In the first year her Lenten fast begins on Lady-Day, in the following years on Quinquagesima Sunday; her Advent fast begins throughout on Martinmas, November 12.
And finally, the number of such fasts cannot be more than twenty-three Lents and twenty-two Advents. The MS. of 1547 has preserved the right tradition of a difference in the numbers of the Lenten and Advent fasts, but has raised the number of the former to a round, symmetrical one. It gives twenty-five Lents and twenty-two Advents. The printed Vita of 1551 levels the numbers respectively down and up to twenty-three Lents and as many Advents.[102] Some further minor physical points will be considered in a later chapter.
3. Effect of these Fasts, and her attitude towards them.
But two other matters are here of direct spiritual interest: the effect of these fasts on her spiritual efficiency, and her own two-fold attitude towards them. For we are told, again I think quite authentically, that during these fasts she was more active in good works, and felt more bright and strong in health, than usual;[103] answering thus to one of the tests put forward by Pope Benedict XIV, for discriminating supernatural, spiritually valuable fasts from simply natural ones. But with him we can find our surest tests in what is altogether beyond the range of the physical and psychical: in her own moral estimate of all these matters. For one thing, there appears here again that noble shrinking from any singularity of this kind within herself, and from all notice on the part of others. “This inability to eat gave her many a scruple at first, ignorant as she was as to its cause, and ever suspecting some delusion; and she would force herself to eat, considering that nature required it. And though this invariably produced vomiting, yet she would make the attempt again and again.” “She would go to table with the others, and would force herself to eat and drink a little, so as to escape notice and esteem as much as possible.”[104] And again here, as in all matters visible and tangible, she shows an impressive loneliness in the midst of her more carnal-minded disciples. “She would say within herself, in astonishment” at their stopping to wonder at things so much on the surface: “If you but knew another thing, which I feel within myself!” And she would declare: “If we would rightly estimate the operations of God, we should wonder more at interior than at exterior things. This incapacity to eat is indeed an operation of God, but one in which my will has no part; hence I cannot glory in it. Nor is there cause for our wondering at it, since for God this is as though a mere nothing.”[105]
4. The fasts form no part of her penitence.
These fasts, although beginning within her first period are not characteristic of it; and her biographers rightly put them into a chapter distinct from her penances, properly speaking. These penances will have continued alongside of, and in between, these fasts for about a year after the beginning of the latter. And then at last, at the end of this first period of four years, “all thought of such (active) mortifications was, in an instant, taken from her mind in such guise that, even had she wished to carry out such mortifications, she would have been unable.” For “the sight of her sins was now taken from her mind, so that she henceforth did not catch a glimpse of them,—as though they had all been cast into the depths of the sea.”[106]
V. Second, Central Period of Catherine’s Convert Life, 1477-1499: its Special Spiritual Features.
We now come to the second, longest, and central period of her life, 1477-1499. But though at first sight Chapters VI to XLII, and XLV of the Vita would seem exclusively to treat of these twenty-two years, examination proves this to be far from the case. If little or nothing from the first period is to be found there, very much from the third is embedded in those pages. And this scantiness of information springs from the simple fact that, during these twenty-two years, her inner life is led by herself alone, without any direct human aid of companionship; and her sufficient health, and the correspondingly large amount of external activity among the sick and poor, leave her but little or no time for those conferences and discourses amongst friends, of which her last period is full. This dearth of evidence is all the more to be regretted, since these central years represent the culmination of her balance and many-sided power.
1. Interior change.
For the first two years of this time she and Giuliano continued to live in their small house of the Portoria quarter, very busy, both of them, amongst the sick and poor, as well in the houses round about as in the Hospital. Indeed, externally, little or no change can have been apparent. It was the interior change, the moving away from the actively and directly penitential state into one of expansive love and joy, which alone, as yet, marked a new period.
2. The Three Rules of Love. The Divine method of the soul’s purification.
Some time during these new beginnings it must have been that “her Love once said within her mind: ‘Observe, little daughter, these three rules. Never say “I will,” or “I will not.” Never say “mine,” but ever say “our.” Never excuse thyself, but be ever ready to accuse thyself.’” And another time He said: “When thou sayest the ‘Our Father,’ take for thy foundation ‘Thy Will be done.’ In the Hail Mary, take ‘Jesus.’ In Holy Scripture take ‘Love,’ with which thou wilt ever go straightly, exactly, lightly, attentively, swiftly, enlightenedly, without error, without guide, and without the means of other creatures, since Love suffices unto itself to do all things without fear or weariness, so that martyrdom itself appears unto it a joy.”[107]
But this her love, just because it is so real and from God, appears indeed to fill her at any given moment, yet it grows and shows her, at each fresh stage, both its own incompleteness and her own imperfection, in her and its former stages. “At any one moment the love of that moment seemed to me to have attained to its greatest possible perfection. But then, in the course of time, my spiritual sight having become clearer, I saw that it had had many imperfections.” “Day by day I perceive that motes have been removed, which this Pure Love casts out and eliminates. This work is done by God, and man is not aware of it at the time, and cannot then see these imperfections; indeed God continuously allows man to see his (momentary) operation as though it were without imperfection, whilst all the time He, before Whom the heavens are not pure, is not ceasing from removing imperfections from his soul.”[108]
As ever throughout her life so now also, consolations are not the aim and end, but only the actual effects of her devotedness, and the ever fresh incentives to increased disinterestedness and self-surrender. And, with regard to these consolations, she again strove to escape all notice. “She would at times have her mind so full of divine love, as to be all but incapable of speaking; and would be in so great a transport of feeling as to be obliged to hide herself so as not to be seen. She would lose the use of her senses and remain like one dead; and, to escape the occurrence of such things, she would force herself to remain in company as much as possible. And she would say to her Lord: ‘I do not want that which proceedeth from Thee, but I want Thee alone, O tender Love.’ But just because her love was so sincere and she fled from consolations, her Lord gave her of them all the more.”[109]
3. Her Ecstasies.
If on one of the many occasions when she had hidden herself away in some secret spot, she was ever discovered by any one, they would find her walking up and down, and seeming as though she would wish to do so without end; or they would come upon her with her face in her hands, prostrate on the ground, entranced, and with feelings beyond description or conception. “These ecstasies would almost always last three or four hours; and if, on coming to herself, she spoke of the wonders she had seen, there was no one to understand her, and so she kept silence.” “And if called during one of these trances, she would not hear, even though they did so loudly.”[110]
This inattention would, however, occur only in case the call was simply one of curiosity. For on other occasions “she would remain as though dead for six hours; but on being called to the doing of any duty, however trifling it might seem, she would instantly arise and respond and go about the doing of this her obligation. And she would thus leave all, without any kind of trouble,