Catherine of Genoa

That's the whole point of purgatory, that it is a purging in which—the way I want to think about it— is about penance.

St. Catherine of Genoa, one of the great mystics around 1500, their dialogues in Purgatory are great, great works.

I mean, understood penance in this world is sort of a pre-Purgatory, and Purgatory is the completion of our penance.

But penance, penance does involve pain, but it involves inner examination.

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Spiritual Dialogue Between the Soul, the Body, Self-Love, the Spirit, Humanity, and the Lord God by St. Catherine of Genoa.

Part One, Chapter One.

I saw, said the saint, a soul and a body conversing with one another, and first, the soul said, My body, God has created to love me and to enjoy myself.

Self-love and I yield to you.

End of Part 1, Chapter 1.

Part 1, Chapter 2 of Spiritual Dialogue by St. Catherine of Genoa.

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Recording by Anne Boulay.

Spiritual Dialogue Between the Soul, the Body, Self-Love, the Spirit, Humanity, and the Lord God by St. Catherine of Genoa.

Part 1, Chapter 1. i saw said the saint a soul and a body conversing with one another and first the soul said my body god has created to love me and to enjoy myself i wish therefore to go where i can best accomplish this design and to have you accompany me in a friendly way since it will be to your advantage also we will go through the world if i find anything which pleases me i will enjoy it you can do the same when you find anything which pleases you and let him do better that can the body answered though i may be obliged to do whatever pleases you yet i see that you cannot accomplish all that you wish without me therefore if we are to set forth together let us come to a perfect understanding before we start in order that we may not fall out by the way for my own part i agree to your proposal but let each of us be satisfied with the success of the other when he meets with anything that pleases him for such forbearance will keep us in peace i advise this beforehand because i do not wish that you should deceive me and say whenever i find something that i like i do not wish you to linger here for i am going elsewhere to attend to my own concerns and thus i might find myself obliged to abandon my own plans in order to follow yours in that case i assure you i should die and our design would be frustrated to prevent this i think it would be well to take with us a third companion some just person who has no share in our partnership and to whom all our differences could be referred soul i am well pleased with this proposal but who shall this third person be body let it be self-love who lives with us both he will see that i have what belongs to me and i shall enjoy with him he will do the same for you and thus both will be satisfied each in his own way soul what shall we do if we find food equally gratifying to both body let him eat who may if there is enough for both there will be no disagreement if there is not enough self-love will give to each his share but since our tastes are so different it will be most extraordinary if we should find food equally pleasing to both unless one or the other should change which is contrary to the nature of things soul by nature i am more powerful than you and therefore i have no fear of your converting me to your tastes body but this is my home where i have so many delightful things to enjoy that although you may be more powerful than i you could not possibly awaken in me the desire to be converted to yours but i being as i have said at home might more easily convert you to my tastes doing it for love and from a wish to please you for you are seeking things which you neither see taste nor understand nor do you even know where your home is soul let us try the experiment but in the first place we must make some agreement by which we may secure harmony let us take alternate weeks when it is my turn you must do whatever is pleasing to me and in like manner when yours comes i will do whatever you wish always accepting so long as i live whatever would offend our creator if i die that is if you induce me to offend him i shall then be your servant to do your bidding for in that case i shall be wholly converted to your wishes and shall take pleasure in whatever pleases you being thus united no one but god can ever interrupt our union for it will always be protected by free will and both in this world and the next we shall receive together the reward of all the good and evil that we do a like fate will be yours if i succeed in conquering you but here comes self-love you have heard the whole will you be our third party our judge and the companion of our journey self-love i consent and shall find it greatly to my advantage i shall give each of you what belongs to him for this will not injure me and thus i shall live on equal terms with both but if either of you should wrong me and deprive me of my support i shall immediately have recourse to the other for on no account would i be deprived of my own subsistence body i am not one who would ever abandon you soul nor would i ever do so especially as we all agree and understand that above all things we are to avoid offending god therefore if either of us sins the other will check the offender now in god's name let us go and i being the most worthy will take the first week body i am contented guide me and do with me whatever reason directs self-love and i yield to you chapter one Part 1, Chapter 2 of Spiritual Dialogue by St. Catherine of Genoa.

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Part 1, Chapter 2. then the soul said within itself soul i who am pure and without a stain of sin will begin by considering my first creation and all the other benefits i have received from god i know that i was created for blessedness and of such dignity that i can almost soar above the choirs of angels and i find myself in possession of a mind all but divine for i am always drawn by my pure intelligence to the meditation and contemplation of divine things and filled with the constant desire to eat my bread with the bread of angels i am in truth invisible i would have then all my food and all my delight in things invisible for to this end i was created and here i find my rest i have nothing to do but to draw down from heaven the strength which i need and to put all things else beneath my feet i will therefore spend this entire week in contemplation and take heed of naught else let him live thus who can do so and he who cannot must have patience but i see that my companions are growing restless i will go towards them well my comrades i have finished my week do you o body treat me in yours as you see fit but tell me how has it fared with you while i took my turn self-love not well for into your regions neither self-love nor mortal body can enter we have not had the slightest nourishment and are nearly dead now however we hope to have our revenge body now it is my turn come soul with me i will show you how much god has done for me behold the heavens and the earth with all that adorns them the sea with its fish the air with its birds and then so many kingdoms principalities cities provinces as well spiritual as temporal great dignities numerous treasures songs sounds and food of every kind for my support and never-failing supplies to the end of time as well as innumerable other delights and i can enjoy all these without offending god for he created them all for me you have not shown me your country as i am showing you mine but as i cannot have my will unless you deign to indulge me in it i venture to remind you that you are under great obligations to me and that you must not think of going into that country of yours and leaving me starving on the earth you cannot do it for i should die and it would be your fault you would offend god and then we should all be enemies i have the advantage of being able to enjoy all these things while i live and in the next life of enjoying your country also saving myself as i should do by your means i remember that i am concerned in your salvation for i shall always be with you and i do not believe that i desire anything contrary to reason or displeasing to god ask your comrade self-love if i am not speaking the truth i would not be unreasonable in my demands and i will abide by his decision i am sure that what i am seeking for you is not only needful but also agreeable to the will of god End of part one, chapter two.

Part one, chapter three of Spiritual Dialogue by St. Catherine of Genoa.

This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.

For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Anne Boulay.

Spiritual Dialogue Between the Soul, the Body, Self-Love, the Spirit, Humanity, and the Lord God by St. Catherine of Genoa.

Part I, Chapter I.

"I saw," said the saint, "a soul and a body conversing with one another.

Self-Love and I yield to you.

End of part 1, chapter 1.

Part 1, chapter 2 of Spiritual Dialogue by Saint Catherine of Genoa.

This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.

Preface of Treatise on Purgatory the treatise of st catherine of genoa on purgatory has never it seems been as yet rendered into english the present translation therefore which is both faithful and excellent in language will be most acceptable to those to whom this wonderful book has hitherto been closed although our lord by his apostle has forbidden to women the public ministry of teaching in his church he has nevertheless reserved for them a great and resplendent office in the edification of his mystical body the lights and inspirations bestowed upon them according to the words of the prophet joel in the last days saith the lord i will pour out of my spirit upon all flesh and your sons and daughters shall prophesy and upon my servants and upon my handmaids i will pour out in those days of my spirit are among the prerogatives bestowed upon the church by the day of pentecost and their dignity is among the glories of the mother of god whose daughters and handmaids they are two of the great festivals of the catholic church had their origin in the illumination of humble and unlearned women The feast of Corpus Christi was the offspring of the devotion of the blessed Juliana of Ritine, the feast of the sacred heart of that of the blessed Margaret Mary.

To St. Catherine of Siena, our Lord vouchsafed the honor of calling back again the sovereign pontiff from the splendid banishment of Avignon to the throne of the apostolic see.

to saint teresa the special gift of illumination to teach the ways of union with himself in prayer to blessed angela of foligno the eighteen degrees of compunction and his own five poverties and to saint catherine of genoa an insight and perception of the state of purgatory which seem like the utterances of one immersed in its expiation of love benedict the fourteenth tells us in his work on the beatification and canonization of saints that the works of st katharine of genoa were examined and approved by the theologians of paris intending no doubt the examination by the sorbonne in sixteen sixty six by direction of the archbishop of paris and again by the sacred congregation in the cause of her canonization the source from which she drew the sweet and consoling illumination set forth in the following pages on the mysterious sufferings and bliss of purgatory was a life of continued pain and of ardent consuming love of perpetual expiation and of absolute conformity to the will of god and of this she says this way of purgation which i see in the souls in purgatory i feel in my mind chiefly in the last two years day by day i feel and see it more clearly i see my soul to be standing in the body as in a purgatory conformed and like to the true purgatory all the things i have hitherto said i see and touch but i can find no fit words to express as fully as i desire to say it and what i have said i feel to be working spiritually within me and therefore i have said it the saint was born in genoa in fourteen forty seven of the family of fieschi her parents married her to giuliano adorno of a noble genoese house after his death she served the sick in the great hospital where her body still perfect and visible is venerated over the high altar in the choir of the religious which is attached to the wards and looks down upon the external church and her memory is blessed among the saints as the seraph of genoa h e manning all souls day eighteen fifty eight end of the preface Chapters 1-8 of the Treatise on Purgatory chapter one state of the souls in purgatory how they are free from all self-love this holy soul yet in the flesh found herself placed in the purgatory of god's burning love which consumed and purified her from whatever she had to purify in order that after passing out of this life she might enter at once into the immediate presence of god her beloved by means of this furnace of love she understood how the souls of the faithful are placed in purgatory to get rid of all the rust and stain of sin that in this life was left unpurged as she plunged in the divine furnace of purifying love was united to the object of her love and satisfied with all that he wrought in her so she understood it to be with the souls in purgatory and said the souls in purgatory as far as i can understand the matter cannot but choose to be there and this by god's ordinance who has justly decreed it so they cannot reflect within themselves and say i have done such and such sins for which i deserve to be here nor can they say would that i had not done them that now i might go to paradise nor yet say that soul is going out before me nor i shall go out before him they can remember nothing of themselves or others whether good or evil which might increase the pain they ordinarily endure they are so completely satisfied with what god has ordained for them that he should be doing all that pleases him and in the way it pleases him that they are incapable of thinking of themselves even in the midst of their greatest sufferings they behold only the goodness of god whose mercy is so great in bringing men to himself that they cannot see anything that may affect them whether good or bad if they could they would not be in pure charity they do not know that their sufferings are for the sake of their sins nor can they keep in view the sins themselves for in doing so there would be an act of imperfection which could have no place where there can be no longer any possibility of actually sinning once in passing out of this life they perceived why they had their purgatory but never afterwards otherwise self would come in abiding then in charity and not being able to deviate therefrom by any real defect they have no will no desire nothing but the will of pure love they are in that fire of purgatory by the appointment of god which is all one with pure love and they cannot in anything turn aside from it because as they can no more merit so they can no more sin chapter two the joy of the souls in purgatory the saint shows how they are ever seeing god more and more difficulty in speaking of their condition i do not believe it would be possible to find any joy comparable to that of a soul in purgatory except the joy of the blessed in paradise a joy that goes on increasing day by day as god more and more flows in upon the soul which he does abundantly in proportion as every hindrance to his entrance is consumed away the hindrance is the rust of sin the fire consumes the rust and thus the soul goes on laying itself open to the divine inflowing it is as with a covered object the object cannot respond to the rays of the sun not because the sun ceases to shine for it shines without intermission but because the covering intervenes let the covering be destroyed again the object will be exposed to the sun and will answer to the rays which beat against it in proportion as the work of destruction advances thus the souls are covered by a rust that is sin which is gradually consumed away by the fire of purgatory the more it is consumed the more they respond to god their true son their happiness increases as the rust falls off and lays them open to the divine ray and so their happiness grows greater as the impediment grows less till the time is accomplished the pain however does not diminish but only the time of remaining in that pain as far as their will is concerned these souls cannot acknowledge the pain as such so completely are they satisfied with the ordinance of god so entirely is their will one with it in pure charity on the other hand they suffer a torment so extreme that no tongue could describe it no intellect could form the least idea of it if god had not made it known by special grace which idea however god's grace has shown my soul but i cannot find words to express it with my tongue yet the sight of it has never left my mind i will describe it as i can they will understand it whose intellect the lord has vouchsafed to open Chapter 3.

Separation from God is the greatest punishment of purgatory, wherein purgatory differs from hell.

things are good only so far as they participate in god to irrational creatures god communicates himself without fail as he wills and as he has determined to the rational soul more or less according as he finds it purified from the impediment of sin so that when a soul is approaching to that state of first purity and innocence which it had when created the instinctive desire of seeking happiness in god develops itself and goes on increasing through the fire of love which draws it to its end with such impetuosity and vehemence that any obstacle seems intolerable and the more clear its vision the more extreme its pain now because the souls in purgatory are without the guilt of sin there is nothing to stand between god and them except the punishment which keeps them back and prevents this instinct from attaining its perfection and from their keenly perceiving of what moment it is to be hindered even in the least degree and yet that justice most strictly demands a hindrance there springs up within them a fire like that of hell they have not the guilt of sin and it is this latter which constitutes the malignant will of the damned who are excluded from sharing in the goodness of god and therefore remain in that hopeless malignity of will by which they oppose the will of god chapter four state of the souls that are in hell and the difference there is between them and those in purgatory reflections of the saint upon those who neglect their salvation from what has been said it is clear that the guilt of sin consists in the perverse opposition of the will to the will of god and that so long as the will continues thus evilly perverse the guilt will continue for those then in hell who have departed this life with an evil will there is no remission of sin neither can be because there can be no more change of will in passing out of this life the soul is fixed for good or evil according to its deliberate purpose at the time as it is written where shall i find thee that is at the hour of death with a will either to sin or sorry for sin and penitent there will i judge thee and this judgment is final because after death the will can never again be free but must remain fixed in the condition in which it was found at the moment of death the souls in hell having been found at the moment of death with a will to sin have with them an infinite degree of guilt and the punishment they suffer though less than they deserve is yet so far as it exists endless but the souls in purgatory have only the punishment for sin and not its guilt for the guilt was effaced at the moment of death in that they were found then deploring their sins and penitent for having offended the divine goodness so their punishment has a limit and goes on diminishing in duration as has been said oh mercy above every mercy and so much the greater because men in their blindness consider it so little the punishment of the damned is not indeed infinite in amount for the sweet goodness of god sheds the rays of his mercy even in hell a man who has died in mortal sin deserves a punishment infinite in pain and infinite in duration but god in his mercy has made it infinite only in duration and has limited the amount of pain he might most justly have given them a far greater punishment than he has oh how perilous is a sin committed through malice for hardly does a man repent of it and not repenting his guilt remains and will remain so long as there is any affection for the sin committed or any purpose of committing it afresh chapter v the peace and joy of purgatory the souls in purgatory having their wills perfectly conformed to the will of god and hence partaking of his goodness remain satisfied with their condition which is one of entire freedom from the guilt of sin for when they passed out of this life penitent with all their sins confessed and resolved to sin no more god straightway pardoned them and now they are as pure as when they were created the rust of sin alone is left and this they get rid of by the punishment of fire cleansed thus from all sin and united in will to god they see god clearly according to the degree of light he imparts to them they are conscious too what a thing it is for them to enjoy god that for this very end souls were created again there is in them a conformity of will so uniting them to god so drawing them to him through that natural instinct whereby god is as it were bound up with the soul that no description no figure no example can give a clear idea of it as it is actually felt and apprehended by inward consciousness nevertheless i will mention something like it which suggests itself to me chapter six comparison to explain the impetuosity in love by which the souls in purgatory desire to enjoy god let us suppose that there existed in the world but one loaf of bread to satisfy the hunger of every creature and that the mere sight of it could do this in such a case a man having naturally if in good health a desire for food would find himself so long as he was kept from dying or falling sick getting more and more hungry for his craving would continue undiminished he would know that the bread and nothing but the bread could satisfy him and not being able to reach it would remain in intolerable pain the nearer he got to the bread without seeing it the more ardently would he crave for it and would direct himself wholly towards it as being the only thing which could afford relief and if he were assured that he never could see the bread he would have within him a perfect hell and become like the damned who are cut off from all hope of ever seeing god their saviour who is the true bread the souls in purgatory on the other hand hope to see that bread and satiate themselves to the full therewith whence they hunger and suffer pain as great as will be their capacity of enjoying that bread which is jesus christ the true god our savior and our love chapter seven the wonderful wisdom of god in the invention of purgatory and hell as the soul cleansed and purified finds no place wherein to rest but god this being its end by creation so the soul in a state of sin finds no place for it but hell this being its end by the appointment of god no sooner then does the soul leave the body in mortal sin than it goes straight to hell as to its allotted place with no other guide than the nature of sin and should a soul not find itself thus prevented by the justice of god but excluded altogether from his appointment it would endure a still greater hell for god's appointment partakes of his mercy and is less severe than the soul deserves as it is the soul finding no place suited to it nor any lesser pain provided for it by god casts itself into hell as into its proper place thus with regard to purgatory when the soul leaves the body and finds itself out of that state of purity in which it was created seeing the hindrance and that it can only be removed by purgatory without a moment's hesitation it plunges therein and were there no such means provided to remove the impediment it would forthwith beget within itself a hell worse than purgatory because by reason of this impediment it would see itself unable to reach god its last end and this hindrance would be so full of pain that in comparison with it purgatory though as i have said it be like hell would not be worth a thought but be even as nothing chapter eight the necessity of purgatory and how terrible it is again i say that on god's part i see paradise has no gate but that whosoever will may enter therein for god is all mercy and stands with open arms to admit us to his glory but still i see that the being of god is so pure far more than one can imagine that should a soul see in itself even the least mote of imperfection it would rather cast itself into a thousand hells than go with that spot into the presence of the divine majesty therefore seeing purgatory ordained to take away such blemishes it plunges therein and deems it a great mercy that it can thus remove them no tongue can express no mind can understand how dreadful is purgatory its pain is like that of hell and yet as i have said i see any soul with the least stain of imperfection accept it as a mercy not thinking it of any moment when compared with being kept from its love it appears to me that the greatest pain the souls in purgatory endure proceeds from their being sensible of something in themselves displeasing to god and that it has been done voluntarily against so much goodness for being in a state of grace they know the truth and how grievous is any obstacle which does not let them approach god chapter one through eight Chapters 9-17 of the Treatise on Purgatory This is a LibriVox recording.

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For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Anne Boulay Treatise on Purgatory by St. Catherine of Genoa Chapters 9-17 Chapter 9.

The Way in Which God and the Souls Regard One Another in Purgatory.

For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Anne Boulay.

Spiritual Dialogue Between the Soul, the Body, Self-Love, the Spirit, Humanity, and the Lord God by St. Catherine of Genoa.

Part 1, Chapter 1.

I saw, said the saint, a soul and a body conversing with one another.

Self-Love and I yield to you.

End of part one, chapter one.

Part one, chapter two of Spiritual Dialogue by St. Catherine of Genoa.

This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.

Saint of the Day.

The saint of the day for September fifteenth is St. Catherine of Genoa.

St. Catherine of Genoa lived between fourteen forty-seven and fifteen ten.

She was born into an aristocratic family in Genoa, Italy.

She was a quiet, obedient, physically beautiful, and holy child who devoted herself to prayer and penance.

At the age of sixteen, she consented to a marriage arranged by her family for political and financial gain.

Her husband was faithless and violent, and their marriage was miserable.

Catherine did not bear any children, and for the first five years lived as a hermit in her fine home.