Catherine of Siena as Spiritual Director and Pastoral Theologian
Approaching Catherine and her thought through the Dialogue
may not be the best way of getting to know her. She reveals herself more
easily in the record of her relations with others that we find in her
letters. We see immediately the variety of individuals and circumstances
with which she became involved: prisoners, outcasts, nobles,
businessmen, physicians, lawyers, soldiers, hermits, kings, queens,
cardinals, popes, men and women immersed in the world. They write to her
with all sorts of questions, looking for help in all kinds of
situations and difficulties.
Her
letters were spoken rather than written – she learned to write only
three years before her death – and her
vitality, adaptability, fearlessness, and insight are all clearly
present in them. They reveal her warm, understanding tenderness for men
and women, no matter what the shame or confusion that has come upon
them. She shows extraordinary understanding and compassion for the
problems that afflict human hearts.
We can sketch as follows her way of responding to people as revealed in her letters:
1)
she rarely begins with rebuke striking first a note of humility – she
describes herself as ‘servant and slave of the servants of Jesus Christ’
or some such
2)
next comes a meditation on some theme, the wonder of Divine Love, the
duty of prayer, the nature of obedience – something to lift her
correspondent above the world to remember God and His kingdom
3)
then a quick return to the problem at hand, highlighted now by being
contrasted with what has just been said about the kingdom
4)
but Catherine always goes with her correspondent into that place of
dismay or difficulty no longer writing ‘you’ but always ‘we’ – it is as
if she feels the sadness and guilt of the sins of others, a strange kind
of solidarity with people in their distress and need
5)
she is saved from arrogance by identifying herself with the person to
whom she writes; she does not pause in reprobation of evil but moves
quickly to an impassioned appeal, showing great confidence in people
(often misplaced
as it turned out),
6)
this attitude is sustained by her frequent discussions of charity and
tolerance, constantly urging her disciples and friends to put the
highest possible construction on their neighbours’ actions
7)
she loves the text ‘in my Father’s house are many mansions’: many
characters, temperaments and practices coexist in the house of God.
It
is all about ‘repentance’, quickening it by a positive method, not by
spending too much time analyzing evil or rubbing
in the consequences of sin, but by seeking to enkindle in souls the
‘holy desire’ which is not only the watchword of her teaching but the
key to her personality.
Let
us look at this 'method' of Catherine in her letter to Sr Daniella of
Orvieto who, we are told, 'not being able to carry out her great
penances had fallen into deep affliction'. There is kindness and wisdom
in how Catherine compares her own faults with those of Daniella. She
agrees that what Daniella seeks is good but tries to show her a greater
good that is even more desirable. What in the hands of another person
might have been simply a criticism of Daniella's behaviour and a call to
change it, becomes instead a rich theological meditation, referring
everything to God and to the ways in which Daniella's relationship with
God can be strengthened.
Catherine
stands alongside Daniella, they look together towards God and the ways
in which God, through our holy desire for him, brings us into sharing
God's own love and wisdom. Catherine clearly worries that Daniella's
strictness with herself will lead to an unhelpful strictness with
others. This will be counter-productive, she fears, leading people into
the same despair that afflicts Daniella. Pastoral care does not mean
increasing the distress of the other person but rather 'making oneself
ill with them', and giving what healing one can in order to enlarge
their hope. We need to repent, don't we, Catherine concludes, from our
complementary errors, so that we will grow in virtue and be the people
God wants, able to guide others.
Catherine
wants to see in Daniella ‘the holy virtue of discretion’, which has its
roots in ‘the knowledge of ourselves
and of God’. As Catherine explains it, discretion combines aspects of
prudence and charity. Discretion is ‘an offspring of charity’, she says,
whose chief act is this: ‘having seen in a reasonable light, what it
ought to render and to whom, it renders this with perfect discretion at
once’. The ‘order of charity’ is God – oneself – others.&
Different
kinds of discretion are required of different people depending on their
state of life, responsibilities,
relationships and commitments. ‘But let us now talk to ourselves’, she
says turning to Daniella’s particular indiscretion, and adding ‘we will
speak in particular, and so we shall be speaking in general too’.
Discretion
regulates not only charity to one’s neighbour but also prayer and the
desire for virtue. It rules and orders
the creature physically, withdrawing the body from indulgences, luxuries
and the conversations of worldlings, and giving it conversation with
the servants of God. It imposes restraint on the members of the body
that they be modest and temperate: eye, tongue, ear, hand, and feet.
But
all this is to be done not indiscreetly but with ‘enlightened
discretion’. How? By the soul not placing its chief
desire in any act of penance. Penance must be used as a means and not as
a chief desire. Why not? So that the soul may not serve God with a
thing that can be taken from it and that is finite but with holy desire
which is infinite
through its union with the infinite desire of God and with the virtues
that cannot be taken from us unless we choose. ‘If I build my chief
principle in bodily penance, I build the city of my soul upon the sand’,
but if I build upon
the virtues, ‘founded upon the Living Stone, Christ sweet Jesus, there
is no building so great that it will not stand firmly, nor wind so
contrary that it can ever blow it down’.
Penance
easily becomes a matter of self-will, making us weak and inconstant
whereas ‘the love of virtue and
endurance through Christ crucified’ makes us strong and persevering. The
soul then ‘finds prayer in every place’ because ‘holy desire prays
constantly’ in the house of our soul. The beginning of so great good is
discretion. Discretion
seeks to present to others the foundation it has found, the love and
teaching it has received, and to show these by its life and doctrine. It
‘comforts the soul of its neighbour and does not confound him by
leading him into despair when he has fallen into some fault; but
tenderly it makes itself ill with that soul, giving him what healing it
can, and enlarging in him hope in the Blood of Christ crucified’.
Therefore
‘I summon thee and me to do what in past time I confess not to have
done with that perfection which I should’. I have been over-lax and
easy-going compared to you, Catherine says to Daniella, but it seems now
that your strictness is out of all bounds of discretion, indiscretion
making you feel some of its results and quickening your self-will. ‘I am
very much distressed at this and I believe that it is a great offence
against God’.
Let
us love virtue, then, and kill self-will, undertaking a regular life in
moderation but not intemperately, that we may hasten on the road of
virtue and guide others. Catherine concludes: ‘Forgive me should I have
talked too presumptuously; the love of thy salvation, through the honour
of God, is my reason.’
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