St. Catherine of Genoa St. Leo the Great says
Summary
Catherine was born in Genoa in the spring of 1447, the noble family of Fieschi .
was married very young to July Adorno (13-1-1463), married not for love, but caused by the political opportunism that was submitted. The first years were sad and desolate, for the difficult character of her husband. Catherine managed to overcome the crisis, after the vision of Christ shedding blood (03/22/1473). Since then even more devoted to the exercise of charity.
prayers, sacrifices and the example of Santa Catalina were led to the conversion of her husband. At thirty years (1478) with her husband retired to live in the civilian hospital Parnmatone getting full time to service patients who came to be a humble nurse, and later, manager and lead (1489).
was endowed by God with exceptional grace and is counted among the greatest mystics.
from his personal experience of purification was your brilliant "Treaty of Purgatory" . His influence was decisive in the life of the Church of his time, with Movement of Divine Love - inspired by it on modern spirituality through the French School of the XVI - XVII felt great admiration for her. Died consumed by the devouring fire of love at dawn on September 15, 1510.
was canonized in 1737 by Pope Clement XII. Pius XII, in 1943, proclaimed "Patron of Italian Hospitals."
Life of St. Catherine of Genoa
St. Catherine of Genoa, belonged to Fieschi family, being the fifth child of the marriage of James Black Fieschi and Francesca di Genoa. The family was of great fame and fortune in the fifteenth century, and has two popes, Innocent IV and Adrian V.
Catalina was later known in the world as a role model, admired not only for the Catholic Church but also by other baptized.
dedicated his whole life to the Lord, surrendering to the very young. As a child he was very obedient and excelled in their attitudes and desires for holiness and repentance. With only eight years old and showed a particular inclination to repent, change your bed comfortable and luxurious for the hard floor, and a rough log pillow.
By his twelfth birthday he had his first vision of God's love, which Jesus shared with her some of the sufferings of His Holy Passion. At thirteen he decided to embrace the religious life in the convent of the Sisters of Our Lady of Grace, where her sister was already a religious Limbani professes. He spoke with the director of the Order, but did not accept girls as young people in the congregation. This caused a deep wound in the heart of Catherine, but not lost faith in the Lord.
When his father died, it was thought necessary to maintain political control by uniting in marriage to the children of the same rank. At the age of 16 he was forced to marry in an arranged marriage. Her husband was totally opposed to Catherine, her pious and he a man of the world had no compassion or scruples about anyone or anything. The first years of their married life were very difficult.
Catalina, having endured many infidelities of her husband, five years of marriage, she felt abandoned by everyone and in deep despair, even God. Turned his life to the frivolous, from party to party, trying to find a meaning to his life. But this is not filled with peace and joy, but rather of despair and depression.
His conversion
March 21, 1473, on the feast of San Benito, her sister suggested she was Limbani where a priest confessor, she consented. He met a holy confessor by which the Lord filled her with great strength and His unconditional love, fell in ecstasy and was unable to confess his sins. At that time the Lord showed him all his life spent in a movie, he saw the betrayal that she did love the Lord, but at the same time he could see through the Sacred Wounds of Jesus, the great mercy of the Lord her and for all men, and the contrasting love of God and love of the world. This made him divorce from that moment on, sin and world. That same day, being at home, the Lord appeared to him, all bloody, carrying the cross, and showed him part of His life and His suffering. She, full of God's love and sad for the ten years he had wasted no loving the Lord, decided to clean up his life and thus start a new life in Him
Then the Lord for another appearance, was to lay his head in his chest Catalina as the Apostle John, giving him the grace to see everything through his eyes and felt through his heart pierced.
Through its constant prayers, her husband was converted and accepted to live in perpetual celibacy. He entered the Franciscan order tertiary and moved from the palace to a small house near the hospital, where they served the sick, helping them to die in peace. This is where the husband dies the victim of a contagious disease.
Catalina and the Eucharist
the day of the Feast of the Annunciation, after his conversion, during the celebration of Holy Mass, at the moment of Communion The Lord gave him an ardent love for the Eucharist, and from that day began to communicate daily.
The Lord invited to be with Him in the desert
Remembering the 40 days Jesus spent in the desert, Catherine would not eat or drink have interfered during Lent, feeding only on the Eucharist. He continued doing this every year during Lent and Advent. Never showed weakness or pain, except when for some reason could not receive the Eucharist. The testimony that the Eucharist is the Source of Life, was supernaturally manifested in it.
always showed great reverence and love for the Eucharist. During the celebration of Holy Mass, his spirit was always collected, especially when receiving Holy Communion often saw him fall in ecstasy, crying and begging God to forgive their sins.
She commented that when he received Communion felt a ray of love deeply pierced his heart, like other mystics like St. Teresa of Avila, San Juan de la Cruz, Santa Gemma Galgani, St. Veronica Giuliani and Padre Pio. This is the gift of Transverberation. His great love for Our Lord in the Eucharist, and only wish it was only him
sacrifice and mortification. The Agony and the Ecstasy
During the first four years, followed his conversion, performed sacrifices and penances to discipline your senses, all desire of mortifying the flesh. He abstained from meat and all kinds of fruit. Sleeping on sharp objects that cut your skin and lead to bleeding. Strong austerity practiced over the years, but always took care of the daily exercise of their duties. He spent long hours in prayer filled to the Lord and stay strong in times of temptation.
Like all saints, devoted his life to love God and service of others and not for his own comfort and desires.
The penance practiced Catalina was very strong, so much so that our Lord on one occasion ordered him to cease such practice mortification and penance so severe, to which she complied.
Catalina always sought the hidden life, longing for the intimate life with the Lord, but never took any gift as deserved, for he knew that she could do no good. In all this saw the great love of God, begging him to always do it His will.
During an appearance the Lord said: " never say I want, or I do not want. Do not tell me, but always ours. Never give excuses, but you're always ready to accuse yourself. "
body Battle Divine Love and his pride.
Catalina described the self as hatred of their own, said love itself is the hook placed by the devil to make us fall and strategy to bring the evil to the world.
The soul absorbed by self-love is directed at the total spiritual bankruptcy. Deaf and blind to the truth, condemns her to be voluntarily, making his way to purgatory or hell eternal agony. For her self-esteem causes more death than the death of our own body, for us from the Divine Love, of Truth and the true will of God. "The best way to love the Lord is a fully self-forgetting," he insisted.
Death of Saint Catherine of Genoa
Nine years before his death, Catherine suffered was very sick. Anything off his pain and his condition was gradually deteriorating. He suffered much in the likeness of her Divine Spouse, not a single part of your body without pain. Your body and soul were completely united to the sufferings of the Passion of Christ, even when sleeping.
During the last years of his life, he lived almost a week eating what you eat in a day regularly, and although physically I was suffering terribly, always had a special peace.
Catherine died on 14 September, 1507, the day of the Exaltation of the Cross. His body was interred in the hospital where he served for over 40 years. When years later he opened his tomb, his clothes showed signs of decomposition and the coffin, but his body was intact, just like the day he had been buried.
Many miracles after his death.
A friend of Catherine who was critically ill, had a vision of Catherine in the sky, enjoying the Divine Light. Then he asked the nurses the hospital to transfer her and placed near the body of Catherine, and to pass on part of his body he was ill, a cloth dress Catalina, at that moment Catherine's friend asked the intercession of the holy and was immediately healed.
was canonized on May 18, 1737 by Pope Benedict XIV.
His body remains incorrupt in the hospital church where he served many years. Its original name is the Holy Annunziata, but adds the Santa Catalina. Originally part of the hospital but this was destroyed by war while the church was miraculously saved. Today the church is maintained by the Franciscan friars.
Revelations of St. Catherine Lord: (D = Dialogue spiritual - P = Purgatory)
Soul "could not be satisfied" of earthly goods. "The more I looked" less is stilled. (D 17)
"You see this blood? All love has spread to repair yours and your sins." (D 51)
"From now on all that shall come to pass I want to receive from the benign hand of God." (D 69)
"The souls in Purgatory are all transformed into the will of God and are happy for all that He has established." (P22)
"I do not think happiness can be found comparable to that of a soul purging" even if you suffer a "punishment so extreme" that is not capable of expressing language. (P4-5)
About sin
L a source of all suffering is caused by sin. God created the soul pure, simple, free and eager to worship Him All this was lost by original sin and actual sins of others, increasing communication and decreasing sin and communion with him, filling the soul of darkness away from God.
About hell and souls:
As the spirit is purified does not rest only in God who was created souls in sin and can not rest only in Hell, why did that end.
About Purgatory:
The soul as it leaves the body and can not find the purity for which it was created, is incapable of union with God. Catherine believes that Purgatory can only remove impurities, longs Purgatory to be purified and completely purified to appear before the Lord. God pure in a way that no human mind can conceive, a low spot where the soul is revealed with such purity.
The Lord revealed the Purgatorio as hell, with the only difference in Purgatory purify the soul craves to go to God. And hell, the soul does not want to purify and unite with God. But in terms of suffering, God revealed the same.
The greatest pain in purgatory is to see that the gates of heaven God is open to all and that one during his time in the earthly life, he rejected those purifications. In Purgatory the soul can see the infinite love and mercy of God and the time we gave back to our desires and wishes. Then, the very soul know and see that even the Purgatorio is proof of the infinite love and mercy of God.
Jesus reveals Purgatory and Hell.
Through Divine fire which was purified in his mortal life, she could understand the state of the souls in Purgatory. The Lord had purified his soul into the furnace of His love, (as in the gold which is purified of all impurities in the fire) cleaning all sorts of sins of his past life, leaving him ready to stand before Jesus told "The soul is like gold, must be purified in the fire." During his mortal life, God take, the purified and enriched by divine fire, leading to a high perfection, for their vocation and capacity.
He revealed also that just as the sun can not penetrate a floor area, and it also calls her his love, can not penetrate the souls that block or refuse to receive His love Purifier because He respects human freedom.
The soul does not want to be purified in his earthly life, and finds no pleasure in the cleansing, purification must suffer stronger in Purgatory. For here on earth are in this complacency and comfort in the Lord, we feel His love and protection and we want to see him do it for all the inconveniences of this life and ways in which the Lord out of pure love desires to purify and sanctify us and we really feel we are being purified by fire of divine love, finding relief in it and accepting His will.
The flames with which the soul is purified here on earth are the flames of Divine Love, in Purgatory flames that burn and purify all our sins, not the flames of divine love that cause pain, distress, there is compassion. Y but our love for the Lord grows, does not remove or diminish the anguish that we suffer, even when we feel the rays of God's love.
PRAYER
Oh glorious Santa Catalina, a worthy daughter of the poor man of Assisi, which will be emulated in pity for the passion of Jesus and the ardor of charity, so you got to make your life a continuous act of love for God and neighbor, your gaze back to us.
Make in our hearts is turned on for at least a spark of your burning love, which start from the bonds of sin, we are an ever-closer to the Lord.
still know the soft comforting the sick, obtaining with the body's health, peace and joy of the soul.
also extends your prayer on the souls in Purgatory, so that as soon as possible to enjoy the full possession of God.
Deliver us from misfortune, all danger away from us and deserve obténnos grace, practicing virtue, the glory of Paradise. Amen.
source: www.corazones.org
