Purgatory
Saint Catherine
God gave her exceptional graces and she is counted among the most important mystics.
From her personal experience of purification came her brilliant "study about the Purgatory".
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Saint of the pure love
Her influence in the ecclesiastical life was very important in her time, with the movement of the divine love that she inspired, about the modern spirituality through the French school of the XVI-XVII centuries that was very interesting for her.
She died devoured by the fire of love at the dawn of 15th September 1510. She has been canonized in 1737 by Pope Clemente XII. Pius, in the year 1943, proclaimed her "Patron saint of the Italian hospitals".
At the age of twelve she had her first vision of God’s love, in which Jesus shared with her some of the sufferings of his Holy Passion. When she was thirteen she decided to begin her religious life in the convent of the nuns of Our Lady of the Grace, where her sister Limbania was already a nun. She spoke with the director of the Order, but they did not accept such young girls in their congregation. This caused a big wound in the heart of Catherine, but she did not loose her faith in the Lord.
When she was 16 she got married with Giuliano Adorno; it was not a wedding for love, but for political opportunism. The first years were sad and desolate, because of the difficult character of her husband. Catherine did get over the crisis, after the vision of Christ who was bleeding and from that moment on she dedicated her life to charity.
Then, our Lord during another vision, he let Catherine bend her head on his chest, giving her the grace of seeing through His eyes and feeling through His wounded heart.
She always showed great reverence and love for the Holy Communion. During the celebration of the Holy Mess, her spirit was always concentrated, especially when receiving the Holy Communion, more than once she fell in ecstasy and crying she begged God to forgive her sins.
The punishment practiced by Catherine was very hard, so that our Lord in an occasion told her to stop those mortifications and punishments so severe, she obeyed.
Catherine died on 14th September 1507, the commemorative day of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. Her body has been buried in the same hospital where she worked for more than 40 years. When some years later they opened her tomb, her robes did not show any signs of deterioration, her body was intact, like the day she was buried.
Jesus revealed to Saint Catherine from Genoa, the Purgatory and the Hell.
Through the Divine Fire with which she has been purified in her mortal life, she has been able to understand the souls of Purgatory. Jesus said: "The soul is like gold, it should be purified through fire."
He revealed that like the sun that could not penetrate a covered surface, also the fire of his love, cannot penetrate in the souls who stop or resist in receiving his Purifying Love, because he respect the liberty of mankind.
The soul who does not want to be purified in the mortal life and who does not like purification, should undergo a harder purification in Purgatory. Because here on Earth it finds kindness and consolation in the Lord.
The flame owing to which the soul is purified here on Heart, are the flames of the divine love, in the Purgatory the flames that burn and purify all our sins are not flames of the divine love for this reason they cause suffering, anxiety; there is no compassion. And even if our love for the Lord grows, it does not take sufferings away, also when it is possible to feel God’s Love.
