I first came across Catherine Benincasa, better known as Catherine of Siena, in The Wisdom of the Saints, a wonderful miscellany of quotes from God’s special pioneers through the ages. I was impressed by the brief snippets I found there that spoke of her undeniable love for the Lord, as well as her wisdom, but at that point she was no more than one name among many in the annals of Church history. In a never-to-be-forgotten moment in Canterbury University Library, just before we left Kent, the Lord took things to the next level. I had asked Him if there was anything special that He wanted me to research before moving far away from these library resources, and He suddenly directed me very clearly to ‘Look up “Weston” in the archives!’

This was where I discovered two wonderful volumes of retreat talks that my great uncle Frank had given a century before to the convent he had founded. I had no idea that they existed, but they launched me into exploring his extraordinary life and pioneering ministry in Africa in much greater detail. Tucked right alongside Frank’s book, however, was another book which I also devoured with great delight: an in-depth and carefully researched biography of Catherine of Siena by her confessor, Raymond of Capua. It is a masterly publication that affords deep insight into her character, as well as providing numerous well-documented accounts of her far-reaching ministry.

It was a great joy some years after that to enjoy an extended stay in Catherine’s house, where I sensed very deeply the beauty and power of her heart commitment and passion for the Lord – something I would never have remotely considered a few years previously.

Sailko, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Come with me back to fourteenth century Siena, a significant city in the medieval period that was actually bigger than either London or Paris. In the quarter known as Fontebranda, the Lord touched the heart of Catherine, the twenty-fifth child of a dyer, at a very early age, and set her apart to serve Him only. This was put to the test when she found herself obliged to refuse the vigorous and repeated attempts by her family to marry her to someone entirely unappealing, when she knew all along that the Lord had asked her to remain single for Him. (Children married young in those days, and many of her brothers and sisters had already departed the family nest.)

Faced with seemingly implacable opposition from her family, and not feeling any call to depart to a convent, Catherine embarked on an extended three-year period in her late teens during which she devoted herself to prayer and seeking the Lord, living apart from her family in her own room within the busy household, and sortieing out only to attend services at the local church of St Dominic’s, just up the road from Fontebranda.

Though Catherine had no opportunity for formal education, and could therefore neither read nor write at that stage in her life, the Lord met with her in powerful ways during these secluded years, all the time preparing her for the subsequent ministry He would entrust to her. She was nearly twenty when the Lord summoned her back into regular life in home and society again. She gradually began to make a profound impact on many people throughout the city as one person after another – many of them highly influential – yielded their lives to the Lord as a result of coming into contact with her, door after door opened for her.

She not only succeeded in bringing many notorious sinners and unbelievers to the Lord but also had great success in reconciling sharply warring dynasties through a combination of the charm of her personality, her willingness to reach out and serve very quarrelsome people, and the power of her Spirit-filled anointing.

News about the remarkable things that were happening soon spread, and Catherine found herself in great demand to do similar things in other cities, as well as to preach and to share the benefits of her God-given wisdom.

No surprise then to learn that she endured all manner of sharp trials and opposition throughout her life. The powers of darkness would not have been doing their job had they not worked overtime to devise all manner of strategies against such a formidable threat to their kingdom. But despite their many slurs and allegations, Catherine became extremely popular in Siena, as she has been ever since. In fact, the time would come when she would need a team of priests to travel with her on her journeys to conduct confession for the many whose hearts were touched.

Blessed with a sweet personality and a profound inner purity, as well as a lively sense of humour, Catherine had precisely the gifts that were needed to reach out to proud and self-centred popes and cardinals, and to urge them toward a more Christ-focused lifestyle. By the end of her life, she had been used to counsel and to challenge not one but two popes, along with numerous kings, princes, and a huge range of other people all over Italy and even far beyond.

Every commission Catherine undertook for the Lord proved highly fruitful, but none were performed except at considerable cost to herself. As one of very few women in the Middle Ages who had the both the wisdom and the opportunity to speak to people in power as spiritual confidants, we can only marvel at the courage she must have needed to embark on such a calling at a time when there was little if any precedent for such a thing – to say nothing of her struggles to overcome the inevitable self-questioning and to gain the reassurance to know that she really was following the Lord’s leading in committing herself to such frontline work – even whilst having to face down the challenges of her detractors on that score, who thought that a woman’s place should be restricted to her own home and family.

Little though she may have realised it, Catherine was serving as a pioneer for multitudes of women who have had to face and fight similar battles. Her sharpest trial of all, however, came not as the result of the deadly plague that swept through Siena of the day (biographies of her life include detailed accounts of how she healed four prominent Christian leaders in the city, as well as being personally involved in burying many others) but rather as the result of the unrest and corruption that were plaguing the Church.

Catherine’s bid to warn the pope to avoid a schism

At a time of great chaos and corruption in the Church, a compromise candidate was elected to the papacy, who took the name Urban VI. Pre-existing tendencies combined with the pressures and the unchecked power the position brings were doubtless part of the reasons that made him a very difficult man to deal with, who caused much upset as the result of his domineering and abrasive ways, as well as his intense innate suspiciousness.

When the Lord sees someone exercising power in bad ways, in His mercy (and sometimes His indignation) He raises up prophets to be their awkward challengers, and to remind them of His ways. One has only to think of Elijah’s challenges to King Ahab, or Jesus’s immediate forerunner, John the Baptist rebuking Herod. Because I am always interested in the back story of how the Lord sets about preparing people to be such courageous ‘messengers’ that I wrote Ravens and the Prophet, based around the life of Elijah.

Studying the life of Catherine of Siena in great detail is highly relevant in this regard. Although she was at her happiest in prayer or reaching out to bring people to Christ, out of love for Him, in her great desire for truth, she often found herself obliged to counsel, warn and rebuke Pope Urban VI, just as she had done his predecessor, Pope Gregory XI. Although often stubborn, Gregory was responsive to Catherine and really appreciated her, and was influenced by her to bring the papacy back from Avignon to Rome after its prolonged 65-year sojourn there.

Deeply concerned at the violent upheavals that were engulfing Rome, a crushing burden came upon Catherine towards the end of her life concerning both the ‘ship of state’ and the ‘barque of St Peter’ – the Church which Jesus had given birth to, and for which He had given His life. In many ways it was not unlike the great burden that Jeremiah bore, and which bore down on him throughout his long years as a prophet and spokesman for Yahweh.

Catherine’s sorrow at seeing Church and nation so far from God’s heart, as against that which they could and should be proved so intense that more than once she was overwhelmed by the seeming failure of God’s purpose for the Church. She continued to do the only thing she knew she had been shown to do: pouring out her whole being to the Lord, and receiving deep reassurances of His presence in response.

Despite the support of many close friends, the grief she felt at seeing such ungodliness in the very place where people should most naturally be looking to see Christ-likeness proved too great a burden to bear any longer. At the same age as Jesus was when He died, she went to be with Him, effectively as the result of a broken heart at seeing the beginning of the unfurling of the schism that she had long dreaded and warned about.

Speaking truth to power

Why am I sharing these glimpses of Catherine’s life and ministry here? In one sense because it affords me a joyful opportunity to introduce friends and readers who are not familiar with her mniistry to this godly prophetic intercessor and witness for Christ. My other reason, however, is because the example of her intense intercessory burden for the whole direction of the Church and nation, and her valiant attempts to wrestle and restrain Urban from his many excesses are a picture of what is needed at this time now, when we see large segments of the Church heading in directions that can only be considered either sub-biblical or extra-biblical.

As a prophetess whose who aim in life was whole aim was that people should bow the knee to Christ, and whose whole life was characterised by integrity, anointing, and willing sacrifice, Catherine refused to turn a blind eye to flawed and highly venal leaders. When Urban VI began his papacy in 1389 quite well, Catherine entertained initial hopes that he would play a crucial role in reforming the Church. But as his darker traits surfaced, she was faced with a problem: how do you challenge people who brook no criticism?

With her sweet character, pure heart and her profound passion for truth, Catherine pleaded with Urban to root out the endemic corruption in the Church, and to appoint men of integrity to be cardinals – as well as to adopt a more diplomatic tone in his treatment of them. For in truth the deeply suspicious and volatile character hinted at earlier soon caused him to demonstrate great harshness and cruelty towards his opponents often indulging in wild gusts of anger and acts of extreme violence.

The Church has always to walk a tightrope between the ideal that God proposes for society, whilst remembering that friendship with the world is a sure recipe for failing to follow in the steps of Jesus. Jesus Himself had nothing to do directly with the political system of his own day. To be sure, He denounced Herod as a fox, but He was more concerned with the fact that those who should have been leading the people into freedom and truth were doing no more than to impose entirely unnecessary legalistic bondages, which caused people to focus on outward ritual rather than inward and upwards realities.

Jesus, who is the Prince of Peace, and the One who joins hearts in perfect unity to Himself and to each other, is also the one who warns against those who seek to impose an oppressive uniformity. We have only to read passages such as His extended denunciation of greedy and hypocritical Pharisees and Sadducees, to see what He feels about those who Heaven considers truly unworthy to lead the nation spiritually. So far as He was concerned, these censorious shepherds neither entered the Kingdom of God themselves, nor did they facilitate the way for others to do so.

While Catherine was a true unifier who drew people closer together in their love for Jesus, in many institutions and governments around the world, (including, to our shame and sadness, many churches) we see divisive spirits at work, spearheaded by autocrats who seem happy only when they have an enemy to harangue. Catherine risked her life trying to reconcile Florence, Siena’s rival city, from its rebellious stance before turning her full attention to plead fervently with Urban to humble himself and to forgive those who opposed him, as well as to be kind and thoughtful towards them, as opposed to torturing and killing them.**

Recognising that Urban was operating as a wolf amongst lambs, Catherine longed for him to serve in a Christ-like spirit, but his was a hard and stubborn heart. It was anything but Catherine’s fault that shortly after her homecoming, Urban acted with such monstrous intransigence that many in the hierarchy of the Church felt they had no option but to appoint Clement VII as an ‘anti-pope’ and for the papacy to revert to Avignon.

What evils invariably follow when a person or a movement is riven with a desire to wreak revenge on those who oppose them, as opposed to entrusting themselves and their cause to the Lord who alone judges fairly. What loss of free speech ensues, and what penalties are directed against those who are tarred and labelled as appearing to take a contrary stand. If only people would heed Paul’s urgent warning not to take revenge, but to leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. (See 1 Peter 2:23 and Romans 12:19)

An extract from Catherine’s last-known letter to Urban VI

One commentator noted that, ‘The whole life of Catherine, indeed, refutes the popular opinion that mystics cannot be trusted to sane judgment or sustained wisdom of action in the confused affairs of this world.’ *** As we see in this letter, Catherine’s tone continues meek and yet firm as she delivers crucial warnings and rebukes. Sadly, Urban was too proud and too stubborn to accept them.

In the Name of Jesus Christ crucified,
Dearest and sweetest father in Christ sweet Jesus: I Catherine, your poor unworthy daughter, write to you with great desire to see a prudence and sweet light of truth in you, in such wise that I may see you follow the glorious St. Gregory, and govern Holy Church with such prudence that it may never be necessary to take back anything which may be ordered or done by your Holiness; even the least word; so that your firmness grounded in the truth may be evident in the sight of God and men, as ought to be the case with the true holy High Priest. I pray the inestimable charity of God that He clothe your soul in this; for it seems to me that light and prudence are very necessary indeed to us, and especially to your Holiness and to anyone else who might be in your place; most chiefly in these current times. Because I know that you have a desire to find these in yourself, I remind you of them, showing you the desire of your own soul.

. . . I beg you that you will receive [your opponents] with as much gentleness as you can, showing them what your Holiness thinks must be done.. . . humbly beg you, that you will aim prudently always to promise that which it ought to be possible to you fully to perform, so that loss, shame, and confusion may not follow later. Pardon me, most sweet and holy father, for saying these words to you. I am confident that your humility and benignity are content that they should be said, and will not feel distaste or scorn for them because they come from the mouth of a most despicable woman; for the humble man does not consider who speaks to him, but pays note to the honour of God, and to truth and his own salvation.

Be you manful . . . in the holy fear of God; wholly exemplary in your words, your habits, and all your deeds. Let all shine clear in the sight of God and men; as a light placed in the candlestick of Holy Church, to which looks and should look all the Christian people.

You need . . . someone who shall be a means of peace, and not of war . . . there are many who do so with such disorder and such impulse of wrath that they depart from all reason and measure. Therefore, I earnestly beg your Holiness to condescend to the infirmity of men, and provide a physician who shall know how to cure the infirmity better than he. And do not wait so long that death shall follow: for I tell you that if no other help is found, the infirmity will grow.

Then recall to yourself the disaster that fell upon all Italy, because bad rulers were not guarded against, who governed in such wise that they were the cause of the Church of God being despoiled. I know that you are aware of this: now let your Holiness see what is to be done. Comfort you, comfort you sweetly; for God does not despise your desire, nor the prayer of His servants. I say no more to you. Remain in the holy and sweet Grace of God. Humbly I ask your benediction.

* A wonderful entourage of high-quality men and women gathered around Catherine, and looked to her for spiritual leadership. (They were known as the Caterinati). But whilst Urban went from bad to worse, Catherine’s faithful followers served the Lord well and multiplied greatly. Millions through the ages have continue to look to her for inspiration. We can learn a lot, for example, from the tone and spirit of many of her 400 surviving letters. These are incredibly precious and poignant, and often have quite a contemporary feel to them.

If you are not familiar with the ministry of Catherine of Siena, there are many insightful biographies to choose from, and all of them a blessing. Three pre-war classics of the same name, Saint Catherine of Siena respectively by Alice Curtayne, G M Antony, and Sigrid Undset make good starting points, as does Arrigo Levasti’s My Servant Catherine.

** See this engraving by Laurens: The revenge of Pope Urban VI (as he tortures his own cardinals).

*** https://catholiclibrary.org/library/view?docId=/Medieval-EN/XCT.053.html&chunk.id=00000137

Photo by Alessio Patron on Unsplash