The Dialogue

How avarice reigns among the said ministers, who not only lend money with usury, but also sell and buy benefices and prelacies ; and of the evils which have been brought about in Holy Church by this cupidity.

"Now I will speak to thee of the second column, that is Avarice, through which what My Son gave, with such boundless generosity, is kept in narrow limits through greed. For thou seest His body all open on the wood of the Cross, pouring forth blood from every part, and that He has not redeemed you with gold or silver, but with His

A TREATISE OF PRAYER 281

Blood, through the greatness of His love. Not a part only of the world, but the whole human race, past, present, and to come, was contained in the satisfaction of that sacrifice. And to none of you would the Blood be administered, or the fire of divine love given, had He not first administered and given them. Which He did by virtue of My divine Nature perfectly united to your humanity, and of this Blood so united to Me by the greatness of My love, I have made thee, oh wretched man, a minister. And so great are thy avarice and cupidity that that which My Son acquired on the Cross, namely, the souls redeemed with such love, and that which My Son has given thee, in making thee a minister of the Blood, thou, wretched man that thou art, hast confined in such narrow limits, that in thy avarice thou puttest up the grace of the Holy Spirit to be sold, obliging thy subjects, when they beg it of thee, to buy from thee what thou hast received as a free gift. Thou hast not directed thy appetite to eat souls for My honour, but to devour money, and so closely hast thou fastened up that which thou hast received with such generosity that neither I nor thy neighbour receive anything from thee by free grace or love. The temporal substance which thou receivest for the sake of this Blood, thou acceptest with great generosity, but, wretched miser that thou art, thou art kind only to thyself, and like a thief and a robber worthy of eternal death, thou dost embezzle the property of the poor, and of holy Church, and dost spend it in luxurious delights with shameless men and women, and on thy relations and the education of thy children. Oh ! wretches, where are your real children, the sweet and royal virtues which you ought to have ? Where is the fiery charity with which ycu should minister ? Where is the yearning desire for My honour, and the salvation of souls ? Where is the heart-breaking sorrow with which you should see the infernal wolf carrying off your lambs ? You have none of these things, for in your narrow hearts there is no love for Me, or for them. You only love your selves with sensual self-love, with which you poison yourselves and others. You yourselves are the devils from hell, who swallow up souls with disordinate love ; nothing

282 THE DIALOGUE OF ST. CATHERINE

else gives zest to your appetites. Wherefore it is no cause of trouble to you, that the invisible devil should carry them off, you yourselves being visible devils, and the means by which they are sent to hell. You clothe and fatten your selves, and the other devils with you, with the property of the church, and also your fine horses which you keep for your disordinate delight, and not for any real necessity, for which indeed you might justly keep them. These are the proper delights of men of the world, but your joys should consist in visiting the poor and sick, helping them in their spiritual and temporal needs ; for this and nothing else have I made you My ministers and placed you in such dignity. But having become brute beasts yourselves, you place your delight in other animals. If you could but see the tor ments which are prepared for you, if you do not amend, you would not do so ; you would rather repent of what you have done in the past, and would reform your present conduct. See then, dearest daughter, what right I have to lament over these wretches, and how generously I have behaved to them, and how meanly they treat Me. Is there anything more ? Yes ! As 1 have said to thee, there are some who lend money with usury ; not that they put out an awning like public usurers, but in many subtle ways will they sell time to their neighbour in their cupidity, which thing is in no way lawful. If he should receive some small present in payment over and above the value of the service which he has rendered, in lending money to his neighbour (it being received as part of the value), this also is usury, and so would be everything else that he should receive in payment for waiting, as has been said. And I have ap pointed this wretched man to forbid seculars to do so, but he himself does the same and more also. How then should any one go to him for counsel on this matter ? when he is himself in like fault, and has lost the light of reason, on which account the counsel which he gives is darkened by the passion dwelling in his soul. These and many other sins are born in his narrow greedy heart ; and the words said by My truth when he entered the temple may be re peated here. He found men selling and buying, and, driving

A TREATISE OF PRAYER 283

them out with a lash of cords, said : ' Of my Fathers House, which is a House of Prayer, ye have made a den of thieves.' Thou seest well, sweetest daughter, that they who act thus do indeed turn My church, which is a place of prayer, into a den of robbers. They buy and sell and make merchandise of the grace of the Holy Spirit. For thou seest that those who desire prelacies and benefices in the holy Church, buy them with many presents, offering whatever commodities or moneys they happen to possess. And the wretched sellers do not consider whether the buyer is good or evil, but, out of complaisance and love of the gift which they have received, strive to place this putrid plant in the garden of the holy Church ; and to this end these wretches will give a good account of him to the Christ on earth, so that both of them use falseness and cheating towards the Christ on earth on a point on which they should approach him with the whole simple truth. But if the vicar of My Son should perceive their sins, he ought to punish them, and from the one take away his dignity if he do not amend his evil life ; and as for the other who buys, it would be well that he should be sent to prison, as his part of the bargain, so that he may be corrected for his sin, and that others may take warning and be afraid, so that no one else may imitate him. If the Christ on earth do this, he does his duty, and if he does not, his sin will not be unpunished when he has to give an account before Me of his flock. Believe Me, My daughter, to-day this is not done, and it is on this account that My Church has fallen into such sins and abominations. They do not seek to know, or try to investigate, the good or evil life of those to whom they give prelacies, and if they do seek at all to find out, they ask questions of those who are as bad as themselves, who give nothing but good testimony, because they themselves have similar defects, and think of nothing else except dignity of position, and gentility and riches and polished conversation. Worse than all, it will sometimes be alleged as a motive to the Consistory that the person in question is beautiful. What devilish doings ! They should seek the ornament and beauty of virtue, and they rather look at the beauty of the body. They should

284 THE DIALOGUE OF ST. CATHERINE

seek poor and humble persons who avoid prelacies in their humility, and they choose those who seek them in vanity and inflated pride. They admire knowledge. Knowledge in itself is good and perfect when a learned person is also good, honourable, and humble in life. But if knowledge be joined with a proud, dishonourable, and wicked life it is a poison, and the Holy Scripture does not mean otherwise in its spiritual sense. To one in darkness it seems to me so, because he has lost the light of reason and has obscured the eye of his intellect, with which supernatural light the Holy Scripture was originally written, and should be understood, as I said to thee, more clearly in another place. See then that science, good in itself, is not so in him who does not use it aright ; it rather lights for him a penal fire if he will not amend his life. They should therefore rather seek out men of good and holy life than learned men who live evilly, but they do the contrary. Those who, besides being good and virtuous, are great in learning, they despise as fools, and the poor they avoid, because they have nothing wherewith to pay them. See, therefore, that in My house, which ought to be a house of prayer, and where the pearl of justice ought to shine, together with the light of learning, honour, and holiness, and the odour of truth, lies abound.

" These men should practise voluntary poverty, and watch over souls with true solicitude, snatching them from the hands of devils ; but they, on the contrary, seek for riches and take such care of temporal things that they have altogether abandoned spiritual things, and pay no attention to anything but gambling and laughter and the increase of their temporal substance. The wretched fools do not perceive that this is the way to lose it, whereas if they abounded in virtue, and applied themselves to the care of spiritual matters as they ought to do, they would abound in temporalities. And My spouse has had many rebellions to suffer on account of temporalities, which she ought not to have had. My servants should leave the dead to bury the dead, and follow the doctrine of My Truth, and carry out in themselves My will ; that is to say, they should

A TREATISE OF PRAYER 285

perform the duty I have given them, whereas these men do the contrary, for they bury these dead and transitory things with disordinate affection and solicitude, taking from men of the world their proper occupation. This is displeasing to Me and hurtful to holy Church ; to worldly men, therefore, they should leave these things, and let one corpse bury the other — that is to say, let those whose duty it is take charge of temporal things.

"Why did I say, let the dead bury the dead? The word dead should here be understood in two ways : in one way, when he who administers temporal things does so in the guilt of mortal sin, by the disordinate affection and care which he has for them. The administration of temporal affairs may also be called dead, because it belongs to the body, which is a dead thing, having no life in itself except in so far as it participates in the life of the soul while the latter is with the body, and no more. My anointed ones, therefore, who ought to live like angels, should leave these dead things to the dead, and should themselves govern souls who are living, and never die as regards their essence, administering to them the sacraments and gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit, and feeding them with the spiritual food of a good and holy example. In this way My house would be indeed a house of prayer, abounding in their graces and virtues. But since they do not act thus, but the contrary, I can truly say that My house has become a den of thieves, for they have become merchants with their avaricious bargaining ; and My church has also become a cattle shed, for they live in their dishonour like brute beasts. They have made My church into a stable, and lie there in the filth of their impurity, for they keep their shedevils in the church as a bridegroom his spouse in his own house. See, then, how much evil (and there is much more beyond comparison with what I have told thee) grows from these two foetid and stinking columns — impurity and cupidity."

286 THE DIALOGUE OF ST. CATHERINE