Chapter V: The Hermit Reenters the World

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Catherine of Siena by Sigrid Undset
Chapter V

I think this is the most miraculous story, really.  Or at least tonight it really struck me.  Because this is the chapter covering the years after Catherine first came out of seclusion.

If I ever do write that play, either the first act or the last scene will have to be that moment when, upon Jesus giving her instructions and after some debate, Catherine walks down to have dinner with her family (large and sprawling) for the first time in three years.  What that scene must have been.  I can imagine them thinking that she had grown tired of the life, or that she had stumbled here to give them some lecture/message, or perhaps just sheer confusion.  I imagine the smaller grandchildren in the house asking who this was.  I imagine a lot of things, and we have no account of it.  It is a scene pregnant with meaning and significance.

It was the start of hermit Catherine coming out into the world - and the really remarkable thing is that she stayed precisely the same.  She fell into ecstasies and had long, involved visions and conversations with God - completely lost to the world and apparently protected from it as well - in public.

There are stories of her falling in fires about her chores, of being carried out (stiff as a board) of the church so that they could close up for the afternoon siesta and being spat upon by passers-by.  There are stories of her frantic mother trying to carry her or at least straighten her limbs unsuccessfully.

She was a visionary, right out in plain sight.  What courage that must have taken.  What trouble that must have caused.

Of course, her first priority was tending to the poor.  I love the description of her getting a reputation for generosity then being able to spot and deflect the swindlers.  I particularly love the comment Undset makes that her standards for worthy of charity and not worthy were often very different from the world's.  I'd have liked more details on that, Sigrid.

There is also an interesting section on Catherine's obedience to her spiritual directors - without bowing to them.  There's a lot of the obligatory "I am a poor woman" rhetoric in this chapter, as in all her letters, but once she starts, Catherine is all iron will.  And she is not afraid to speak her mind.  Undset describes her relationship with her confessors as "extraordinary" and I hope we learn much, much more in the time to come.

It soothes something in what has always made me uncomfortable about vows of obedience to see her not afraid to assert her own judgment and will.  It is the spark of the Catherine I love to hear about, rather than the one I find it difficult to face.  Of course, the spark and will come from the place I find unsettling.  I'm not sure at all what to do with that.

But tonight I am in awe of her - to find the same contemplative joy in the midst of doubt and scorn and just the business of the world as she did in her cell.  To be as bold in her love of God amongst those who cannot understand as she was when alone.