Chapter XIX: Catherine Under Siege

Thursday, December 20, 2012

Catherine of Siena by Sigrid Undset
Chapter XIX

My little chapter title makes the chapter sound more exciting (or at least eventful and coherent) than it actually was, but if I wanted to pull all of the sections of the chapter together into one idea, that would be it.

Catherine goes to the manor of the Salimbeni family officially to make peace between some of its members at the request of the matriarch (as far as I can tell) of the family.  Once there, however, it becomes clear that the woman also wanted Catherine to cure a servant girl of her possession, which Catherine does.  When she does, despite her fear of such things, it becomes a regular occurrence of bringing Catherine the mad and the possessed to heal.

I wrote before about what it could mean that Catherine still feared and recoiled from the possessed, from wrestling with demons. Perhaps she felt she taxed God's strength and gifts so much that demanding more assistance from Him to deal with yet more temptation and torment seemed unsuitable to her.  Perhaps she had grown so used to the temporal problems she could so easily dismiss that spiritual woes felt beyond her capabilities.  Perhaps we always have human fears and weaknesses to fall back on.

Pope Gregory XI and the town of Siena both complained bitterly that Catherine lingered with the Salimbeni's, as well as the mother of one of her ardent followers who had originally asked Catherine to affect the boy's conversion.  Pope Gregory had become dependent on Catherine and needed her in Florence to help him make the necessary truce there - a truce that Undset suggests his very ambivalence caused him to want to draw a firm line.  The Pope rejected all terms that 'would allow both sides to make peace with honor.'

And then a monk fell in lust with her.  Undset makes a point of saying that the flower of her youth was now gone - after all, 30 in the thirteenth century is not the 30 of today, especially when you keep the kind of diet and regimen as Catherine - but still a man fell passionately for her and despaired to the point of first attempted homicide then eventual suicide when he could not have her.

Catherine never wrote of this, so we do not have a record of what she must have felt.  Catherine, who was always so willing to take responsibility for everything that befell in the entire world, must have been devastated.

Personally, I have limited patience with such things.  I think that for Catherine to take the blame robs the boy of his responsibility.  I believe that it is always, no matter what else happens, your responsibility to be a good person.  [I could have stood to remember that today in CVS, incidentally.]  I believe that circumstances can make following God harder but they cannot force you to stray.

Catherine saw any steadfastness as a gift from God.  She's probably more right than I am.

But there's something about that that bothers me, honestly.  Because if it is all a gift from God, then why does anyone fail?  It's the same reason I can't believe that you must be a Christian to be saved.  Why then would God suffer other religions?  Why would He create a world that would damn good people for the sin of not being born into the correct religion?

I suppose the doctrine of free will means so much more to me than Catherine, just as this world means so much more to me than Catherine.  Perhaps she did not need to demand an explanation for it, as most of the rest of us do.  Because she knew that it was as nothing to the true world of God's love.