Chapter I: A Child of Grace

Sunday, December 2, 2012 (Dec 3^rd in the airport, uploaded later)

Chapter I

This Advent, I decided that I would read through Sigrid Undset’s biography of Catherine of Siena (or, at least, one chapter a day) and reflect on my impressions from the chapter.  I have been reading this work in fits and starts for awhile, and I thought this would be a good way to commit to the reading.

Sigrid Undset’s book is quite beautifully written – she’s a Nobel prize winner who eventually converted to Catholicism and joined a holy order because of her research into my name saint.  A lot of her own philosophy – or at least her own learning of the catechism and teachings of the Church – come through and may be a lot of what I discuss in these entries.

One of the reasons I want to do this project is that something really struck me about St. Catherine of Siena – who took three years out of the world before she emerged to set it on fire with faith – and Sir Isaac Newton – who took three months alone in his little room to learn all of science before creating a new view of the physical universe.  I think there’s a play in that connection.  I’ve also always seen one between great scientists and saints – the pure pursuit of something inexplicable but not impossible to experience, just beyond what everyone else sees.

We’ll see if anything ever comes of it.

Chapter I

Honestly, there are a lot of things in this chapter that I could write about.  Firstly, there’s the image adjustment I did on Catherine’s life when I learned that Dr. Carole Levin (for all I adore her and cannot thank her enough for properly introducing me to my patron saint) had Catherine Benincasa’s home life wrong.

Catherine was the 23^rd child of Lapa and Jacopo, but Jacopo was not a fisherman.  He was a dyer, and he was reasonably well-off.  Dr. Levin had made a point that all the other female visionaries we had studied had started as wealthy or even aristocratic women, but Catherine was no one.  Even to be an anchoress, well, you’ve got to have a certain amount of resources.  Catherine was not nearly that well off, but there is another thing you need to be an anchoress or even just an ordered nun – you need a family that supports your decision, and can spare you.  That’s what Catherine had to win the hard way at the very start of her spiritual journey in earnest.  That will come with later chapters though, so no need to spend this entry on it.

The first time I read the first chapter, I was struck by the fact that Catherine had a twin sister, Giovanna, who did not live long.  That’s when the Lapa monologue from last Lent happened (read Lapa’s lament here).  There’ll be a lot on Lapa as time passes.

This time reading, though, two things really struck me.  The first was a line of Undset’s: “… it is a fact that grace does not change our inner nature but perfects it.”  I love that, I really do.  God does not remake us, he makes us the best that we personally have in us.  He takes the raw clay and makes it his vessel, rather than transforming us into something like the angels.  The saints are still like us – they are precisely what they would have been otherwise, only they met their potential for goodness and light.

The other is the story of a child Catherine running away from the city to become a hermit then, after praying for some time, realizing that God did not want a reclusive life for her – nor for her to frighten the wits out of her parents in this way.  She was also much too young to care for herself as a hermit, I will point out.

She had already had her first vision, and she had begun her devotions (and self-flagellations, which I have many Thoughts about but I haven’t worked through them yet and don’t feel like it in the airport right now).  She had, in effect, already been called.  She just didn’t know where yet.

That’s quite a spot to be in, and I think a lot of people stall out at this point.  But Catherine has already shown us the proper course – you try something, pray about it, and listen.  If it’s wrong, well, you scurry back home and (if you’re as lucky as little Catherine Benincasa was) no one even noticed.  If it’s right, you keep doing it.

What child-like wisdom indeed.  If you feel a call, don’t wait for an explanation.  Try what you think it might be, and then pray to see if it’s right.  If so, stay in the cave.  If not, go home.

And try again.

This is a lesson I could really stand to learn.