500 years ago!
At about this period of Catherine's life—to return to the series of her penances and mortifications—she wholly abandoned the use of animal food. At fifteen she left off wine. At twenty she gave up bread, living only on uncooked vegetables. She used to sleep but one quarter of an hour in the twenty-four; always flogged herself till the blood streamed from her three times a day; and lived three years without speaking. She wore a chain of iron round her body, which gradually eat its way into her flesh. And finally, she remained wholly without food for many years. This Father Raymond declares to have been the case within his own knowledge, and adds with much triumph, "that we know from Scripture that Moses fasted twice during a space of forty days, and Elias once, and that our Saviour accomplished the same, as the Gospel tells us: but a fast of many years has not hitherto been known."
Passing from the Saint's achievements in this kind, we find her equally distancing all competitors in the matter of personal and familiar communication and conversation with the Deity.
She began to have visions at six years old. Returning home one day about that time, through the streets of Siena, she saw in the sky immediately over the Dominican's church a throne, with Christ sitting on it dressed in Papal robes, accompanied by St. Paul, St. Peter, and St. John.
At a later period, Christ appeared to her daily as soon as she retired to her cell, as she informed Father Raymond, for the purpose of teaching her the doctrines of religion, which, said she to her confessor, "no man or woman ever taught me, but only our Lord Jesus Christ himself, sometimes by means of inspiration, and sometimes by means of a clear bodily appearance, manifest to the bodily senses, and talking with me, as I now talk with you."
Again, a little farther on in her career, we read that "the Lord appeared to Catherine very frequently, and remained with her longer than he had been wont to do, and sometimes brought with him his most glorious mother, sometimes St. Dominic, and sometimes both of them: but mostly he came alone and talked with her, as a friend with a most intimate friend; in such sort, that, as she herself secretly and blushingly confessed to me, the Lord and she frequently recited the Psalms together, walking up and down the chamber, as two monks or priests are wont to recite the service. Oh, marvel! Oh, astonishment! Oh, manifestation of divine familiarity unheard of in our times!" exclaims the biographer: as he truly well might!
Very soon after this, having tried in vain, as she informed her confessor, to learn to read, she one day prayed God, that, if it was His will that she should read, he would teach her at once, to avoid further loss of time in learning. She rose from her knees perfectly well able to read any writing as readily and quickly as any learned man could. This Father Raymond heard her do; but on asking her to spell the words she could not, and did not know the letters; a proof, says the confessor, of the reality of the miracle! In another place it is incidentally mentioned that she read especially the Psalter. Does not this, joined to the Dominican's proof of the miracle, seem to indicate, that what passed for reading was in fact repeating by heart?
On a subsequent day, in carnival time, while the others in the Saint's family were carousing, and she was alone in her chamber, Christ appeared to her, and said that he was come to keep his promise of marrying her. Then appeared the Virgin, St. John, St. Paul, and St. Dominic, and David with a harp, on which he played very sweetly. The Virgin then took Catherine's hand in hers, and holding out the fingers towards her son, asked if he would deign to espouse her "in the faith. To which the only begotten Son of God graciously consented, and drew forth a golden ring, with four pearls and a magnificent diamond in it, which ring he placed with his own most holy right hand on the ring-finger of the right hand of Catherine, saying, 'Behold I marry you in the faith to me your Creator and Saviour.'" After adding some further exhortations, the vision disappeared; but as a proof of its reality, there remained the ring on the finger of Catherine! It was not indeed visible to any eyes but those of the Saint herself, adds Father Raymond with perfect composure and contentment; but she saw it, inasmuch as she has many times confessed to me, though with many blushes, that she always continued to see the ring on her finger, and was never long without looking at it.
One day while she was praying to God to renew her heart, Christ suddenly appeared to her—or, in the words of the biographer, her eternal spouse came to her as usual—opened her side, removed her heart, and carried it away with him. So truly was this done, that for several days she declared herself to be without any heart, pointing out to those who objected that it was impossible, that with God nothing is impossible. After some days Christ again appeared, bearing in his hand what seemed a human heart, red and shining, again opened her side, put the new heart in, and closed the aperture, saying, "See, dearest daughter; as I took from you the other day your heart, so now I will give you mine, with which you will always live!" And as a proof of the miracle, there remained evermore in her side the scar, as she herself and her female companions had often assured Father Raymond. A further confirmation of the fact was moreover to be seen in the remarkable circumstance, that from that day forth, the saint was unable to say, as she had been wont, "Lord, I commend to thee my heart," but always said, "Lord, I commend to thee thy heart."
Another time the first person of the Trinity appeared to her "in a vision," and she seemed to see him pull from out his mouth our Saviour Christ in his human form. Then he pulled from out his breast St. Dominic, and said to her, "Dearest daughter, I have begotten these two sons, the one by natural generation, the other by sweet and loving adoption." Then the Almighty enters into a detailed comparison between Christ and St. Dominic, and ends by saying, that the figure of the latter had now been shown her "because he resembled much the body of my most holy naturally begotten and only son."
Once when she was carrying some comforts to a sick poor woman, Christ, "joking with her," suddenly made the things so heavy that she could hardly carry them. Then, when she wished to leave the sick woman, still jesting, he took from her the power of moving. Being troubled, therefore, and yet at the same time smiling, she said to her heavenly spouse, who was jesting with her, "Why, dearest husband, have you thus tricked me? Does it seem to you well to keep me here, and thus mock and confuse me?" She adds more remonstrances of this sort, and at last, "the eternal husband seeing the secret annoyance of his wife, and not being in a manner able to endure it, he restored to her her previous strength."
Upon another occasion, when she was at her devotions in the church of the Dominicans, a poor beggar, who appeared to be about thirty-two or thirty-three years old, implored her to bestow on him some clothing. The Saint bade him wait a minute; and returning into a private chapel, she drew off by the feet, "cautiously and modestly," says Father Raymond, an under garment without sleeves, which she wore under her outer clothing because of the cold, and very gladly gave it to the poor man. Upon which the beggar replied, "Madonna, since you have furnished me with a woollen garment, I pray you to provide me with one of linen also." To which she willingly consented, saying, "Follow me, and I will readily give you what you ask." So she returned to her father's house, followed by the poor man, and going into a store room, where the linen clothing of her father and brothers was kept, she took a shirt and pair of drawers and joyfully gave them to him. But he, when he had got these, did not desist from begging, saying, "Madonna, what can I do with this garment, which has no sleeves to cover the arms. I beg you to give me some sleeves of some sort, that so my whole clothing may be your gift." Upon this, Catherine, not the least displeased with his importunity, searched all over the house to find some sleeves to give him. And finding by chance, hanging on a peg, a new gown belonging to the servant, which she had never yet worn, she instantly stripped the sleeves from it, and gave them to the beggar. But he, when he had taken them, still persevered, saying, "See now, Madonna, you have clothed me, for which may He reward you, for love of whom you have done it. But I have a companion in the hospital, who is in extreme want of clothing. If you will give him some garment, I would willingly carry it to him from you." Upon which, Catherine, in no wise displeased at the poor man's reiterated demands, or cooled in the fervour of her charity, bethought her how she could find some clothing to send to the poor man in the hospital. But, in the words of the biographer monk, "remembering that all the family, except her father, disapproved of her almsgiving, and kept all they had under lock and key, to prevent her from giving the things away to the poor, and further discreetly considering that she had taken away enough from the servant, who was herself poor, and therefore ought not to have everything taken from her, she found that her resources were confined wholly to herself. She, therefore, seriously discussed in her mind the question, whether she ought to give the poor wretch the only garment which remained to her. Charity argued for the affirmative; but maidenly modesty opposed a negative. And in this contest charity was overcome by charity. That is to say, the charity which pities the bodies of our neighbour, was conquered by the charity which regards their souls; since Catherine considered that great scandal would arise if she were to go naked, and that souls ought not to be scandalised for the sake of any alms to the body." Accordingly, she told the beggar, that she would willingly have given him that, her only covering, if it had been lawful to do so—but that it was not permissible. "I know," said he, smiling, "that you would give me anything you could. Adieu!" And so he went. On the following night, however, Christ came to her, holding in his hand the garment she had given the poor man, now all adorned with pearls and gems, and said, "Dost thou know this gown? Thou gavest it to me yesterday, and charitably clothedst me when I was naked, saving me from the pain of cold and shame. Now I will give thee from my sacred body a garment, which, though invisible to men, shall preserve both thy body and soul from cold." So saying, he pulled from out the wound in his side a garment of the colour of blood, exceedingly resplendent, and clothed her with it. And, in fact, so perfectly did it fulfil, though invisible, the purpose for which it was given, that the Saint never afterwards wore any under garment, either in summer or winter, nor did she ever more suffer from the cold.
It occurred frequently, that the most hardened sinners were reclaimed by her intervention, but not by the means of exhortation or persuasion—(in this there would have been nothing worth telling)—but by direct application to God, and asking the required conversion as a favour to herself. There was a certain inveterate reprobate in Siena, who having led an exceedingly wicked life, was near his death, and obstinately refused to confess, or humble himself in any way. "Fallen into final impenitence, he continually committed that sin against the Holy Ghost, which is not forgiven either in this world, or the world to come, and thus deservedly was going down to eternal torments," says Father Raymond. In short, if he had lived anywhere but in Siena, or if his parish priest had not bethought him of applying to Catherine in the difficulty, he would infallibly have perished eternally. But what luck some people have! Catherine, on being applied to, undertook the case immediately, but found it a rather more difficult one than usual; for, on praying to Christ to rescue the dying sinner, he answered her by saying, "The iniquities of this man, horrible blasphemer as he is, have risen up to heaven. Not only has he blasphemed with his mouth me and my saints, but he has even thrown into the fire a picture, in which was my image, and that of my mother, and others of my saints. It is, therefore just that he should burn in eternal fire. Let him alone, my dearest daughter, for he is worthy of death." Catherine, however, replied with many arguments, given at length by her biographer; but, nevertheless, for a long time she could not prevail. From five in the evening till the morning, Catherine, watching and tearful, disputed with the Lord for the salvation of that soul, he alleging the sinner's many and grave sins, which justice required to be punished, and she insisting on the mercy, for the sake of which he had become incarnate. At last the Saint conquered, and at dawn of day Christ said, "Dearest daughter, I have granted your prayer, and I will now convert this man, for whom you pray so fervently." So from that hour all went well. The sinner began to confess, the priest began to absolve him, and he died within a few hours. But it was a very near run thing. For the priest who had applied to Catherine had found on reaching her house, that she was in a trance or ecstasy, and could not be spoken with. He waited as long as he could, and when he could wait no longer, he left a message with a companion of Catherine's to the desired effect. As it was, all went well. But it is clear that if a few hours more had been lost, if the Saint's trance had lasted longer, or her long argument on the subject had not been concluded when it was, or if the woman with whom the message was left, had made any blunder about the matter, or forgotten it, the man's evil life would have produced its natural consequences according to God's eternal law, and he would have been damned.
It has been suggested by some, eager to exercise the candour which can see whatever of excellence there may be in every system, that the many stories of Catherine's successful efforts to convert the most hardened sinners, are a proof of her having possessed that confidence in the latent good in every human heart which is one of the best results of a truly philosophic faith in God; and which would in truth go far to show that her heart unconsciously, if not her intellect consciously, had placed her in advance of the ethics and theology of her day. But the story just related fatally destroys any such agreeable theory. The conversion of the sinner was to be achieved not by any human action on his heart, but by wholly different means. The Saint did not even seek to see or speak with him. The conversion was to be a miracle, worked as a special favour granted to her. The dying sinner's moral capabilities had nothing whatever to do with the matter.
There is another even more remarkable instance in which the Saint prevails with God to work a miracle, which He declares at the time to be hurtful to the person who is the subject of it. Catherine's mother, Lapa, was dying, but was most unwilling to die. Her daughter, therefore, prayed that her health might be restored to her, but was answered that it was better for Lapa that she should leave this life then. With this answer she returns to her mother, and endeavours to reconcile her to the necessity of then dying, but in vain. Thus the Saint became mediator between the Lord and her mother, supplicating the one not to take Lapa out of the world against her will, and exhorting the other to be resigned to the disposition of the Lord. But Catherine, who with her prayers, constrained, as it were, the Omnipotent, could not, by her exhortation, bend the weak mind of her mother. So the Lord said to his wife, "Tell your mother that if she will not leave the body now, the time will come when she shall greatly desire death, and not be able to find it." Lapa, however, could not make up her mind to die, nor would she confess in preparation for death; and, accordingly, died unshriven. Then her daughter cried to God, and said, "Oh, Lord God! are these then the promises you made me, that no one of this house should perish? * * * * * And now I see my mother dead without the sacraments of the church! By thy infinite mercy I pray thee, do not let me be defrauded in such a manner! Nor will I move hence for an instant as long as I live, until thou shalt render back my mother to life." So God, although he knew that it was bad for her mother, recalled her again to life; and she lived to be eighty-nine years old, surviving all her numerous children, tried by much adversity, and often longing for that death which she had before so unwisely rejected.
One of the most remarkable miraculous events which occurred to her was the following, related by Father Raymond as having happened at Pisa in his presence. Catherine had received the sacrament, and was, as usual with her at such times, in a trance. Her confessor and some others were awaiting her recovery from it, when they saw her suddenly rise with a start to a kneeling posture, with her arms stretched out horizontally, and in a minute or two more fall prostrate. Soon afterwards she came out of her trance, and immediately calling aside her confessor, said, "Be it known to you, my father, that I now bear on my body the marks of the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ." "And I," says the monk, "having told her that I had observed as much from the movements of her body while she was in her trance, asked her in what manner the Lord had performed that miracle? And she said, 'I saw the crucified Lord descending towards me with a great light, which caused me, from the impetus of my soul to meet its Creator, to raise up my body, then I saw five bloody rays descending from the scars of his most holy wounds, and directing themselves to the hands and feet and heart of my body. Upon which, knowing what the mystery was, I exclaimed, "O Lord my God, let not, I pray you, the scars appear externally on my body; it is enough for me to have them internally." Then, while I was yet speaking, the rays, before they reached me, turned from blood-colour to a pure and splendid light, and touched the five parts of my body, that is, my hands, my feet, and my heart.' I asked her further, 'Do you now feel in those spots any sensible pain?' To which, with a deep sigh, she replied, 'So great is the pain I feel in all those five places, but especially in my heart, that it appears impossible to me to live many days, unless the Lord perform some further miracle.'"
To appreciate the importance and bearing of this miracle, the fierce and bitter rivalry which existed between the Dominicans and Franciscans must be borne in mind. St. Francis had received these five wounds, the counterpart of Christ's wounds, in the same way. The marks are familiarly known among hagiographers and their readers as the stigmata, and the having received them was the crowning glory of St. Francis, and the proud and exclusive boast of his Franciscans: and now the Dominicans were even with them. The Sienese Pope, who canonized Catherine, Pius II., gave his approbation to a service, in which this reception of the stigmata was prominently asserted. And so severely was the blow felt by the indignant Franciscans, that they obtained from the next Pope but one, Sixtus the Fourth, himself a member of their Order, a decree to the effect that St. Francis had an exclusive right to, and monopoly of that special miracle, and that it was accordingly forbidden to represent St. Catherine receiving the stigmata under pain of ecclesiastical censures!
Whether the opposition monk, Sixtus, intended by this decree to assert that no such miracle was performed on Catherine, or that it ought not to have been performed in justice to St. Francis, or that having been unfortunately performed, nothing ought to be said about it, is left to the very unsatisfactory conjectures of indiscreet inquirers.
The tendency observable in many of the austerities and miracles related of St. Catherine, to outdo the austerities and miracles of other saints, is especially remarkable in this of the stigmata. The degree in which it served the purpose of the Dominicans, is the measure of the suspicion attaching to it. But as there is nothing incredible in the supposition that Catherine may have imagined all she related in her trance, so it is by no means unlikely that such diseased dreamings may have been the natural product of a waking fancy filled with, and dwelling on this much envied manifestation. Perhaps the condition so providently introduced, as it seems, that the scars were not to be visible, may be suggestive of a fraudulent intention. But, on the other hand, it should seem, that if fraud had been planned, it would have been very easy, for one who subjected her body to so much self-inflicted torment, to submit to the required wounds beforehand.
In another instance there seems to be emulation of a higher model. Wishing to give wine away to the poor against the desire of her family, she miraculously causes a barrel to become for a long while inexhaustible, the wine drawn from it being, at the same time, of a much superior quality to that originally put into it.
Many details are recorded of her ministry to the sick; but, strangely enough, the most prominent circumstances in each case, are those which go to prove her readiness to encounter whatever was most loathesome; and some of the particulars of her victories over the natural repugnances of mind and body in this respect—often of a nature in no wise conducive to, or connected with the well-being of her patient—are far too revolting for reproduction on any English page.
The reader has now an abundant—perhaps he may think a superfluously abundant—specimen of that part of Catherine's history which the Church most loves to preserve, contemplate, and enlarge on, and of the kind of teaching she draws from it—draws from it, be it again observed, for this is an important part of the subject—at this present day.
The morality set forth by example in the tales of the Saint abstracting the property of her relatives to give it to any mendicant who begged of her, is more largely and accurately reduced to systematic precept in the "Manual for Confessors," now in use as the rule for those who have the guidance of the popular conscience. It is there laid down, that a wife or son may "take" from the goods of a husband or father, who will not give for the purpose, what is requisite for "good works!"
The stories which represent the Creator as capriciously reversing his decrees with the unconscientious levity of an earthly potentate ruled by an exacting favourite, and inflicting undeserved torment and miserable death in accordance with the suggestions of evil passions wholly fiend-like, are still shaping the Italian peasant's conception of the Almighty, and thus poisoning the master well-head of all spiritual and moral amelioration.
The depravation, or rather the annihilation of the natural conscience, which necessarily results from attributing fearful sinfulness to trifling and absurd omissions and inadvertences, and from installing an admiration for useless, and often mischievous practices on the throne, which should be occupied in the human soul by reverence for man's homely duties, and homely affections, is still doing its appointed work as busily and as surely as it did five hundred years ago, and has been doing ever since,—with what results, we see.
But it is sufficient to have indicated to the reader the importance, from this point of view, of this story of a Saint, who, alas! but too truly "being dead, yet speaketh." It would require an analysis extending over the whole field of national character, to trace all the ramified evil produced by the views of God and man involved in such stories as those related in the preceding pages. And if there were no other reason against here attempting such an essay, it might assuredly be urged, that such considerations have no place in a chapter devoted to the Church view of the case.