St. Catherine of Siena and the Violent Tempest

"After remaining at Genoa rather more than a month, the travellers once more took ship and sailed for the coast of Tuscany.  Their passage was not unattended with danger, if the circumstances briefly related in the deposition of Peter Ventura belong to this time.  'It chanced once,' he says, 'when the Saint was travelling by sea, that she was overtaken by a violent tempest, so that the vessel in which she was, suffered shipwreck and was broken to pieces, but she happily reached the shore safe and sound with all her companions.'  It would have been more satisfactory to have had fuller details regarding this adventure, but the biographers of the Saint too often observe the rule of retrenching from their narrative the names of places, persons, and the dates of time.  We know of no other occasion when Catherine was exposed to the perils of the sea except her short trip to Gorgona, which was certainly attended by no such disaster to her and her party; though it is barely possible that an incorrect report of the accident which happened to her escort on their return to the island may have furnished ground for the above narrative.  Certain it is, that neither Raymund nor any of the other companions of the Saint on the voyage from Genoa have alluded to the shipwreck, though Raymund in his Legend lets us know that they were in real peril.  He tells the story, however, more by way of illustrating Catherine's confidence in God, than with any view of describing the incidents of their journey.  He does not even inform us in so many words that the circumstances of which he speaks happened at this particular time, though we know it must have been so, this being the only sea voyage in which he was her companion.  'I remember,' he says [1], that being on board ship with her and many other persons, the wind lowered into a dead calm towards midnight, and the pilot became extremely anxious: we were in a dangerous channel; if the wind had taken us sideways, we might have been thrown on some neighbouring islands or floated into the open sea.  I gave notice to Catherine of our danger.  She answered in her ordinary tone: 'Why does that trouble you, what have you to do of yourselves?'  This was her ordinary expression in time of trouble.  She considered that a soul which has fixed its thought on God should allow no anxiety or distraction to cause it disquiet; for God knows all, and can do all, and He will watch and provide for the necessities of such as meditate on Him.  Hence, whenever we entertained any fear for ourselves or our brethren, she would often say, 'What have you to do of yourselves? let God act.  His eye is over you; and He will protect you.'  When, therefore, I heard her say these words, I took comfort and was somewhat reassured; but presently the wind changed, and blew in the direction dreaded by the pilot.  I mentioned it to Catherine: 'Let him change the helm, in the name of God,' she said, 'and follow the wind that Heaven shall send him.'  The pilot obeyed, while she, meantime, bowed down her head and made her prayer to God.  And we had not kept on that course so far as a man would shoot an arrow, but that there came a gracious wind that brought us to the haven that we desired, where we arrived to our great wonder and gladness about the hour of Matins, singing all, with a joyful voice, Te Deum laudamus.' [2]  This 'desired haven' was the Port of Leghorn, where they once more set foot on the dear old soil of Tuscany, and where they were met by Lapa, her impatience to embrace her beloved child not suffering her to await her coming to Siena; for, before returning thither, Catherine was to pay a short visit to Pisa.  Stephen's joy was a little damped on finding that an arrangement had been made on his behalf, in virtue of which he was to precede the rest of the party, and travel with one companion to Siena, charged with sundry letters and commissions, and feeling not unlike a truant schoolboy to whom the unwelcome hour has come for returning home.[3]"

"[1] Legend, Part I, ch. ix.
"[2] In the above passage two paragraphs have been transposed for the sake of clearness, and a few of the picturesque phrases adopted which occur in Father Fen's translation, though his narrative as a whole is less intelligible than the original Legend.
"[3] The reader will understand that these details, not given in any of the Lives of St. Catherine hitherto published,  are not imaginary; they are furnished by the very interesting collection of "Letters of St. Catherine's Disciples," preserved in MS at Siena, and published by Signor Grottanelli in 1868, at the end of the Legende Minore.  From them we learn the fact of the Saint's second visit to Pisa, which has hitherto been overlooked."

- Augusta Theodosia Drane, History of St. Catherine of Siena, 1880.