CATHOLIC PICTORIAL – FOOD FOR THOUGHT     Fr Francis Marsden

St Catherine of Siena    28 April 1991

A thirty-year-old woman who writes letters to reprimand the Pope is likely to be either extremely unbalanced or exceedingly holy. When the Pope pays attention and obeys her messages, she must be a saint.  St Catherine of Siena (1347-80) reproved not just one but two Popes, Gregory XI and Urban VI, and became the latter’s personal counsellor.

The Church is built upon the apostles, and prophets, institution and charism. St Catherine is a good example of the prophet, sent by God to reform the institutional Church, the hierarchy. In 1970 she was declared a Doctor of the Church along with St Teresa of Avila.

She was the twenty-fourth of 25 children of a prosperous Siennese dyer. Her parents had a large and beautiful house in the city. Siena like much of Italy was then a city-state familiar with family feuds, class conflict and civil war.

Catherine seems to have been marked out for mystical experiences early in life. When aged 6 she had a vision of Christ enthroned in glory, with St Peter, Paul and John. The Lord smiled at the little girl and extended his hand over her in blessing. A pious legend? Or a fulfilment of the words “Let the little children come unto me.”

Certainly she was a strikingly pleasant and outgoing youngster. In her devotions she was imaginative and idealistic. She was strongly influenced by the local Dominican friars. Her family tried to marry her off once she reached the early teens but she refused and cut off her hair in defiance. Her stubborn independence and determination to follow the Truth were becoming apparent.

In 1365 she took the habit of a Dominican third order. She began to live in solitude and silence in her room, only going out to Mass at the monastery of San Domenico. In 1368, while Siena was celebrating the carnival riotously as usual, Catherine praying alone in her room experienced a “mystical espousal” to Christ. The Lord Jesus and His blessed Mother with a host of angels appeared to her. Our Lady held up Catherine's hand and her Son placed a ring upon it and made her his bride.  He bade her go forth and care for the poor and the sick: "I desire to become more closely united to thee through charity towards thy neighbour."

She left her solitude now to nurse the sick and the dying, plague victims and the destitute. Sometimes in Church after Holy Communion she was seen rapt in ecstasy or levitating. Gradually there gathered round her a band of friends and disciples, clergy and lay, a spiritual family who met for prayer, bible study and theology.
Her reputation as a woman of God grew steadily in Siena. Three Dominican priests were especial1y charged to hear the confessions of all those she persuaded to amend their lives. Families called on her as an arbitrator to heal feuds.

At Pisa in 1375 she received the wounds of Christ in her hands, feet and side while praying before the crucifix. She fainted with the pain. The stigmata were visible during her life only to Catherine herself, but after her death could he seen by all. She began promoting Pope Gregory XI's appeal for a crusade to recover the Ho1y Sepulcher in Jerusalem from the Turks. She hoped to turn the warlike energies of Christian Italy, on the brink of civil war, to a more honourable purpose - as that age saw it - in the Holy Lend.

She became further embroiled in politics. The Pope was then living with his court not in Rome but in Avignon in southern France, to the annoyance of the Italians. In 1375 Florence, Perugia and other cities formed a League against the Holy See — a rebellion provoked largely by the incompetence and mismanagement of papal officials, governing central Italy in the Pope’s absence. Florence was placed under interdict. Catherine travelled to Avignon to intercede with the Pope. She had a conference with Gregory XI, to whom she had already written six times “in an intolerably dictatorial tone, a little sweetened with expressions of her perfect Christian deference.”

As a result of her conversations with the Pope, even if Florence’s problems were not immediately solved, Gregory XI resolved to return to his rightful home in Rome. The Babylonian exile of the Papacy in Avignon was at an end after 68 years.

Catherine returned to Siena. In the winter of 1377—78 she had the mystical experiences which led to her writing her one great masterpiece, The Dialogue. It consists of Catherine’s questions and petitions to God the Father, and the Father’s response. Much of it is written in the person of God the Father speaking. He explains to her the way of perfection and the manner in which Providence encompasses both the good and the wicked. Even the devils act as ministers of God’s justice to the wicked, and by tempting the just give them the opportunity to grow strong in the grace and love of God. There is magnificent praise of the Eucharist and of the sublime dignity of the priesthood, followed by a searing condemnation of the sins of evil clergy and religious, and a warning of the most dreadful punishments in store for them. Obedience after the example of Christ is the remedy. “Through the sufferings of my servants I shall reform my bride” (the Church).

In 1378 Pope Gregory XI died. Mob violence broke out in Rome. The Cardinals elected an Italian as his successor, Urban VI. Urban rapidly proved himself a coarse, overbearing and sadistic despot. He berated the cardinals, shouted them down and tortured his opponents. The French cardinals fled back to Avignon, followed soon after by most of the Italians. They held a new conclave and elected Clement VII as Pope. For 39 years Europe would have two Popes. The Great Schism had begun.

A chastened Urban VI summoned Catherine to Rome to help and advise him. She admonished him for his harshness, but wore herself out in her efforts to win over his opponents-. By early 1380 she was ill. She could no longer eat. She spent her days in prayer, ravished by ecstasies and tormented by diabolic visions. She dragged herself the mile to St Peter’s for Mass every morning, and stayed praying in the Vatican until Vespers. In late February she suffered a stroke and lost the use of her legs. She had a vision of the ship of the Church crushing her to the earth. She offered her life as a victim for the Church, and died on April 29th, aged only 33.

In The Dialogue, God describes, to Catherine the bridge that leads from earth to heaven. That bridge is the beloved Son of God who has joined his divinity (heaven) to our humanity (earth). The bridge is. mounted by three stairs, the soul’s three powers, memory, understanding and will. The three stairs also represent an image of the body of Christ: the first step is his nailed feet. Here the soul climbs the step and lifts the feet of her affections from the earth and strips herself of sin and worldly desire.

The second step is the side of Christ. Here the soul feels His unspeakable love for her, which kindles love for Him in her own heart. The third step is the Son’s mouth, where the soul tastes peace and union with the Beloved.

The bridge has walls of virtue and a roof of mercy, so that the faithful can walk safely and with no cringing fear of the rain of divine justice. The gate of heaven is opened with the key of Christ’s blood. The hostelry of Holy Church is sited on the bridge to serve the bread of life and the blood, lest the pilgrims grow faint and weary on the way. This bridge is the Way of ‘truth. There is no other way to the Father.

“I send people troubles in this world so that they may know that their goal is not in this life. I am their goal, and I want them to want me, and in this spirit they should accept such things.”

Beneath the bridge is the river; this is the way of falsehood. The devil invites, people to the waters of death, blinds them with the desires and honours of this world, catches them with the hook of pleasure. They set their hearts on things which pass away. Finally they drown in the river because of their sinfulness and so come to excruciating torments. They have lost the supreme and eternal Good.

The three steps upon the Bridge also represent three stages of the spiritual life: imperfect, perfect arid more perfect. The lower stage is those who escape the river and climb up onto the bridge but out of slavish fear. They see the penalty in store for their sins and avoid them, but their love is selfish and mercenary. They serve God for their own profit or for the delight and pleasure they find in Him. When they experience troubles or vexations, or are tempted by prosperity, they may turn back again to the floodwaters.

The second step is that of the faithful servant who keeps the commandments and has a warm—hearted love for Christ. The third stage is that of those who have become children of God, with no regard for their own interests: “I call you not servants but friends.”

“With whatever love I am loved, with that love I respond.” The souls who persevere come to this filial love, and God loves them as his own children. “If you love me the way a servant loves, a Master, I as your Master will give you what you have earned, but I will not show myself to you, for secrets are shared only with a friend who has become one with oneself,”

Those who have climbed this third stair on the bridge have become friends with Jesus. To them He says: “I will come and we will make a dwelling place together.” Such indeed was St Catherine’s experience.