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Absorbed, as ever, in the inward life, Catherine was as tranquilly at home here in the mountains, among the great ladies of the Salimbeni family, as in Siena or in the papal court. Meantime, good Monna Lapa grumbled as of old over the separation from her daughter; and evidently Catherine's sister mantellate were also disconsolate.
The petition was promptly granted: worldly losses, and the departure of two of the brothers for Florence, followed upon the Sienese Revolution of 1368. Apparently, family misunderstandings accompanied these readjustments. In the first of the present letters Catherine takes her elder brother to task for neglect of his mother, Monna Lapa.
An extremely interesting feature of the picture is the presence in the nest of lapa or signal-feather. By close observation, Mr. Whinney, the scientist of the expedition, discovered that whenever the mother-bird left the nest in search of food she always decorated her home with one of her wing feathers which served as a signal to her mate that she would return shortly, which she invariably did.
From its elevated ramparts the eye takes in the course of the Hong-shan, or "Broadway;" Casa Branca; Ilha Verda; Camoen's grotto; the Barrier and Barrier forts; the harbors, both inner and outer; the Lapa hills, and numerous islands, as far as it can reach.
In 1368 her father dies, and the Revolution puts an end to the prosperity of the Benincasa family, which is now broken up. Catherine seems to have retained to the end the care of Monna Lapa. In 1370 she dies mystically and returns to life, having received the command to go abroad into the world to save souls. Her reputation and influence increase. A group of disciples gathers around her.
In this strait there are four small islands to the east, next that point of Trindada which he named Cabo de Boca, or Cape Mouth, because it was blunt; and the western cape upon the continent he called Cabo de Lapa.
The vision of human fellowship in the Name of Christ, for which Catherine lived and died, remains the one hope for the healing of the nations. On March 25th, Catherine, and a twin-sister who dies at once, are born in the Strada dell' Oca, near the fountain of Fontebranda, Siena. She is the youngest of the twenty-five children of Jacopo Benincasa, a dyer, and Lapa, his wife.
Notwithstanding the difficulties of the navigation, Columbus continued to explore this sea, of which the waters became gradually calmer as he sailed northwards; he discovered various headlands, one of them was to the east of the Island of Trinidad, and called the Cape of Pera Blanca. Another was on the west of the promontory of Paria, and named Cape Lapa.
They had known him once in the old days when one of his sons fell sick he promised to carry his weight of beeswax to the miracle working saint of the Lapa shrine, 100 miles away on the San Francisco River. The son recovered and the father kept his word. Now they saw him discard his old superstitions for the truth in Jesus.
Her prolonged absence seems to have been too much for the patience of Monna Lapa, who was always unable to understand in the least the actions of her puzzling though beloved child. Catherine, though lifted into the region of great anxieties and great triumphs, was yet always tenderly mindful of the claims of home.
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