Catherine of Genoa: Purgation and Purgatory, the Spiritual Dialogue

Catherine of Genoa is an amazing example of activist spiritual approaches - interaction with God through service to others. Her selflessness is extreme, and in aversion therapy approach she describes is loathsome in the extreme. But if one can see what's going on beyond the startling nature of these things, one can see God at work through her willingness to selflessly serve.

The value of Catherine of Genoa's words today is in their call to conversion. Not just to reconciliation and the momentary remittance and absolution from our sin - but radical conversion - metanoia - a turning away from sin. Unlike the "fire and brimstone" image of Hell that we developed as children, the image of Hell that is described by Catherine of Genoa is one of mercy where God's infinite and perfect love transcends the sins of man which spring from his own will (self-will) in conflict with God's will. Catherine's image of purgatory is at the same time eloquent and mysterious. She teaches on the suffering of purgatory, "The souls cannot find the pain to be in pain since they are at peace in God's will, and yet the opposition remaining in the soul to God's will is the occasion of terrible pain." The soul, once purified, comes to rest in God. She says, "Its being is God." Catherine's mystical understanding of the mercy and love of God - of God as love - provide a point from which to contemplate and perhaps grasp the great loss which we experience through our sin. Her words provide an insight into eschatology, hell, and purgatory. Centuries after her own earthly life ended, she provides valuable teaching on the relationship that her soul, and our soul has with its Creator. I recommend this very interesting book to anyone interested in their relationship with God.

Catherine of Genoa: Purgation and Purgatory, The Spiritual Dialogue (Classics of Western Spirituality) This is a MUST READ! For those of you who believe in heaven, purgatory, and hell, there is nothing I need to say. St. Catherine of Genoa says it all. For those of you who believe in heaven and hell but not purgatory, I hope you aim for heaven and don't miss. God in his mercy has given us purgatory as many of us are not nearly as pure as we might think. Persons undergoing additional purification in purgatory will get to heaven. For those who do not believe in God that doesn't mean he doesn't exist. Science can only prove processes but how life came to be on this planet. The others who miss and land in hell. Well, I'm sorry. This is a must read! It will make you think and provide comfort.

St Catherine of Genoa (1447-1510) has a special importance for me because it is her after whom I was named. :D On 13 January 1463, at the age of sixteen, Catherine was married to Guiliano Adorni. He is described as a man of "strange and recalcitrant nature" who wasted his substance on disorderly living. Having little in common with her husband, their marriage had many difficult years. As did Jeanne Guyon, Catherine maintained a strong spiritual relationship despite opposition in her marriage. Guiliano became a member of the Third Order of St. Francis, and both he and Catherine worked among the poor and the sick. In 1497, she nursed her husband through his last illness. In his will he extolled her virtues and left her all his possessions. Instead of becoming bitter for her experience, Catherine brought joy and peace to the sick and lame as rector of the hospital of St. Lazarus in Genoa. Although Catherine was no scholar, she was, at the same time, inspired, vehement and warm-hearted. Her work reads as though she poured out what she had to say on paper, not staying to choose words, not revising or hardly revising. If she is sometimes careless of exactitude, she compensates for it by spontaneity. In her simple honest expression, Catherine is able to address the complex issue, for example, of what is the cause of the LORD our GOD's great love for us who are so set against her, and what are we that GOD would be mindful of us. "Know first that I am GOD who change not, and that I loved man before I created him, with an infinite, pure, simple and clear love for which there was no cause, save that I cannot but love what I have created and ordained to minister, in its degree, to my glory. And I have provided man richly with all fit means to reach his end, with natural gifts and supernatural graces which he will never lack in so far as they depend on me; nay more, with my infinite love which by divers ways and means surrounds him so that he may be subject to my care." If you are interested in the faith expression of a woman of grace and courage, this book will be interesting to you.

I have not read any Christian mystic who more brillantly captured the excitement of the concept of God's infinite love. Where Luther or Augustine wrote volumes to give voice to the experience of unmerited grace, Catherine of Genoa does full justice to the topic in a few lines. By contrast, the Spiritual Dialogue rings a little hallow after the thunder clap of Catherine's Purgation and Purgatory. The shadow-boxing between Body, Soul, Spirit and Self Love offers little fresh insight and no drama.