Now I say: Thanks, thanks be to the Highest God Eternal, who has placed us in the battlefield as knights, to fight for His Bride with the shield of holiest faith. The field is left free to us by that virtue and power which routed the devil who possessed the human race; who was routed, not in the strength of humanity, but of Deity. Thus the devil neither is nor shall be routed by the suffering of our bodies, but by strength of the fire of divine, most ardent, and immeasurable love.
TO MASTER RAIMONDO OF CAPUA OF THE ORDER OF THE PREACHERS
In the Name of Jesus Christ crucified and of sweet Mary:
Dearest and sweetest father in Christ sweet Jesus: I Catherine, servant and slave of the servants of Jesus Christ, write to you in His precious Blood; with the desire to see you a pillar newly established in the garden of Holy Church, like a faithful bridegroom of truth, as you ought to be; and then shall I account my soul as blessed. Therefore I do not wish you to look back for any adversity or persecution, but I wish you to glory in adversity. For by endurance and in no other wise we show our love and constancy, and give glory to God's Name. Now is the time, dearest father, wholly to lose one's self, not to think of one's self an atom: as the glorious workmen did who were ready with such love and desire to give their life, and watered this garden with blood, with humble continual prayer, and with endurance unto death. Beware lest I see you timid; let not your shadow make you afraid; but be a manly fighter, and never desert that yoke of obedience which the highest pontiff has placed on you. Moreover, in the Order do what you see to be to the honour of God; for the great goodness of God demands this of us, and He has appointed us for nothing else.
Behold what necessity we see in Holy Church; for we see her left utterly alone! Thus the Truth showed, as I write you in another letter. And as the Bride has been left solitary, so is her bridegroom. Oh, sweetest father, I will not be silent to you of the great mysteries of God, but I will tell them the most briefly that I can, so far as the frail tongue can express them by telling. And further, I say to you what I want you to do. But receive what I say to you without pain, for I do not know what the Divine Goodness will do with me, whether It will have me remain here, or will call me to Itself.