Jacopo Benincasa was still a well-to-do master-craftsman, and when Catherine went to him and asked him in private if she could be allowed to take what she needed of his goods to help the poor he gladly gave his consent. She could help herself to whatever she wanted to help the poor, and was to take according to her own conscience and judgment. Not merely did he agree to this while they were in private, but said to the assembled members of the family: “No one is to hinder my beloved daughter when she gives alms, for I have given her authority to do so even though she gives away everything in my house.”
It was he who was the master, and his wife and children had of course to submit to his will. But they soon discovered that it was a wise policy to keep one’s private possessions under lock and key. Frequently when Catherine had to find something in a hurry to give to some poor half-naked creature, she just went into the room of one of her brothers and took a shirt or a pair of stockings for the beggar. Soon the whole underworld of Siena knew that the eccentric daughter of Benincasa, who was supposed to be a saint, gave away the goods of her old father with both hands to all who came and complained of their poverty. Occasionally they got an unpleasant surprise—Catherine was not to be fooled by swindlers, although her Christian charity did not judge of worthiness and unworthiness in exactly the same way as the world did.
She eagerly sought out and brought help to those who suffered poverty in secret. Once, as she lay in bed, so ill that she could scarcely move, she heard of a widow who lived nearby; she had been left, when her husband died, with no money and a crowd of small children, and she was ashamed to beg. When night came Catherine begged her Bridegroom to lend her strength for a little so that she might take some food to the widow’s house. Immediately she felt well enough to get up. She ran up and down stairs collecting in her cell a sack of flour, a large bottle of wine and one of oil, and every kind of food which she could find in her mother’s pantry. It seemed as though it would be impossible for her to carry everything at once, but when she had divided the load evenly, with one package under each arm, the sack of flour on her back and all the small parcels hanging from her belt, she was given strength to carry the whole lot—it must have weighed almost a hundred pounds, she guessed afterwards. She hurried off to the widow’s house before the first signs of daylight. It had often happened before when she went on such errands of charity and did not want to put the recipient to shame, that she had as though by a miracle found the door open, so that she could lay her gifts down inside and disappear without anyone discovering her. This time too the door was not locked, but when she was going to put the things down on the stone floor the door creaked and wakened the widow. Immediately it was as though all the strength ebbed out of Catherine’s body—she could scarcely keep herself on her feet, to say nothing of running away. Bitterly disappointed, she complained to her Lord: “O, You who have always been so good to me, why do You betray me now? Does it amuse You to play with me, to leave me standing here by the door? Soon it will be dawn and I shall be an object of ridicule to all the passers-by.” She begged God to lend her strength to get home, but she had to drag herself along by the walls of the houses. She escaped, but not before the widow had seen a glimpse of her visitor. She knew the costume of the Mantellate, and guessed who it was. It was not yet quite daylight when Catherine stumbled into her cell and collapsed on the bed, completely worn out and just as ill as she had been the day before. Later her companions were to discover that the continual attacks of illness which Catherine had did not seem to follow the laws of nature. In between paroxysms of the most horrible pain and extreme weakness she could get up, full of energy, as though borne on invisible hands, only to collapse again, ill and exhausted, when she had completed her task.
From the time when she began her life of active charity, her familiarity with the secrets of the supernatural world became more apparent to the world around her. When her soul rose upwards in prayer and contemplation, her body became as rigid, cold and insensible as a stone. It happened also that her companions saw the motionless, kneeling woman lifted from the floor “so high that one could put one’s hand between Catherine and the floor”—they had certainly tried for themselves. At other times, and especially after she had received the Body of the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, as she was withdrawn in ecstasy, it was as though her body were flooded with such heat that beads of sweat appeared all over her flushed face.
As the ecstasies came over her most often in church, the whole town was soon talking about her. For her friends, who were convinced that Catherine was a chosen vessel of God, these extraordinary attacks of unconsciousness were a source of awe and joy: when her soul had been lifted up to the presence of Divine Love it always returned bearing gifts for her fellows. Andrea di Vanni, the painter who once, while Catherine was in her twenties, made a sketch of her on a pillar in St. Dominic’s church, firmly believed that she was completely sincere, although it does not seem that he had at that time joined the circle of her nearest friends. He has given us the only authentic portrait we possess of St. Catherine. The lily which she holds in her hand, and the woman kneeling before her, were added after Catherine’s death.
But for some of her townsmen Catherine became exactly what she had dreaded—an object for scandal. Poor Lapa was terrified when her daughter became as stiff as a corpse, and in desperation tried to force her out of this awful condition. She struggled to straighten out the rigid limbs and force up the bowed head. Catherine felt nothing of this while in ecstasy, but when she regained consciousness she suffered unbearable pains after these attempts to bend or straighten her limbs—she said it was as though her mother had tried to break her neck.
Many of her sisters in the order looked with extreme distrust upon this peculiar member of their community. Unconsciously and sometimes consciously too, many of these good and pious women envied Catherine the supernatural gifts of grace which were dispensed to her. For in the Middle Ages, people loved all kinds of wonders, not least those which were considered signs of holiness. Even those who did all they could to evade all contact with the supernatural world were desperately interested in stories of miracles and the miraculous, of saints who saw sights and prophesied. But this girl was not even a nun in a convent; she was the daughter of Jacopo Benincasa and old Monna Lapa; she lived at home with her brothers, who at that time were up to their eyes in the politics of the town; she ran about the streets of Siena considerably more than was seemly according to the good old rules of womanly modesty. No, all that was said about her visions and revelations could not possibly be true. She only wanted people to take notice of her, and these paroxysms of stiffness and blushing in church were obviously not genuine. Even among the Dominicans there were several who doubted, and in any case they did not like Catherine Benincasa disturbing the devotions of good and simple Christians with her extraordinary antics. If she must go to Mass each day let her keep to the back of the chapel.
Sometimes her ecstasies lasted right up to midday when the church was closed for a couple of hours, as was the custom while the whole of Siena took its siesta. Then the churchwardens took the unconscious girl and carried her outside and let her lie in the street in front of the church door. Passers-by, and those who thought that over-zealous Christians and exaggeratedly pious women were a public nuisance, would give her a kick or slap as they went by. When Catherine wakened again she had to limp home covered with bruises and spattered with dirt from the street.
But after a while the little flock who believed in Catherine’s holiness grew. They gathered round this young woman whom they loved because she was always patient, cheerful and smiling; she talked to them of God’s love so wisely and so beautifully, and she was so concerned for them, that they should all obtain eternal bliss. They asked her for advice whenever they had either spiritual or material difficulties, for they knew that her heart burned with love for all mankind. And those who were humble and broad-minded enough to accept her gentleness and tenderness without being jealous or envious of shar
ing it with their fellows, had already begun to feel a childlike affection which the young girl accepted with all the tenderness of a mother when they came and laid the troubles and anxieties of their lives in her hands.
Fra Tommaso della Fonte was still her confessor, and he brought several of his brothers in the order to Catherine; some of them became her faithful spiritual sons and disciples—among others Fra Bartolommeo de Dominici and Fra Tommaso Caffarini, who have both written about their “mother”. Bartolommeo tells us that when he first met Catherine she was still extremely young, sweet and happy by nature, but although he too was very young at that time, he never felt embarrassed when he was with her as he would have felt if he had been with other young girls. The more he talked to her the more he seemed to forget all earthly feelings and passions.
Catherine too, who had once been as afraid of being with young men “as though they were snakes”, now met these friends who were one with her in God’s love, and talked as confidently and freely to them as a good sister. She sent them small gifts, usually bouquets and crosses of flowers which she loved to make. She was very fond of flowers, and although she seldom spoke of it, the beauty of her own Tuscan countryside was a source of great joy to this saint with the soul of a poet.
Among her friends were a widow of noble birth, Alessia Saracini, another Sienese lady, Francesca Gori, who was also a widow and had two sons in the Dominican order, and Giovanna di Capo; these were the first to accept Catherine, who was much younger than themselves, as their “spiritual mother”.
At home, besides her father, she had at any rate one relation who understood her. Lisa, who was married to her brother Bartolommeo, was a cousin of the Blessed Giovanni Colombini—a rich merchant of Siena who one day turned his back on the world, gave everything he possessed to the poor, and founded the order of the Jesuati, a brotherhood of laymen who dedicated themselves to the saving of souls. We do not know whether Catherine ever met Giovanni Colombini, as he did not live in Siena during the last part of his life. But she must have known of his work, both from what Lisa could tell her, and also through the abbess of the Benedictine convent, Santa Bonda, who had been a friend of Colombini, and now became one of Catherine’s friends.
Lisa was also a Mantellata, and had belonged to the order some years when Catherine joined it. But she is not mentioned in the story of Catherine before the saint began her public life. Lisa presumably lived a life of retirement in her home, and served God by carrying out her duties as housewife and mother of many children. The Benincasa home was at this time full of grandchildren, some already almost grownup, and some still infants. Like most Italians, Catherine was passionately fond of children, and once said that if it weren’t for the shame of it she would have liked to spend all her time playing with and petting her small nephews and nieces.
Whatever other work and duties she took upon herself, Catherine continued to be just as industrious in her work about the house as long as she lived in her father’s home. Although her open-handed generosity sometimes annoyed her less unworldly brothers, and although the fact that she was perpetually thrusting her hands into all sorts of dirt and sickness made Lapa furious with disgust and fear of infection, it seemed that a special blessing hovered over the pantry and the cellar when Catherine occupied herself there, drawing wine for the poor, or baking bread for the household. There was for example the story of the wine barrel—the contents of which were as a rule sufficient to slake the family’s thirst for about a fortnight. It was unusually good wine, but to the greater honour of her Lord, Catherine always used to take the best she could find in the house to give to the poor. So each day she went down and filled several bottles of the best wine to give away, and the family too drew wine for the table from the same barrel. But when a month had passed and the barrel seemed just as full of wine, and a wine so delicious that her brothers and father confessed that they had never drunk better—they began to speculate upon this curious fact. Catherine was sure that she knew where this abundance came from, so now she gave away the good wine in every direction to poor people she knew; but the barrel remained just as full for another month, and the wine just as good. Then came the grape harvest, and all the people in the neighbourhood had to prepare their barrels to receive the new wine. The Benincasas’ cellarer said that he would need the barrel in question: could they not transfer the wine in it to another vessel? They had just drawn off a large bottle, and the wine had been as clear and free from dregs as ever, but the next morning when they came down to empty the barrel, they discovered that it was already empty and quite dry. Then the family realised that He who had once turned water into wine to save a poor bridegroom from ridicule could still help His chosen friends in the trivial things of everyday life.
One day Catherine and Lisa were working together in the kitchen. Catherine was turning the meat on the spit over the fire when Lisa saw that her sister-in-law was withdrawn in ecstasy, her body stiff and motionless. Unperturbed, Lisa took over her work, and when the meat was ready carried it up to the table, and afterwards went down and attended to her own family, who were about to take their siesta. When she returned to the kitchen, she discovered that Catherine had fallen forwards into the fire-place, and was lying with her face in the glowing coals. Lisa screamed in fright, “Catherine has burned herself!” But when she dragged her unconscious sister-in-law out of the fire she saw that Catherine had come to no harm—her woollen robe was not even scorched, and there was not the slightest smell of burning.
It seemed as though fire could not harm Catherine when she was in ecstasy. Once in church, while she leaned against the wall, dead to everything around her, a candle fell down on her and wax and wick continued to burn on her head, without setting fire to her veil. Another time she fell into the fire as though an invisible demon had pushed her, but, as always, she came out unharmed. She herself only laughed at these attacks: “Don’t be afraid, it is only Malatasca—”, a name which they used in Siena for the devil because he went round trying to collect the souls of all those he had seduced in his ugly sack—“tasca”.
The more her soul was allowed to fly into that kingdom which surrounds all that is visible, the more an aura of the supernatural seemed to surround her when she regained consciousness again and took up her daily tasks. Her Lord, in His power and majesty, seemed to permit even the most trivial things to be touched by the miraculous and the majestic when Catherine put her hand to them. There was for example the question of the beggars. Like St. Martin and St. Francis, Catherine saw her Bridegroom in the persons of all beggars—“Whatsoever you have done against one of these My brothers, you have done against Me.” And like St. Martin and St. Francis, Catherine also saw in her visions how literally true were these words of Our Lord.
Once when she was in church a beggar approached her, a young man—he looked as though he were a little over thirty. He was so ragged as to be almost naked, and this was in the winter when it can be extremely cold in Tuscany. Catherine asked him to go to her house, saying that she would follow him immediately and find some clothes for him. But the beggar was insistent—he said he was dying of the cold. He looked so wretched that Catherine was overcome with pity. Carefully she slipped her hands under her gown, loosened her sleeveless undergarment and let it fall to her feet: “Take this-” But the beggar was not satisfied: “Thank you, but I must have a shirt too.”
Catherine answered that in that case he must go home with her and she would find him something. She let the beggar wait at the door while she hurried in and ransacked the men’s room, and came back with a shirt and a pair of stockings belonging to her father. But still the beggar was not satisfied: “There are no sleeves in the tunic you gave me, my arms are so cold.”
Catherine replied politely, “Don’t be annoyed at having to wait a little while, I will come back to you as soon as possible.”
But this time she found nothing—until she discovered a dress belonging to the maid hanging on the back of the door. “With divine confidence”,
as Tommaso Caffarini expresses it, she cut out the sleeves and brought them to the beggar, who said “Now you have helped me generously, but in the hospital I have a friend, who is in just as bad a state as I; you must give me some clothes for him too.”
Again Catherine searched the house, but this time she could find absolutely nothing except the maid’s dress, and that she dared not take. But when she returned the beggar smiled, “Now I know that you are charitable, and I will not bother you any more—go with God.”
The night after, as Catherine was praying, the Blessed Jesus appeared to her, dressed in her tunic, but now it glittered with ornaments. He spoke to her: “Daughter, yesterday you clad My nakedness with this tunic, and now I will clothe you”, and out of His side He took a tunic, blood-red and gleaming like the light. “I shall give you this noble garment, invisible to all except you, and yet most useful and valuable, for it will shield you from the cold until the day when, together with all the saints and angels, you shall be clad in the eternal honour and glory of heaven.”
From that day Catherine never wore more than one garment, but she was never cold. Even though it rained and blew and everyone else complained of the cold, she never felt any ill effects.
On another occasion she met a beggar in the street, who asked for alms. In vain Catherine asked him to follow her home—he was so impatient that she was forced to give him something at once. The only thing she could think of was the little silver cross which she had on her rosary. She took it off and gave it to the beggar. But at night Jesus appeared to her and held out a little cross covered with pearls and glittering jewels. “Do you recognise this?” “Yes, Lord, but it was not so beautiful when it was mine.” Jesus said that He would keep this priceless cross for her until she came to Him in heaven.
Catherine only lived a few years in her father’s house, industriously serving her neighbours, while her soul was lost in contemplation of her heavenly Bridegroom. But when, some years later, after Catherine’s death, the Blessed Raimondo and Tommaso Caffarini collected reports of this part of her life, all the friends who had been near her during these years in Siena had such an inexhaustible collection of stories to tell of the miraculous happenings of this time, that it seemed they must have witnessed miracles every day while they lived near her. It seemed natural to them to group the stories of the miracles together according to their kind, as the monks used to do: how Catherine made lifeless objects serve her in her work of charity, how she cared for the sick, looked after the poor, and forced demons to release their hold on the bodies and souls of the possessed. They were not in the least interested in chronology, and we have no chronological indications to guide us until we come to the years in which Catherine’s own letters were written. But it is certain that from the earliest days of her life as the ambassador of Christ among the Sienese, her care for the sick, which filled Lapa with such fear and disgust, led her to the city’s hospitals and to homes where people lay suffering from all kinds of horrible diseases.