WHEN HE WAS IN FLORENCE


One questions whether Catherine's brother would have relished the
admonitions of his saintly sister, had he known what we learn through her
biographer: that, feeling the temporal prosperity of her family to be a
snare to them, she had earnestly prayed that they might fall into poverty.
The petition was promptly granted: worldly losses, and the departure of
two of the brothers for Florence, followed upon the Sienese Revolution of
1368. Apparently, family misunderstandings accompanied these
readjustments. In the first of the present letters Catherine takes her
elder brother to task for neglect of his mother, Monna Lapa. We do not
know the effect of her remarks, but we do know that in the large family of
twenty-four, no one except Catherine herself--first recluse, and later
busy woman of affairs as she was--seems to have carried the
responsibility for the mother's welfare. The mother lived for the most
part with her great daughter, except when public interests took Catherine
away from home--occasions to which poor Monna Lapa was never reconciled.

In the second of these notes, Catherine comforts her brother very sweetly,
probably for the loss of his wealth. But if we may judge from the nature
of the reflections addressed to him, the spiritual instruction by which
Benincasa was capable of profiting was extremely elementary in character.


In the Name of Jesus Christ crucified and of sweet Mary:

Dearest brother in Christ Jesus: I Catherine, a useless servant, comfort
and bless thee and invite thee to a sweet and most holy patience, for
without patience we could not please God. So I beg you, in order that you