Chapter VI: Catherine’s Doctrine (1)

The attentive reader will no doubt have perceived how great have been the difficulties at every step taken, in the previous chapters, towards a critically clear and solid account of Catherine’s life. He will, then, be quite prepared again to find difficulties, though largely of another order, in the task that now lies before us,--the attempt at a clear and authentic reproduction of her teaching.

1. _Four difficulties in the utilization of the sources._

The sources are, it is true, at first sight, fairly abundant,--altogether about one hundred of the two hundred and eighty pages of the _Vita ed Opere_. But four peculiarities render their utilization a matter of much labour and caution.

For one thing, they certainly include no piece written by herself, and probably none written down before 1497. Catherine’s memory can no doubt be trusted, and with it much of the oldest version of those great turning-points of her inner life which occurred long before that date, and which she thus, later on, communicated to her two closest friends. Yet hers was a mind so constantly absorbed in present experiences and in self-renewal as to be all but incapable of dwelling, in any detail, upon her past experiences or judgments.

And next, within and for this her “doctrinal,” her “widowed” and “suffering” period, we are perplexed by the total absence of logical or indeed of any other order in the presentation of these discourses and contemplations. We have either to do without any order at all, or to construct one for ourselves,--which latter course of itself already means a reconstruction of the book.

But far more delicate is the task presented by the third peculiarity,--the fact, demonstrated both by the internal evidence and analysis and by the external evidence of the MSS., of the bewildering variety of forms and connections in which one and the same doctrine, sometimes an obviously unique saying, will appear. Six, ten, even twelve or more variants are the rule, not the exception. And I am specially thinking, under this heading, of _contemporary variations_--that is, variations of form that can reasonably be attributed either to her own initiative at work under differences of mood and of starting-point; or to the variety of the minds who apprehended and registered this teaching at the time of its delivery; or to both influences simultaneously. In the first case we get, say, her doctrine as to man’s weakness and sinfulness, in two moments of depression and consolation respectively, registered by one and the same disciple,--say, by Vernazza or by Marabotto. In the second case we get some such two sayings as rendered the one by Vernazza and the other by Marabotto severally. And in the third case we get both the depressed and the joyful original sayings, as they have passed through the minds of both Vernazza and Marabotto.

And lastly, we get another class, _redactional variations_; and these it is often as difficult as it is always necessary to detect. I mean the parallel passages, evolved in course of time by her attendants or constructed by successive redactors, more or less on the model of, but also with more or less of departure from, her own authentic sayings: blurred, partly inaccurate echoes, as it were, of her own living voice. These will generally have grown up but semi-consciously, or at least have arisen from simple motives of her glorification or of literary filling-in or rounding-off. For we must not forget the forty years which passed between her death and the _Vita_.

I am thinking here too of the _theological limitations and corrections_, introduced into the older text in the form of definite counter-statements, which we shall find to be especially visible in the _Trattato_; and of the, doubtless preponderatingly unconscious, modifications of an analogous kind which determined the composition of the _Dialogo_, and are traceable throughout that whole long work. For here again we have to remember how, between her living teachings, so ardent and familiar, so entirely from within and unoccupied with the world without, which reached up to 1510, and even the earliest MS. redaction of the contemporary jotting down of those sayings which we still possess,--that of 1547,--runs the great upheaval of the Protestant Reformation, beginning with Luther’s Theses of 1517. Catherine’s own fellow God-parent to Vernazza’s eldest daughter, the Doctor of Laws Tommaso Moro, had meanwhile become a Calvinist (1537), and then had returned to the Catholic Obedience in 1539, first under this his God-daughter’s influence. No wonder that what, under the magic suasion of her living personality, in times as yet free from the controversial and polemical tone and temper, and through and for her friends already won to and comprehensive of her teachings, had been certainly registered, and perhaps for a while transmitted, in its own pristine, winningly daring and unguarded, form, would, with her old friends dead and a new generation grown up and engrossed in attack and defence of various points of the Catholic position, be felt to require tempering and safeguarding, rewriting and controversial utilization. Hence we get three successive steps. The theological counter-statements in the _Trattato_, probably introduced between 1524 and 1530. The controversial point and utilization attempted in the very title of the _Vita_ which promises, “una utile e cattolica dimostrazione e declarazione del Purgatorio,” and in the Preface, which declares the book to contain things “specially necessary in these our turbulent times,” touches which go back probably to 1536, perhaps even to 1524-1530. And the composition of the entire _Dialogo_, hardly begun before 1546.[221]

It is interesting to note how neither for the approbation of the first edition in 1551 (by the Dominican Fra Geronimo of Genoa), nor during the examination by the Congregation of Rites and the final approbation by Pope Innocent XI, 1677-1683, was any additional correction required or (as far as I know) even suggested. The latter point is particularly striking; for we have thus the very Pope who, in 1687, condemned Molinos’ teaching, solemnly approving Catherine’s doctrine four years before, after a seven years’ examination.

2. _Catholic principles concerning the teaching of Canonized Saints._

Now it is a well-known principle of Catholic theology, propounded with classic clearness and finality by Pope Benedict XIV, in his standard work _On the Beatification and Canonization of the Servants of God_, that such an approbation of their sayings or writings binds neither the Church nor her individual members to more than the two points, which are alone necessary with respect to the possibility and advisability of the future Beatification and Canonization of the author of the sayings or writings in question. The Church and her individual members are thus bound only to hold the perfect orthodoxy and Catholic piety of such a saintly writer’s intentions, and again the (at least interpretative) orthodoxy of these his writings, and their spiritual usefulness for some class or classes of souls. But every kind and degree of respectful but deliberate criticism and of dissent is allowed, if only based upon solid reasons and combined with a full acceptance of those two points.

And indeed it is plain that heroism in action and suffering is one thing, and philosophical genius, training and balance is another; and even, again, that deep and delicate experiences on the one hand, and the power of their at all adequate analysis and psychological description, are two things and not one. Still, it is also evident that in proportion as a Saint’s doctrine is, professedly or at all events actually, based upon or occasioned by his own experience will it rightly demand a double measure of respectful study. For, in such a case, we can be sure not only of the saintly intentions of the teacher, but also of his doctrines being an attempt, however partially successful, at expressing certain first-hand, unusually deep and vivid experiences of the religious life, experiences which, taken in their substance and totality, constitute the very essence of his sanctity.

Now this is manifestly the case with Catherine. And hence she furnishes us with those very conditions of fruitful discussion, so difficult to get in religious matters. On the one hand, her undoubted sanctity and the personal experimental basis of her doctrine gain for her our willingness, indeed determination, first of all patiently to study and assimilate and sympathetically to reconstruct her special spiritual world from her own inner starting- and growing-point, and all this, at this first stage, without any question as to the completeness or final truth and value of the intellectual analyses and syntheses of these experiences elaborated by herself. And, on the other hand, we find ourselves driven, at our second stage, to examine the literary sources and philosophical and theological implications of this her teaching--if pressed; and to make various respectful, but firm and free distinctions and reservations, with regard to these sources and affinities. For here, in these her analyses and syntheses, a special quality of her own temperament is ever at work, and causes her to express, as best she can, a concentration of a whole host of the strongest feelings concerning just the one point of that one moment’s experience, with a momentary complete exclusion of all the rest. Here, again, her dependence, for her categories of thought and general language, imagery and scheme of doctrine, upon Fra Jacopone da Todi and upon the Pseudo-Dionysian writings is readily traceable,--the latter, compositions which we have only now succeeded in tracing, with final completeness and precision, to their predominantly Neo-Platonist source. And here we cannot but carefully consider the impressive series of Church pronouncements which have occurred since Catherine spoke and her devotees wrote. All these matters shall be carefully studied in the second volume.

3. _The fortunate circumstances of Catherine’s teaching._

It was a rare combination of numerous special circumstances,--several of them unique,--which rendered possible the retention and indeed solemn approbation of the difficult and daring doctrine and language not rarely to be met with in the _Vita_ (in contradistinction to the so-called _Opere_).

For one thing, the originator, the subject-matter and form, above all the school of her doctrine, all combined to secure it the largest possible amount of liberty and sympathetic interpretation. The originator, the soul from whom the doctrine had proceeded, had not herself written down one word of it; but she had spoken it all, warm from the very heart which loved and lived it: the cold and chilling process of deliberate composition had but little part in the whole matter, and that part was not hers. The subject-matter was not primarily dogmatic, and not at all political or legal; it dealt not with theological systems or visible institutions, but with the experiences of single souls: and at all times a great latitude has been allowed in such subject-matter, when proceeding, as here, from some saintly soul as the direct expression of its own experience. The form was not systematic, and aimed at no completeness; all was incidentally addressed to a few devoted disciples, in short monologues or homely conversations. The title _Trattato_, given later on to the collection of her detached thoughts on Purgatory, is thoroughly misleading; her whole spirit and form were precisely not that of the treatise. And the school to which she so obviously belonged was probably her chief protection. Indeed, the doctrinally difficult passages are, in a true sense, the least personal of her sayings: we shall find all their doctrinal presuppositions,--as to the immobility, indefectibility, deification of the soul; the possession by the soul of God without means or measure; and the like,--to go back to the writings which, purporting to be by the Areopagite Dionysius, the Convert of St. Paul, but composed in reality between A.D. 490-520, so profoundly influenced all mystical thinking and expression for one thousand years and more of the Church’s life.

And again, the period during which the corpus of Catherine’s doctrine was in process of formation was specially favourable to such large toleration. For if she died in 1510, ten years before the outbreak of the Protestant Reformation, with its inevitable reaction, her chief chronicler, the saintly philanthropist Vernazza, did not die, a true martyr to that boundless love of souls which he had derived from his great-souled friend, till 1524; and her Confessor Marabotto did not depart till 1528. Thus her doctrine would remain substantially untouched and treasured up till some twenty years after her death, and thirteen years after the great upheaval.

We have already noted that (somewhere about 1528, and on to 1551) her teaching _did_ meet with some opposition. It will be interesting to study (in the Appendix) how the objection arose and was met. Here it must suffice to point out that, whereas Catherine’s Purgatorial doctrine is free from any final difficulty on the score of orthodoxy, it is just that doctrine which was hedged in and glossed before all the rest; and that whereas other parts of her teaching, in the form given in the _Vita_, are full of such difficulty, they remain strangely unmodified to this very day. It will appear that the _Dialogo_ was in part composed to perform an office towards those doctrinal chapters of the _Vita_, similar to that performed by the glosses in and towards the text of the _Trattato_. Hence the glosses of the _Trattato_ will have, in the following collection of sayings, to be removed from my text, and the statements of the _Dialogo_ will have to be ignored in my text. These glosses or re-statements shall be considered later on, whenever these additions or substitutions are of sufficient interest.

4. _The theological order of presentation adopted._

Then again, it is far from easy to settle upon the right order and method of presentation. The more closely we study the chapters in question the more do we find that the strange discomfort and disgust, engendered by any lengthy reading of them, proceeds from the curiously infelicitous manner of their composition. These chapters, in so much as they supply genuine materials, consist of a large number of detached, usually short sayings, of every kind of tone and mood, occasion and mental and emotional context and connotation, and yet all concerning but a few great central realities and truths. These sayings in themselves do not at all represent links in a chain of reasoning; they are numberless variations on some few fundamental experiences of the soul. Hence they require to be given in loose co-ordination, or in free grouping around some great central truth; somewhat like what is done, with such marked felicity, for Our Lord’s own sayings, which also are occasional and freely various, by the oldest of our Gospels, St. Mark. “And,” “and again,” can be used to join these recurrent similitudes, aspirations, emotional reflections; not “because” nor “therefore,” still less “firstly,” “secondly,” “thirdly,” as the Redactors have been so fond of doing. Hence the reader in the _Vita_ feels himself in a constant state of abortive motion, and is ever being promised a precision which usually ends in vagueness.

Let us then group these parallel sayings around some few great central truths or dispositions. But what is the order of these great centres to be? Here again a difficulty occurs, and this time from the very nature of the doctrine concerned. For the special characteristic of her teaching, a teaching so largely derived both from her own intensely unitive character and (through the Dionysian writings, Proclus and Plotinus) from Plato himself, is precisely an infinitely close-woven organization, in which part vibrates in sympathy with part, in which each point carries with it the whole, and in which each one idea and feeling passes, as it were, right through, and colours and is coloured by all the rest. It would be almost as satisfactory to turn the impassioned discourse of Diotima in the Symposium into a series of numbered propositions, as here to try and detach any one feeling or idea from out of the living network of its fellows, in and through which it is, and gets and gives, its special self.

The historical order (_i.e._ the order in which, successively, each doctrine grew up and dominated her thinking) is, alas! as we have seen, out of the question.--The psychological order (_i.e._ the order in which the doctrines, such as we have them, would reproduce themselves within her own mind during that last period of her life, 1496-1510) would doubtless throw most light upon the special characteristics of her spirituality, and upon the hidden springs of her doctrine. But it is far too difficult, and must remain too largely hypothetical, to be even distantly aimed at here and now: some such attempt will be made in a later chapter, with the help of the materials first collected and grouped here in a more conventional way.--The theological order (_i.e._ the order in which these doctrines would appear if made to find their places in an ordinary manual of scholastic theology) is the one that I shall here endeavour to follow as far as possible. For thus I can start with a scheme so thoroughly familiar as nowhere itself to require any explanation; and I can thus help to bring out, from the first, the characteristic peculiarities of the mystical position generally, and of her own variety of it in particular.

I will then take here, successively, her teachings as to God in Himself, and Creation; Sin, Redemption, and Sanctification; and the Last Things. But I do so quite loosely, for I shall try nowhere to break off any bridge that she herself has thrown across from one subject to the other, and shall be satisfied if I can succeed in grouping her doctrine even approximately within those three divisions, according to the predominance of this or that point of her teaching. And, for this, I shall not shrink from a repeated utilization of one and the same text, when (as happens so often) it looks in many directions, and becomes fully clear only in juxtaposition with various parts of her teaching.

5. _Literary sources of Catherine’s teaching._

We have evidence, as regards literary influences, that Catherine fed her mind on three books or sets of books: the Bible, the Pseudo-Dionysian Treatises, and the _Lode_ of Jacopone da Todi.

The allusions to passages of Scripture are continual, but mostly of a swiftly passing, combinatory, allegorizing kind. Direct quotations and attempts at penetrating the objective sense of particular passages are rare, for most of the direct quotations are clearly due to her historians, not to herself; yet they exist and put her direct study of Scripture beyond all doubt. Her favourite Bible books were evidently Isaiah and the Psalms, and the Pauline and Joannine writings. Some touches (remarkably few for a mystic) are derived from the Canticle of Canticles, and many less obvious ones from the Synoptic Gospels; but there are no certain traces, I think, of any other Old Testament books, nor, in the Pauline group, of any passage from the Pastoral Epistles.

The evidence for her direct knowledge and use of Dionysius is, it is true, but circumstantial. But the following three facts seem, conjoined as they are in her case, sufficient to prove this knowledge. (i) We have already seen how her cousin and close spiritual friend, Suor Tommasa, wrote a devotional treatise on Denys the Areopagite, presumably before Catherine’s death, since Tommasa was sixty-two years of age in that year 1510; it would be strange indeed if Catherine did not, even if but from this quarter, get to know some of the Dionysian writings, perhaps even whilst they could still only be read in MS. form. (ii) Marsilio Ficino published in Florence, in 1492, his Latin translation of the _Mystical Theology_ and of the _Divine Names_, with a copious commentary; and the book, dedicated to Giovanni de’ Medici, Archbishop of Florence and future Pope Leo X, found its way at once to all the larger centres of life, learning and devotion in Italy. Thus Catherine lived still eighteen years after the publication of this, the first printed, edition of any part of Denys (original or translation); even if she did not know these writings before, it seems again very unlikely that she would not get to know them now. (iii) There are, it is true, no direct quotations from Denys, nor does his name appear in the _Vita ed Opere_, except in that account of Suor Tommasa. But numerous sayings of Catherine bear, as we shall see later on, so striking a resemblance to passages in those two books of Denys, that it is difficult to explain them by merely mediate infiltration; and that those sayings ultimately, as to their literary occasion, go back to the Areopagite, is incontestable. I quote Denys from the usually careful translation of the Rev. John Parker: _The Works of Dionysius the Areopagite_, Pt. I, London, Oxford, 1897, with certain corrections of my own.

The proofs for her knowledge and love of Jacopone da Todi’s Italian “Praises” is, on the other hand, direct and explicit. The _Vita_, p. 37, makes her say: “Listen to what Fra Jacopone says in one of his _Lode_, beginning: ‘O amor di povertade,’” and then gives her word-for-word commentary on verse 23 of this his _Loda_ LVIII. Words from this same verse are again quoted by her on p. 62; the opening line of this _Loda_ is put into her mouth on p. 83; and another verse, the sixth, is quoted by her, as by the Blessed Jacopone, on p. 92. I have been able to find many other sayings of hers which are hardly less directly suggested by the great Umbrian than these. Here, again, she probably knew the _Lode_ in MS. form, before they appeared in print in 1490; but will in any case have known them in this their printed form. I have carefully studied in this, the first printed edition (Florence: Bonaccorsi), all the _Lode_ bearing upon subjects and doctrines dear to Catherine. They are twenty in all, from among the hundred and two numbers of that collection.[222]

6. _The Psycho-physical Occasions or Reflexes of her Doctrine. Her special reaction under and use of her literary sources shall be examined in a later chapter._

The psycho-physical occasions or reflexes of her various teachings, as far as the interconnection can be traced with probability, shall also be studied in the second volume. But already here I would have the reader clearly to understand, that nowhere are such psycho-physical conditions and experiences to be considered the _causes_ of her doctrine, as though the lower produced the higher, and as though the spiritual were the automatic resultant and necessary precipitate of certain accidental, involuntary conditions in time and space. For everywhere such conditions can only, at best, be accepted as the occasions or materials for the development or illustration of some spiritual doctrine, or, contrariwise, as the psychic effects and embodiments of some vividly realized invisible truth or law; whilst this spiritual teaching itself is derived from far other and deeper causes,--the interaction of her own experience and free spiritual powers and of God’s grace, and the conflict of these with her own passions, the whole helped or hindered by the world without.

I. GOD AS CREATIVE LOVE. THE CREATURE’S TRUE AND FALSE SELF; TRUE AND FALSE LOVE.

1. _Creation, an overflow of Goodness._

First, then, we will take the sayings about Creation, and the original, substantially indelible character of all created beings. “I saw a sight which satisfied me much. I was shown the Living Fountain of Goodness, which was (as yet) all within Itself alone, without any kind of participation. And next I saw that It began to participate with the creature, and made that very beautiful company of Angels, in order that this company might enjoy His ineffable glory, without asking any other return from the Angels than that they should recognize themselves to be creatures created by His supreme goodness.… And hence, when they were clothed in sin by their pride and disobedience, God suddenly subtracted from them the participation of His goodness.… Yet He did not subtract it all, for in that case they would have remained still more malign than they (actually) are, and they would have had Hell infinite in pain, as they now have it in time.” … “When we ourselves shall depart from this life,--supposing we are in mortal sin,--then God would subtract from us His goodness and would leave us in our own selves, yet not altogether, since He wills that in every place there should be found His goodness accompanied by His justice. And if any creature could be found that did not participate in His goodness, that creature would be as malignant as God is good.”[223]

2. _Natural conformity between God and all rational creatures._

From her sayings as to Creation and Pure Love, Creation’s cause, we come to those as to the Natural Conformity between God and Rational Creatures; His constant care for the human soul; and the consequent law of imitative love incumbent upon us. “I see God to have so great a conformity with the rational creature, that if the Devil himself could but rid himself of those garments of sin, in that instant God would unite Himself to him, and would make him into that which he, the Devil, attempted to achieve by his own power. So too with regard to man: lift off sin from his shoulders, and then allow the good God to act,--God who seems to have nothing else to do than to unite Himself to us.”--“It appears to me, indeed, that God has no other business than myself.”--“If man could but see the care which God takes of the soul, he would be struck with stupor within himself.”--“I see that God stands all ready to give us all the aids necessary for our salvation, and that He attends to our actions solely for our good. And, on the contrary, I see man occupied with things that are opposed to his true self and of no value. And at the time of death God will say to him: ‘What was there that I could do for thee, O man, that I did not do?’ And man himself will then see this clearly.”--“When God created man, He did not put Himself in motion for any other reason than His pure love alone. And hence, in the same way as Love Itself, for the welfare of the loved soul, does not fail in the accomplishment of anything, whatever may be the advantage or disadvantage that may accrue from thence to the Lover, so also must the love of the loved soul return to the Lover, with those same forms and modes with which it came from Him. And then such love as this, which has no regard for aught but love itself, cannot be in fear of anything.”[224]

3. _Relations between Love, God; love of our true self; and false self-love._

We can take next her teachings as to the relations between the love of God, love of our true self, and false self-love. “The love of God is our true self-love, the love characteristic of and directed to our true selves, since these selves of ours were created by and for Love Itself. The love, on the other hand, of every other thing deserves to be called self-hatred, since it deprives us of our true self-love, which is God. Hence ‘Him love, Who loveth thee,’ that is, Love, God; and ‘him leave who doth not love thee,’ that is, all other things, from God downwards.”[225]

“God so loves the soul, and is so ready to give it His graces, that, when He is impeded by some sin, then men say: ‘Thou hast offended God,’ that is, thou hast driven away God from thee, Who, with so much love, was desiring to do thee good. And men say this, although it is really man who then suffers the damage and who offends his own true self. But because God loves us more than we love our own selves, and gives more care to our true utility than we do ourselves, therefore does He get designated as the one who is offended. And, indeed, if God could be the recipient of suffering, it would be when, by sin, He is driven away by and from us.” “This corrupt expression: ‘Thou hast offended God.’” “Thou couldst discover, (O soul,) that God is continually willing whatsoever our true selves are wishing; He is ever aiming at nothing but at our own true spiritual advantage.”[226]

Hence happiness and joy, different from all mere pleasure, ever accompany this reconquest of our true self-love and this our re-donation of it to its true source. “Man was created for the end of possessing happiness. And having deviated from this his end, he has formed for himself a false, selfish self, which in all things struggles against the soul’s true happiness.” “This divine love is our proper and true love.” “Man can truly know, by continual experience, that the love of God is our repose, our joy, and our life; and that (false) self-love is but constant weariness, sadness, and a (living) death of our true selves, both in this world and in the next.” “All sufferings, displeasures, and pains are caused by attachment to the false self. And although adversities many a time seem to us to be unreasonable, because of certain considerations which we believe to be true and indeed quite evident; yet the fact remains that it is our own imperfection which is preventing us from seeing the truth, and this it is which causes us to feel pains, suffering, and displeasure.” “O Love! if others feel an obligation to observe Thy commandments, I, on my part, freely will to have them all ten, because they are all delightful and full of love.… This is a point which is understandable only to him who himself experiences it; for in truth the divine precepts, although they are contrary to our sensuality, are nevertheless according to our own spirit which, of its very nature, is ever longing to be free from all bodily sensations, so as to be able to unite itself to God through love.”[227]

4. _The true self instinctively hungers after God._

The sayings as to the close correspondence between the true self and God lead us on easily to those about the true self’s instinctive recognition of God, and its hunger for the possession, for the _interiorization_ of God. “If I were to see the whole court of heaven all robed in one and the same manner, so that there would be no apparent difference between God and the Angels: even then the love which I have in my heart would recognize God, in the same manner as does a dog his master. Love knows how, without means, to discover its End and ultimate Repose.” “If a consecrated Host were to be given me together with other non-consecrated ones I would, I think, distinguish It by the taste, as wine from water.”--“When she saw the Sacrament upon the Altar in the hand of the priest, she would exclaim within herself (as it were, addressing the priest): ‘O swiftly, swiftly speed It to the heart, since It is the heart’s own food.’”[228]

5. _Superiority of interior graces over exterior manifestations. No good within herself apart from divine grace._

Catherine’s hunger for the interiorization of all the external helps of religion, even, indeed specially, of the Holy Eucharist Itself, leads us on to her statements as to the superiority of interior graces and dispositions over all exterior manifestations and sensible consolations, and as to the nature of acts produced by the false self or apart from the grace of God. “If we would esteem the operations of God” as they truly deserve, “we should attend more to things interior than to exterior ones.… The true light makes me see and understand that we must not look to what proceedeth from God to aid us in some special necessity and for His glory, but that we must look solely to the pure love with which He performs His work with regard to us. When the soul perceives how direct and pure are the operations of love, and that this love is not intent upon any benefit that we could confer upon It, then indeed the soul also desires, in its turn, to love with a pure love, and from the motive of the divine love alone.”[229]

“This not-eating of mine is an operation of God, independent of my will, hence I can in nowise glory in it; nor should we marvel at it, for to Him such an operation is as nothing.”--And to her Confessor Don Marabotto she says reprovingly, when he too wanted to smell the strange, strengthening odour which she smelt on his hand: “Such things as God alone can give” (_i.e._ states and conditions in the production of which the soul does not co-operate) “He does not give to him who seeks them; indeed, He gives them only on occasion of great need, and in order that we may draw great spiritual profit from them.”[230]

“If I do anything that is evil, I do it myself alone, nor can I attribute the blame to the Devil or to any other creature but only to my own self-will, sensuality, and other such malign movements. And if all the Angels were to declare that there was any good in me, I would refuse to believe them, because I clearly recognize how that all good is in God alone, and that in me, without divine grace, there is nothing but deficiency.”--“I would not that, to my separate self, even one single meritorious act should ever be attributed, even though I could at the same time be certified of no more falling from henceforward and of being saved; because such an attribution would be to me as though a Hell.” “Rather would I remain in danger of eternal damnation than be saved by, and see, such an act of the separate self.” “The one sole thing in myself in which I glory is that I see in myself nothing in which I can glory.”

“Yet it is necessary that we should labour and exercise ourselves, since divine grace does not give life nor render pleasing unto God except that which the soul has worked; and without work on our part grace refuses to save.”--“We must never wish anything other than what happens from moment to moment, all the while, however, exercising ourselves in goodness. And to refuse to exercise oneself in goodness, and to insist upon simply awaiting what God might send, would be simply to tempt God.”[231]

6. _God is Pure Love, Grace, Peace, and the Soul’s True Self._

The passages concerning the close relations between man’s pure love and instinct for God, and Pure Love, God Himself, easily lead us on to those in which Pure Love, Peace, Grace, the True Self, indeed the Essence of all things are positively identified with God. “Hearing herself called” to any office of her state or of charity, “she would,” even though apparently absorbed in ecstatic prayer, “arise at once, and go without any contention of mind. And she acted thus, because she fled all self-seeking as though it were the devil. And she felt at such times as though she could best express her feelings by means of the glorious Apostle’s words: ‘Who then shall separate me from the love of _God_?’ and the remainder of the great passage. And she would say: ‘I seem to see how that immovable mind of St. Paul extended much further than he was able to express in words; since Pure Love is God Himself: who then shall be able to separate Him from Himself?’” Elsewhere and on other occasions we find her declaring: “Love is God Himself”; “Pure Love is no other than God”; “the Divine love is the very God, infused by His own immense Goodness into our hearts.”[232]

She also declares that: “Grace is God”; that “Peace is God,”--“wouldest thou that I show thee what thing God is? Peace,--that peace which no man finds, who departs from Him.” And further still: “The proper centre of every one is God Himself”; “my _Me_ is God, nor do I recognize any other _Me_, except my God Himself;” “my Being is God, not by simple participation but by a true transformation of my Being.” “God is my Being, my _Me_, my Strength, my Beatitude, my Good, my Delight.” Indeed “the glorious God is the whole essence of things both visible and invisible.”[233]

All these startling statements are but so many expressions of one of the most characteristic moods and attitudes of her mind and heart. For in her vehemence of love and thirst for unification she would exclaim: “I will have nothing to do with a love that would be _for_ God or _in_ God; this is a love which pure love cannot bear: since pure love is (simply) God Himself”; “I cannot abide to see that word _for_, and that word _in_, since they denote to my mind a something that can stand between God and myself.”[234]

All this doctrine would be summed up by her in certain favourite expressions. “She was wont often to pronounce these words: ‘Sweetness of God, Fulness of God, Goodness of God, Purity of God’”; and at a later time “she had continually on her lips the term ‘(clear) Fulness’” (Self-adequation, _nettezza_).[235]

II. SIN, PURIFICATION, ILLUMINATION.

1. _The soul’s continuous imperfection. Self-love and Pure Love, their contradictory characters. Every man capable of Pure Love._

Catherine’s extreme sensitiveness is no doubt a chief cause of the peculiar form in which she experiences her sinfulness and faults and their actually slow purification, as expressed in those of her sayings which refer to the growth of love and to the continuous imperfections of the soul. “From the time when I began to love Him, that love has never failed me”; “indeed it has continually grown unto its consummation in the depths of my heart.” This growth takes place only step by step; and is in reality never complete, and never without certain imperfections. “The creature is incapable of knowing anything but what God gives it from day to day. If it could know (beforehand) the successive degrees that God intends to give it, it would never be quieted.” “When from time to time I would advert to the matter, it seemed to me that my love was complete; but later, as time went on and as my sight grew clearer, I became aware that I had had many imperfections.… I did not recognize them at first, because God-Love was determined to achieve the whole only little by little, for the sake of preserving my physical life, and so as to keep my behaviour tolerable for those with whom I lived. For otherwise, with such other insight, so many excessive acts would ensue, as to make one insupportable to oneself and to others.” “Every day I feel that the motes are being removed, which this Pure Love casts out (_cava fuori_). Man cannot see these imperfections; indeed, since, if he saw these motes, he could not bear the sight, God ever lets him see the work he has achieved, as though no imperfections remained in it. But all the time God does not cease from continuing to remove them.” “From time to time, I feel that many instincts are being consumed within me, which before had appeared to be good and perfect; but when once they have been consumed, I understand that they were bad and imperfect.… These things are clearly visible in the mirror of truth, that is of Pure Love, where everything is seen crooked which before appeared straight.”[236]

And yet the slowness of this purification is, in the last resort, caused, if not by the incomplete purity of her love, at least by the deep-rootedness and evasive character of the wrong self-love that has to be extirpated. “This our self-will is so subtle and so deeply rooted within our own selves, and defends itself with so many reasons, that, when we cannot manage to carry it out in one way, we carry it out in another. We do our own wills under many covers (pretexts),--of charity, of necessity, of justice, of perfection.” But pure love sees through all these covers: “I saw this love to have so open and so pure an eye, its sight to be so subtle and its seeing so far-reaching, that I stood astounded.” “True love wills to stand naked, without any kind of cover, in heaven and on earth, since it has not anything shameful to conceal.” And “this naked love ever sees the truth; whilst self-love can neither see it nor believe in it.” “Pure love loves God without any _for_ (any further motive).”[237]

And man, every man, is capable of this pure love and of the truth which such love sees: “I see every one to be capable of my tender Love.” “Truth being, by its very nature, communicable to all, cannot be the exclusive property of any one.”[238]

2. _Exactingness of Pure Love._

The next group of sayings deals with the purity of Love, and the severity with which this purity progressively eliminates all selfish motives and attachments, whilst itself becoming increasingly its own exceeding great beatitude. “Pure Love loves God without why or wherefore (_perchè_)” “Since Love took over the care of everything, I have not taken care of anything, nor have I been able to work with my intellect, memory and will, any more than if I had never had them. Indeed every day I feel myself more occupied in Him, and with greater fire.” “I had given the keys of the house to Love, with ample permission to do all that was necessary, and determined to have no consideration for soul or body, but to see that, of all that the law of pure love required, there should not be wanting the slightest particle (_minimo chè_). And I stood so occupied in contemplating this work of Love, that if He had cast me, body and soul, into hell, hell itself would have appeared to me all love and consolation.”[239]

Yet the corresponding, increasing constraint of the false self is most real. “I find myself every day more restricted, as if a man were (first) confined within the walls of a city, then in a house with an ample garden, then in a house without a garden, then in a hall, then in a room, then in an ante-room, then in the cellar of the house with but little light, then in a prison without any light at all; and then his hands were tied and his feet were in the stocks, and then his eyes were bandaged, and then he would not be given anything to eat, and then no one would be able to speak to him; and then, to crown all, every hope were taken from him of issuing thence as long as life lasted. Nor would any other comfort remain to such an one, than the knowledge that it was God who was doing all this, through love with great mercy; an insight which would give him great contentment. And yet this contentment does not diminish the pain or the oppression.”[240]

3. _Blinding effect of all self-seeking. The gradual transformation of the soul._

There is next a group of sayings as to the immense, blinding and staining effect of even slight self-seekings, and as to how God gradually transforms the soul. “God and Sin, however slight, cannot live peaceably side by side (_stare insieme_). Since some little thing that you may have in your eye does not let you see the sun, we can make a comparison between God and the sun, and then between intellectual vision and that of the bodily eye.” “After considering things as they truly are, I find myself constrained to live without self.” “Since the time when God has given the light to the soul, it can no more desire to operate by means of that part of itself which is ever staining all things and rendering turbid the clear water of God’s grace. The soul then offers and remits itself entirely to Him, so that it can no more operate except to the degree and in the manner willed by tender Love Himself; and henceforth it does not produce works except such as are pure, full and sincere; and these are the works that please God-Love.”[241]

“I will not name myself either for good or for evil, lest this my (selfish) part should esteem itself to be something.” “Being determined to join myself unto God, I am in every manner bound to be the enemy of His enemies; and since I find nothing that is more His enemy than is self in me, I am constrained to hate this part of me more than any other thing; indeed, because of the contrariety that subsists between it and the spirit, I am determined to separate it from all the goods of this world and of the next, and to esteem it no more than if it were not.”[242]

“When she saw others bewailing their evil inclinations, and forcing themselves greatly to resist them, and yet the more they struggled to produce a remedy for their defects, the more did they commit them, she would say to them: ‘You have subjects for lamentation (_tu hai li guai_) and bewail them, and I too would be having and bewailing them; you do evil and bewail it, and I should be doing and be bewailing it as you do, if God Almighty were not holding me. You cannot defend yourself, nor can I defend myself. Hence it is necessary that we renounce the care of ourselves unto Him, Who can defend this our true self; and He will then do that which we cannot do.’”[243]

“As to the annihilating of man, which has to be made in God, she spoke thus: ‘Take a bread, and eat it. When you have eaten it, its substance goes to nourish the body, and the rest is eliminated, because nature cannot use it at all, and indeed, if nature were to retain it, the body would die. Now, if that bread were to say to you: “Why dost thou remove me from my being? if I could, I would defend myself to conserve myself, an action natural to every creature”: you would answer: “Bread, thy being was ordained for a support for my body, a body which is of more worth than thou; and hence thou oughtest to be more contented with thine end than with thy being. Live for thine end, and thou wilt not care about thy being, but thou wilt exclaim (to the body): ‘Swiftly, swiftly draw me forth from my being, and put me within the operation of that end of mine, for which I was created.’” … The soul, by the operation of God, eliminates from the body all the superfluities and evil habits acquired by sin, and retains within itself the purified body, which body thenceforth performs its operations by means of these purified senses.… And, when the soul has consumed all the evil inclinations of the body, God consumes all the imperfections of the soul.’”[244]

In each particular instance, the process was wont to be as follows: “When her selfish part saw itself tracked down by Love, Catherine would turn to Him and say: ‘Even though it pain sense, content Thy will: despoil me of this spoil and clothe me with Love full, pure and sincere.’”[245]

4. _Suddenness and gratuitousness of God’s light; the obstacles to its operation._

We get next a set of apparently contrary sayings, concerning the suddenness of God’s illumination; how the degree of this light cannot be determined by man; and what are, nevertheless, the conditions under which it will not act. In some cases, “the soul is made to know in an instant, by means of a new light above itself, all that God desires it to know, and this with so much certainty that it would be impossible to make the soul believe otherwise. Nor is more shown it than is necessary for leading it to greater perfection.” “This light is not sought by man, but God gives it unto man when He chooses; neither does the man himself know how he knows the thing that he is made to know. And if perchance man were determined to seek to know a little further than he has been made to know, he would achieve nothing, but would remain like unto a stone, without any capacity.”[246]

And she would pray: “Be Thou my understanding; (thus) shall I know that which it may please Thee that I should know. Nor will I henceforth weary myself with seeking; but I will abide in peace with Thine understanding, which shall wholly occupy my mind.” “If a man would see properly in spiritual matters, let him pluck out the eyes of his own presumption.” “He who gazes too much upon the sun’s orb, makes himself blind; even thus, I think, does pride blind many, who want to know too much.” “When God finds a soul that does not move, He operates within it in His own manner, and puts His hand to greater things. He takes from this soul the key of His treasures which He had given to it, so that it might be able to enjoy them; and gives to this same soul the care of His presence, which entirely absorbs it.”[247]

5. _God’s way of winning souls and raising them towards pure love. The fruits of full trust._

The next group can be made up of passages descriptive of the dealings adopted by God with a view to first winning souls as He finds them, and then raising them above mercenary hope or slavish fear; and of the childlike fearlessness inspired by perfect trust in God. As to the winning them, she says: “The selfishness of man is so contrary to God and rebellious against Him, that God Himself cannot induce the soul to do His will, except by certain stratagems (_lusinghe_): promising it things greater than those left, and giving it, even in this life, a certain consoling relish (_gusto_). And this He does, because He perceives the soul to love things visible so much, that it would never leave one, unless it saw four.”[248]

And, as to God’s raising of the soul, she propounds the deep doctrine, which only apparently contradicts the divine method just enunciated, as to the necessary dimness of the soul’s light with regard to the intrinsic consequences of its own acts, a dimness necessary, because alone truly purificatory, for the time that runs between its conversion, when, since it is still weak, it requires to see, and its condition of relative purity, when, since it is now strong, it can safely be again allowed to see.“ If a man were to see that which, in return for his good deeds, he will have in the life to come, he would cease to occupy himself with anything but heavenly things. But God, desiring that faith should have its merit, and that man should not do good from the motive of selfishness, gives him that knowledge little by little, though always sufficiently for the degree of faith of which the man is then capable. And God ends by leading him to so great a light as to things that are above, that faith seems to have no further place.--On the other hand, if man knew that which hereafter he will have to suffer if he die in the miserable state of sin, I feel sure that, for fear of it, he would let himself be killed rather than commit one single sin. But God, unwilling as He is that man should avoid doing evil from the motive of fear, does not allow him to see so terrifying a spectacle, although He shows it in part to such souls as are so clothed and occupied by His pure love that fear can no more enter in.”[249]

And as to the full trust of pure love, we have the following: “God let her hear interiorly: ‘I do not want thee henceforward to turn thine eyes except towards Love; and here I would have thee stay and not to move, whatever happens to thee or to others, within or without’; ‘he who trusts in Me, should not doubt about himself.’”[250]

And this Love gives of itself so fully to those that give themselves fully to It, that when asked by such souls to impetrate some grace for them she would say: “I see this tender Love to be so courteously attentive to these my spiritual children, that I cannot ask of It anything for them, but can only present them before His face.” In other cases, as in those of beginners when sick and dying, she would be “drawn to pray for” a soul, and would “impetrate” some special “grace for it.” “Lord, give me this soul,” she would at times pray aloud, “I beg Thee to give it me, for indeed Thou canst do so.” And “when she was drawn to pray for something, she would be told in her mind: ‘Command, for love is free to do so.’”[251]

III. THE THREE CATEGORIES AND THE TWO WAYS.

The next set of sayings so eminently constitutes the aggregation, if not the system, of categories under and with which Catherine habitually sees her types and pictures, and thinks and feels her experiences of divine things, that it will require careful discrimination and grouping.

1. _The Three Categories: “In” Concentration; “Out” Liberation; “Over,” Elevation._