The Cell of Self-Knowledge: Insights from Catherine of Sienna

"There is nothing new under the sun," wrote the author of Ecclesiastes. Not surprisingly, then, the 14th century Italian mystic, Catherine of Siena, can provide 20th century Christians with crucial insights into a practical piety in which prayer and spirituality touch the issues of daily life, and Christians can learn to live "in the world, but not of the world."

Catherine of Siena used the phrase The Cell of Self-Knowledge to describe the interior life of Christians who lived in the secular world. Catherine was convinced that one did not have to live the monastic life to develop a full and rich life of prayer. So, for Catherine, her place of prayer was not the cloistered austerity of the monastic cell, but the rigorous honesty of self-knowledge in the light of Truth, namely Jesus Christ. So, through her cell of self-knowledge she lived life fully "in the world". She became a "Dominican tertiary when very young, but chose not to enter the full religious life: `My cell is not to be made of stone or wood; instead it will be the cell of self-knowledge.'" (Cell, p. 14)

John Griffiths writes of her that a "major topic in her discourse is her knowledge of self, of her own nothingness which leads to profound humility and leaves room for clear vision of what is essential: love of God, of others and of oneself....Catherine, however, was not concerned with the soul's ascent to God `in itself', but with the means by which personal sanctity could help the Church in the world. Her concept of holiness is eminently christological: self-knowledge and awareness of one's own nothingness before God lead to a love which is united with Christ's own saving love, and to a great mission: bringing to others the news of this redemptive love." (Cell, p. 15)

Evelyn Underhill further describes Catherine's approach to spiritual formation in this way:

The Truth is one of Catherine's favourite names for Christ; and her test of spiritual health is the soul's ever-growing capacity for seeing things as they really are. Thus she writes to the bishop of Castello "with the desire of seeing you illuminated with a true and perfect light"; and this true and perfect light is identical with that self-knowledge in which she taught her disciples to live as in a cell. It is not a niggling introspection, but that clear view of human nothingness matched against the perfection of God which is the sovereign remedy against pride and self-love; the only foundation of that charity which she calls in one of her jewelled phrases "a continual prayer."

`The soul is a tree existing by love, and can live by nothing else but love. If this soul have not in truth the divine love of perfect Charity she cannot produce the fruit of life, but only of death. Needs be then that the root of this tree, that is the affection of the soul, should grow in and issue from the circle of true self-knowledge which is contained in Me, who have neither beginning nor end, like the circumference of a circle. For turn as thou wilt within a circle, inasmuch as the circumference has no end nor beginning, thou always remainest with it. And this knowledge of thyself and of Me is found in the earth of true humility, which is as wide as the diameter of the circle, that is, the knowledge of self and of Me.' (Mystics of the Church, p. 161-162).

In a collection of her writings entitled Profitable Teachings from the Life of the Bride of Christ Catherine of Siena, Catherine writes of things her Lord has taught her.

The first thing our Lord taught her was this:

`Daughter, do you not know who you are and who I am? If you know these two things, you are blessed and will continue to be so. You are she that is not, and I am he who is. As long as you keep an awareness of these two facts in your heart, your enemy the devil will never deceive you, and you will be able to slip easily out of all his traps. You will never give way to temptation to do anything against my commandments and teachings, and you will have no difficulty in winning my grace, truth and love.'

The second thing he taught her was this:

`As long as you think of me, I shall think of you.'

When she told people about this saying of the Lord's, she used to say: `A soul that is truly united to God is not conscious of itself; it neither sees, nor loves itself, nor anyone else, but keeps its thoughts on God alone, not on any creature.'

She would explain these words more fully by saying: `A soul in this state sees that in itself it is nothing, that all its virtue and all its strength belongs to God, its maker, alone. So it abandons itself and all other creatures completely and takes refuge in its creator, our Lord Jesus Christ, to such an extent that it casts all its spiritual and physical actions wholly on to him, in whom it sees that it will find every blessing and the fullness of goodness. This means that it has no desire to look for anything outside this intimate knowledge of him, for any reason whatsoever.

Being united in love in this way - a love which increases day by day - the soul becomes as it were changed into our Lord, so that it can neither think, nor understand, nor love, nor be conscious of anything but God or what belongs to God. It sees itself and all other creatures only in God; it loves itself and all other creatures only in God; it is only conscious of itself and of all other creatures in God, and is conscious only of the presence of its creator. And so,' she used to say, `there is nothing that should concern us other than to think how to please him to whom we have entrusted everything that we do both in body and soul.' (Cell, p. 29-30\0.

Richard Rolle, a 14th century English mystic living one generation before Catherine, captures the same thought on self-knowledge in his writings. John Griffiths says of him that

"Self-knowledge was one of Rolle's chief recommendations. As he says in an earlier section of Amending Life: `"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God." And what is this poverty of spirit but the meekness of mind in which a man can see his own weakness clearly?'" (The Cell of Self-knowledge, p. 24).

Self-knowledge as we are here using the term has reference to knowing yourself as primarily a spiritual creature, and it should in no way be equated with popular psychology's "getting in touch with yourself." There is an important place for healthy psychological awareness, but it does not transfer easily into the spiritual realm for the purposes of spiritual formation.

Psychology or Spirituality

There has been much confusion in recent years between psychological health and spiritual health. Unfortunately, several passages of Scripture are often interpreted to mean self-rejection or self-despising. For example, John the Baptist says of himself with regard to Jesus, "He must increase, but I must decrease." (Jn 3.30) Paul glories in his weakness when he writes, "I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me...for when I am weak, then I am strong." (IICor 12.9-10) Jesus, of course, put this at the center of his teaching. "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake, he will save it." (Lk 9.23-24) These passages speak of humility and refer to our self-estimate in relation to the vastness of God's grace in sustaining his rebellious creation. They are in no way intended for us to compare ourselves with each other.

Such biblical descriptions of humility have too often been interpreted to mean that we become doormats for others to walk on. Many Christians have been trapped into believing that a poor self-image is pleasing in God's sight as evidence of a humble spirit. In fact, though, a poor self-image might be described as false psychological humility, the flip-side of pride. True spiritual humility, on the other hand, has a healthy sense of self-image and knows the values that are important for self-definition and self-understanding. It also recognizes that self-image is just that - an image of self; and the image is not the real (spiritual) self. Humility has a secure enough sense of self that it is able to submit to rigorous scrutiny about images of self that have become idols in place of God.

True spiritual humility is paradoxical. It says, for example, that holding onto the image of ourselves as self-made competent professional people in our particular field of specialty is to hold onto an image of ourselves that is false. It does not reflect our actual nature. True spiritual humility asserts that professional competency is ultimately a gift from God and that in light of him we are nothing. Yet, at the same time, while at work, we are able to function as fully competent professionals. The estimation of ourselves as nothing in God's sight is not a crippling insight. It is a freeing one. Our self-offerings are generous, free gifts and are not tied to a need to feel good about ourselves.

Spiritual humility as it is thus described is the kind of self-knowledge that Catherine of Siena and Richard Rolle portrayed. It is a full acceptance of who we are - our motives for relating and acting, our values, our sense of self-importance, our need for affirmation and approval, our desires to control our environment, our future, our emotions, etc. It is a sober recognition of our humanity in all its sinfulness. Yet, in the light and love of God in Christ, we need feel no shame in being stripped of self-righteous pretensions and vulnerable before him. "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." (Rom 8.1) He is the God to whom "all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid." (Book of Common Prayer, p. 355) Self-knowledge is a process of unmasking ourselves in his presence, of stripping off the fig leaves (cf. Gen 3.7) behind which we try to hide, both from ourselves as well as from God. Likewise, self-knowledge includes an active seeking of this understanding of self. It joins with the Psalmist in praying, "Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!" (Ps 139)

In the light of who God is we see ourselves as we really are. In the presence of the mystery of God who is Three-in-One, who became flesh, who has always existed and always will, who lives now in eternity outside of time and space, who eternally transcends all that we know of the created order - in the presence of this most holy God, we see our human pretensions and presumptions exposed. Self-knowledge is an acute and revealing assessment of ourselves in comparison to God. Any other standard of comparison is self-deluding. We know ourselves as sinners in need of a savior. We know ourselves as powerless to make God relate to us. Anything we ever receive from him is simply sheer gift. It is pure and unadulterated grace.

Self-knowledge is always understood in relationship to God. It is spiritual humility which knows that apart from God we are nothing. As Karl Barth, a 20th century German theologian observes,

The mystery of creation...is not primarily...the problem whether there is a God as the originator of the world; for in the Christian sense it cannot be that first of all we presuppose the reality of the world and then ask whether there is also a God. But the first thing, the thing we begin with, is God the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And from that standpoint the great Christian problem is propounded, whether it can really be the case that God wishes to be not only for Himself, but that outside Him there is the world, that we exist alongside and outside Him? That is a riddle....God has no need of us, He has no need of the world and heaven and earth at all. He is rich in Himself." (Dogmatics in Outline, p. 53)

Self-knowledge is a sober acknowledgement that God has no need of us. He is full and complete in himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Yet he actively seeks us out, desiring to be with us, and that is a very humbling realization and experience. That is self-knowledge. In the presence of his garments of glory our filthy rags are seen for what they really are. That is humbling! In his presence we have a clearer, more sharply focused perception of who we are and our inflated sense of self-importance. False images of self are stripped away and we are reduced to our true humanity and nature.

In the incarnation God - the Word become flesh - has reached out and initiated an intimate relationship with us of whom he has no need. He has identified himself with humanity by taking on human flesh, living a fully human life in his own cell of self-knowledge. So, to know Jesus who is perfect humanity is a humbling experience. Knowing Jesus' humanity leads us to a more profound self-knowledge. Knowing our own humanity leads us to a deeper knowledge of and reverence for Jesus in his humanity, and for Jesus, our Savior!

The pursuit of God and spiritual formation by his Word incarnate necessarily involves the pursuit of self-knowledge. Self-knowledge brings us face to face with the intellectual, psychological, and physical blocks in our sinful nature which work against our willingly and submissively knowing Jesus. To know those things in us that raise their head in resistance and as an impediment to loving him is to know ourselves in our cell of self-knowledge. To give them up is to become like a child again, hence Jesus' sayings on children. "Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." (Mt 18.3-4)