Discernment in Catherine of Siena

Theological Studies, March, 1997 by Diana L. Villegas

CHARITY AND DISCERNMENT

In Catherine's teaching discernment and charity are inseparably connected. "Charity" in this context has two basic meanings. It means both the love that unites a person to God, and the practice of love of self, others, and created reality for which one is created. Without union with God through charity as the experience or knowledge of God's love, the person is unable to perceive the truly good and choose it. Choosing the truly good involves the practice of charity, that is, of unselfish and right ordered love.

As we have seen, Catherine presented her teaching in the language of the mystic and poet. Thus, the logic of her connections between charity and discernment needs to be inferred from her images and from a literary analysis of her writings. I will now examine her use of the image of the tree and the metaphor of light.

The Tree

The essential connection between charity and discernment is most succinctly seen in Catherine's image of the tree, an image she develops in both The Dialogue and her letters.(46) This key image discloses the interconnection between discernment and other central aspects of Catherine's spirituality. She imaged the person as a tree created for love, that can only live nurtured by God's love. The root of the tree is nurtured by knowledge of self experienced together with the felt knowledge of God's love.(47) Humility is the virtue that emerges from a balanced knowledge of God and self, and humility is necessary for the practice of discernment. In Catherine's imagery discernment is an offshoot (in Italian literally a "child") of the tree. In other words, discernment is a natural fruit when a person's intended capacity for love becomes ordered by grace.

So think of the soul as a tree made for love and living only by love [God's love].... The circle in which this tree's root, the soul's love, must grow is true knowledge of herself, knowledge that is joined to me [God], who like the circle have neither beginning nor end.... This knowledge of yourself, and of me within yourself, is grounded in the soil of true humility.... So the tree of charity is nurtured in humility and branches out in true discernment.... And every fruit produced by this tree is seasoned with discernment ....(48)

For Catherine, the practice of charity implies that several virtues, especially humility, patience, and obedience must be present. Thus the tree (the person) is solidly planted in humility and bears fragrant flowers, which represent other virtues. All fruits home by the tree are seasoned with discernment, suggesting that when the person rooted in knowledge of self and knowledge of God practices virtue, such virtue is exercised in rightly ordered measure. Through this aspect of the image of the tree, Catherine follows in the discretio tradition, where the virtue of discernment is held to order the other virtues. At the same time, in imaging discernment as the "child" of the tree which is the person created for love, she points to the wider meaning of discernment, namely a capacity that unfolds naturally as the person's intended capacity for love unfolds. The teaching captured in this image is developed and unfolded as one examines Catherine's teaching about the levels of light and her metaphors for progression in one's capacity for charity.