She often , for instance , dictated three letters simultaneously to three scribes , without falling into the slightest confusion .sx Once it happened that all three writers noticed they had written the same sentence and stopped in some bewilderment to interrogate her .sx She laughed and said it fitted into each letter and they found that it did .sx They took the dictation of the book in turns ; she never stopped speaking .sx She would begin , walking up and down , or sit with folded arms , or with her face hidden in her hands .sx But always the intensity of her feeling overcame her in a few seconds and she would become rigid in ecstasy , insensible to all seeming , except that the words continued to pour from her mouth in a torrent .sx When the book was finished , Ser Cristofano described it as about the size of a Missal .sx It purported to be a dialogue between God and the human soul ( but an intelligent , exquisitely sensitive and passionate soul , Catherine's in fact) .sx Its title was as singular as its manner of composition :sx " The Book of Divine Doctrine , given by the Person of God the Father , speaking to the intellect of .sx .. " " It is hardly a thing to be believed , " wrote the good Cristofano in his Memoirs some years later , " but those who heard and wrote it know it for a fact and I am one of those .sx " The dialogue concerned the whole scheme of redemption .sx Catherine made no plan of the book , yet it fell naturally into treatises as it proceeded :sx an introductory treatise which is really a table of contents ; a treatise of Discernment , of Prayer , of Tears , of Divine Providence , of Obedience .sx First , she drew a great picture of the universe , which staggers the imagination :sx God the Son is the bridge stretching from earth to Heaven ; mankind either proceed by that Bridge in stages , past the Feet , the Heart , the Mouth , or they disregard it and are lost .sx Then she analyzed the state of the pilgrim soul who sets out by the bridge , ascending gradually until she reaches those subtle sins that look like sanctity ( those last rags of selfishness to which the soul clings so desperately ) :sx serving God only as long as the service affords personal consolation and delight ; ignoring our neigh- .sx bour's needs lest we forego our peace of mind ( the most damnably deceptive of all temptations against charity) .sx Catherine put into this work all her experience of life and all the wisdom she had won from God .sx The Treatise of Tears is the most pitiless analysis of human misery that was ever penned :sx she explains the absolute futility of all worldly sorrow , " tears that proceed from the disordinate self-love of the heart .sx " The Divine Teacher seems almost implacable :sx " And that which I gave you for life , you have received unto death , with the same measure of grief that I had of love in giving it .sx " ( When the intellect is really tempered and keen , it seems cold and hard , like the brilliance of a diamond :sx this is the Catherine who debated so long with Stefano at Genoa about whether Neri's death would not be preferable to his cure .sx ) She dictated sublime passages on the Blessed Eucharist and on the dignity of the priesthood .sx Then , with effective transition , describes the clerical corruption she met at Avignon and elsewhere :sx dark and terrible pages , which confirm but are far more impressive than the tales of that coarse sniggerer , Boccaccio .sx Catherine was no stylist straining after effects .sx She wanted to be useful rather than artistic .sx Yet she achieves unconscious marvels with a phrase , such as this :sx " They who murmur persecute God with their great impatience .sx " In the last treatise , that of Obedience , she explains how the perfect Christian community is balanced by an interchange of responsibility .sx One final excerpt must be given , because it is like a footnote to her whole life .sx It is the idea which bound her and the Fellowship together ; the motive of all her wild vagabondage .sx God explains to the soul how He is perfectly loved :sx " I require that you should love me with the same love with .sx which I love you .sx This indeed you cannot do , because I .sx loved you without being loved .sx All the love which you have .sx for me you owe to me , so that it is not of grace that you love .sx me , but because you ought to do so .sx While I love you of grace , .sx and not because I owe you my love .sx Therefore to me in person , .sx you cannot repay the love which I require of you and I have placed .sx you in the midst of your fellows , that you may do to them that which .sx you cannot do to me , that is to say , that you may love them of free grace , without expecting any return , and what you do for them I count as done to me .sx " With this work , Catherine cheated the fevered days of waiting for a reply from Rome .sx She referred to it afterwards as :sx " the book in which I found some recreation .sx " But if she was interested , her secretaries were absorbed .sx After five hundred and fifty years , one cannot read it without perceiving its vibrant reality :sx " The Eternal Truth seized and drew more strongly to Himself her desire .sx .. allowed Himself to be constrained by her tears .sx .. replied with lamentation .sx .. But what of Maconi , Neri , Barduccio and Cristofano who sat around her in that leafy solitude , their parchments on their knees , writing and resting in turn , and silently putting the sheets together in order ?sx They witnessed what still beats under the cold print :sx the fierce straining of that valiant soul through the shell of her consumed body .sx They heard her panting with desire ; witnessed her agony over an unheedful world ; saw her gestures of supplication , her tears , all interspersed through the rapid flow of speech which went on for four days .sx When they wrote " Amen " to the incredible colloquy , they knew at least what prayer meant .sx On October 31st , Clement VII was crowned Pope and the schism was complete .sx One of his first actions was the creation of nine new cardinals .sx There were now two Popes claiming allegiance , two Curias disputing every detail of administration , and the dark confusion that spread throughout Christendom was simply indescribable .sx The Clementines called the Urbanists' Mass a blasphemy ; the Urbanists reprobated the Clementines' worship :sx in many places the Mass was discontinued .sx The nations grouped themselves slowly under the rival standards , the grouping being mostly determined by political motives , but in no country was one obedience complete .sx The split in authority widened until the whole ecclesiastical fabric was rent and not one little entity within the great unity remained entire .sx Religious orders divided on the question and electedrival heads , an Urbanist and a Clementine , who made permanent the division .sx Even local monasteries could not agree .sx Two bishops would be seen contending for one See , two Abbots for one Abbey , even two curates for one vacancy .sx The very families of Christendom were sundered by it .sx It was spectacular .sx If it is difficult to-day to determine the facts after the clarifying effect of centuries and with all the evidence accessible :sx it was impossible at the moment .sx The conflict of evidence was too overwhelming .sx The fact that all those concerned in the election afterwards repudiated it made the perplexity extreme .sx Groups of the laity began to split off and form conventicles .sx New sects were spawned and swarmed in the darkness .sx Strange new prophecies were given credence .sx If' ever the Church proved that the principle of divine life was within her , it was in working herself out of this calamity .sx Quite certainly no human institution could have survived such a shattering blow .sx It was the finishing stroke to all Catherine's great hopes .sx She had thought all her life of a Crusade , organizing it , praying for it , dreaming of it :sx this great regeneration of Europe .sx She had written letters about it that amounted to volumes ; she had gladly travelled hundreds of miles to bring it to pass .sx Nothing would deflect her from this purpose :sx not plague , not Italy's war with the Church , not the incurable enmity between France and England , not the hostility between Genoa and Venice ( maritime republics whose help was indispensable ) , not the appalling characters of the people she rallied to it , not even the death of the Pontiff who preached it .sx She rode through all this with pennons streaming , but the schism was like the opening of a dark abyss before which even her courage was daunted .sx She never lost hope , until now .sx Everything was superable , except this .sx A woman wrote her about the Crusade during this month and her reply is the most poignant thing in her whole correspondence .sx She says :sx " In answer to your message about going to the Holy Land , this is not the time to think of it .sx Pray for Christ on earth and for me that I may get the grace to die for His sweet truth .sx " This is the first time in six years of most .sx exceeding difficulty that she abandoned hope .sx These few phrases , dismissing the superhuman and dogged labour of years , express the whole tragedy .sx Now a man's sour discontent with his condition is curiously sweetened by the failure of others and therefore , for his greater assuagement , he is unconsciously eager to magnify and complete that failure .sx It was not enough for Catherine's contemporaries that her prolonged and generous efforts for the Crusade had been so much labour wasted .sx They said she prophesied the great event and therefore she was a false prophet .sx It was easy so to misinterpret her confident appeals for the expedition .sx But it was a lie , and the slander added to her suffering .sx The second great idea for which she had lived was Church reform :sx prudent and determined , penetrating down from the highest offices to the lowest .sx She had been striving for it by letter and the spoken word since she entered public life six years ago .sx In her first message to the Pope ( through the Abbot of Marmoutier ) , she had said :sx " If you want to build , you must destroy right down to the foundations .sx " Despite all her efforts , nothing had ever been done .sx Urban indeed had set out as a reformer , but with what a brutally mistaken method and dire consequences .sx Now , reform was utterly out of the question .sx With discipline so impaired , all the evils that had crept into clerical life were multiplied a hundredfold .sx If there were any sincere minds , who had occasionally jibbed at Church authority as being arbitrary even tyrannical , they were learning now with anguish what the lack of it meant .sx Here again , it is not surprising that discipline broke in the debacle .sx What staggers the imagination is that any order persisted in ecclesiastical affairs .sx That there was a boundary line beyond which the disorder did not go ; that the old sanctions were observed in the main during all the fearful confusion , is again overwhelming proof of the divine life within the Church .sx But , for Catherine , the plan of reform had failed .sx Under this dark cloud of failure , all her political work was blackly mysterious .sx She had been to Pisa twice :sx on Crusadework and to hold them back from joining the Tuscan League ; both enterprises had come to nought .sx She had gone to Lucca to prevent them from joining the League :sx they had joined , so with them , too , she had failed .sx She had consented to be the ambassador of Florence at Avignon and then that Republic had repudiated her .sx Gregory sent her to them again on a peace mission and he had died before anything could be concluded .sx The Florentine government had made their peace independently of her .sx They regarded her with such disfavour that , on leaving their city , she dared not even bid them farewell .sx Concerned exclusively with her material failure , one prescinds here of course from the spiritual results of her work .sx They were incalculable .sx Wherever she went , hosts of the re-converted sprang up around her .sx She who soared so frequently into prophecy and communicated with unseen forces , could perhaps make a just estimate of that invisible throng , finding therein the consoling fruit of her labour .sx