St. Catherine of Siena – The Essential Role of Mystics

Catherine of Siena
Baldassare Franceschini – St. Catherine of Siena

In the Catholic Church, today, April 29, is the feast of St. Catherine of Siena. She is a beloved figure and one of the most important mystics and church leaders in history. Her remarkable life is worth revisiting any day but particularly now for the historical similarities and for the insights it provides into the soul of the church.

Catherine of Siena was born at a time of when the Black Death was decimating Europe. Estimates of the number of people felled by the disease differ, but they range from a third to almost two-thirds of the population. Also, as Black writes, “Less well known is that the plague continued to strike Europe, the Middle East and beyond for the next four centuries, returning every 10 to 20 years.”

In the video, Skipper explains that the pathogen “remains with us today,” speculating that our herd immunity, among other changes, might have led to its decline. Hatcher remarked that “Paradoxically, society was able to cope much better in the fourteenth century with deaths on this horrendous scale than we would be able to cope today, and this is primarily because people were, to a degree, self-sufficient and independent. Whereas today, we have such complex interconnections that deaths on anything like that scale would cause complete chaos.”

Even with relatively preliminary data, it is clear that the coronavirus pandemic is nowhere near as deadly as the Plague was. Hatcher’s statement was quite prescient, as this is indeed what the world has experienced. In spite of the coronavirus being considerably less deadly, it has wreaked tremendous damage, particularly economically.

On the other hand, similar to the Plague, an entirely possible outcome might be that we will have to live with a persistent novel coronavirus much like we live with the flu. We should all have been aware of this possibility from the start of our battle with the virus.

Catherine of Siena – Mystic

Mystics are a special group within the church, and Catherine of Siena is emblematic of them. They have a special relationship with God and live in a way that others might find baffling. Their beings and their lives seem to defy the laws to which the rest of us consider ourselves subject, and their passionate devotion awes and mystifies us.  

More broadly, mystics serve a greater role in the church. They remind us that the church, as a whole, is actually a mystical body. To reprise the thrust of G.K. Chesterton’s argument from yesterday’s post, Christianity is really an irrational religion. Christians are not really about checking piety or other boxes as acts of devotion.

On the contrary, our faith is and always has been expressed by the irrational: the erection of stunningly beautiful testaments of love and devotion to our creator, which are visited by tourists and are destinations of pilgrimage for the faithful the world over, lives of tremendous sacrifice as Catherine of Siena’s or, more recently, Mother Teresa’s of Calcutta. We are called to not measure and calculate our love, but to leave it all behind and to live with faith abandon to our Lord. His will be done.      

Perhaps, it is hard to sense this as most Christians, wrapped up in our daily, often tedious and stressful lives, worship in a more perfunctory but hopefully still sincere manner. We go to weekly services and progress through the liturgical calendar, paying a bit more reverence during its highlights. Again, in reference to yesterday’s post, if we are the “sense,” mystics are the “sensibility” of the church.

They make their way through the world in an enviable communion with God. What would seem entirely irrational for many of us, their reclusion, asceticism, sacrifice and visions, seem entirely in keeping with who they are. In the collective, they, along with the ascetics, are the legacy of John the Baptist, who resided in the dessert, eating locusts and wild honey, calling on his fellow Jews to be baptized, with one notable baptism.

Catherine of Siena’s power and influence in the church, which was considerable, as she is credited with convincing Pope Gregory XI to return to Rome, did not really come from reason. Her power and influence came from her mysticism, her spiritual connection with God.

We are dust and to dust we shall all return. With death or the threat of it seemingly everywhere, let us remember this truth while also remembering that there are those who live and have lived among us who seem to have no fear of death. While their bodies surely return to dust, their spirits soar free of their bodies while still living. That is the power of deep faith in God. It is not rational. It is mystical.

Forty-Eight Hours of Breath

Forty-Eight Hours
Michelangelo – The Last Judgment

Reverend Dr. William Barber recently asked the question, “If you knew you had only forty-eight hours of breath left, what kind of world would you use that breath to fight for? What kind of world, what kind of nation?” It is the question we should all be asking ourselves everyday of our lives. However, many people will never ask it. They will breathe their last in the same stupor or, worse yet, sin in which they lived their lives.

They will care more about death walking through their locked door, instead of passing over it, than about the fact that while living they did not use their time or their lives well and did not treat others the way they ought to have, the way Jesus taught us. They will not have stopped to examine their lives or their conscience. Perhaps because if they had, they might not have liked what they found.

Forty-Eight Hours – As Carnegie Lay Dying

Approximately 100 years ago, as World War I, which had ravaged the world, was coming to an end, only to lead to the economic consequences of the peace and World War II, Andrew Carnegie, one of the richest men in the world, who had amassed a fortune by the cruelest possible treatment and exploitation of his fellow Americans, his workers, lay dying.

How did he choose to live his last hours? Standiford in his biography, Meet You in Hell, says that Carnegie sought reconciliation not with God but with someone possibly even more sinful than he, his once friend and partner turned foe and competitor, Henry Clay Frick. What was Frick’s response? Standiford writes, “‘Yes, you can tell Carnegie I’ll meet him,’ Frick said finally, wadding the letter and tossing it back at Bridge [Carnegie’s personal secretary]. ‘Tell him I’ll see him in Hell, where we both are going.’”

Redemption Cannot Be Bought

In his later years, Carnegie had decided to become a philanthropist. His foundations are numerous, as we all know since they bear his name, and his legacy, Standiford describes as follows: “To this day he is often credited with having established the precedent of corporate philanthropy; as one commentator observed, when Bill Gates makes a gift of some of his hard-earned millions, it is probably the ghost of Andrew Carnegie that guides his outstretched hand.”

I would hope not, for the Gates’s and for the world’s sake. Despite all his philanthropy, Carnegie did not seem to get it even at the end of his life. Perhaps motivated by guilt, fear or legacy, he was determined to remake his image from a brutal plutocrat to a benevolent philanthropist.

One of Jesus’s final acts before his crucifixion was the Last Supper, during which he washed his Apostles’ feet. It is one of the most emotional aspects of Jesus’s life for Christians around the world. It was a profound act of humility and love. I have witnessed many people cry during its reenactment.

By contrast, Carnegie’s final exchange reveals his preoccupation with the world. It hounded him until the end. What do others think of him? Well, he got his answer from Frick. Standiford says, “And all’s well since it is growing better and when I [Carnegie] go for a trial for the things done on earth, I think I’ll get a verdict of ‘not guilty’ through my efforts to make the earth a little better than I found it.”

If Carnegie thought he could buy forgiveness or redemption, Frick disabused him of this notion, and just to turn the sword, confirmed with pleasure that, indeed, Carnegie would end up in hell. Forgiveness is granted by victims and by God. Christians believe that salvation comes through faith and/or works, with their relative measure in debate. The simple and, likely, most honest understanding is that redemption and judgment are God’s purview, and it is best to just live according to the Way, love, trust and surrender to God.

The Last Judgment

I argued that annihilation is the greatest punishment. It is nothingness; it is to be without a soul. Some might have found this surprising. How could nothing be worse than eternal damnation? Well, if hell is an eternal, boiling cauldron of perversity, Frick seemed to relish the continuation of their earthly torments in hell, and better yet, perhaps he hoped that Carnegie, in his final days, would be tortured by yet resigned to this outcome.

This brings us back to the present. The coronavirus pandemic has laid bare many unfortunate truths. One of these is that many of our nation’s people and policies are callous, even cruel, particularly towards the poor and vulnerable. If Carnegie dreaded hell, as he seemed to indicate toward the end of his life, perhaps the larger question is: why did he choose to live a life on earth that he would find miserable in hell? The question for all of us is: if you have forty-eight hours or even forty-eight years to live, what and who are you breathing for?

Death in the Time of Spring

Death in the Time of Spring
Photo: Daniil Silantev on Unsplash

Aside from some weather anomalies, spring seemed to start normally. The snow began melting, and the days grew longer. Then, came the novel coronavirus. The specter of death now looms over the world as nature enters a period of rebirth. It might seem paradoxical, until one considers that it is also Lent, and life, death and rebirth have been married together in that context for approximately 2,000 years.

It is also a fitting topic as the first post on Longing Logos. It is heavy; it is deep, and it is a timeless, universal truth that death is a part of life. Whether one believes in God or not, this is a fact. In this time of panic, I have been calm and at peace. Whenever and wherever death comes, I hope to maintain that peace. I have seen the light, and I know that in death’s darkness, another light will shine.

I pray that peace be also with you.