{"id":26146,"date":"2011-01-12T08:10:37","date_gmt":"2011-01-12T12:10:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/2011\/01\/saint-catherine-of-genoa-a-lif\/"},"modified":"2013-11-01T12:04:55","modified_gmt":"2013-11-01T16:04:55","slug":"saint-catherine-of-genoa-a-lif","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/2011\/01\/saint-catherine-of-genoa-a-lif\/","title":{"rendered":"Saint Catherine of Genoa: a life of humility, constant prayer &#038; mystical union, charitable service"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!--StartFragment--><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/St%20Catherine%20of%20Genoa.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"mt-image-right\" style=\"float: right; margin: 0 0 20px 20px;\" alt=\"St Catherine of Genoa.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/assets_c\/2011\/01\/St Catherine of Genoa-thumb-250x338-8275.jpg\" width=\"250\" height=\"338\" \/><\/a><i>&#8220;Since I began\u00a0<\/i><i>to love, love has never forsaken me. It has ever grown to its own fullness\u00a0<\/i><i>within my innermost heart.&#8221;\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Our catechesis today deals with Saint Catherine of\u00a0Genoa, a fifteenth-century saint <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">best known<\/span> for <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">her vision of purgatory<\/span>.\u00a0Married at an early age, some ten years later Catherine had a powerful\u00a0experience of conversion; Jesus, carrying his cross, appeared to her, revealing\u00a0both her own sinfulness and God&#8217;s immense love. A woman of great humility, she\u00a0combined <strong>constant prayer and mystical union with a life of charitable service\u00a0to those in need<\/strong>, above all in her work as the director of the largest hospital\u00a0in Genoa. Catherine&#8217;s writings on purgatory contain no specific revelations,\u00a0but convey her understanding of purgatory as an interior fire purifying the\u00a0soul in preparation for full communion with God. Conscious of God&#8217;s infinite love and justice, <strong>the soul is pained by its inadequate response, even as the\u00a0divine love purifies it from the remnants of sin<\/strong>. To describe this purifying\u00a0power of God&#8217;s love, Catherine uses the image of a golden chain which draws the\u00a0soul to abandon itself to the divine will. By her life and teaching, Saint\u00a0Catherine of Genoa <strong>reminds us of the importance of prayer for the faithful\u00a0departed<\/strong>, and<strong> invites us to devote ourselves more fully to prayer and to works\u00a0of practical charity<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Pope Benedict XVI<br \/>\nsummary of Wednesday Catechesis on Saint Catherine of Genoa<br \/>\nVatican City State, 12 January 2011<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Since I began\u00a0to love, love has never forsaken me. It has ever grown to its own fullness\u00a0within my innermost heart.&#8221;\u00a0 Our catechesis today deals with Saint Catherine of\u00a0Genoa, a fifteenth-century saint best known for her vision of purgatory.\u00a0Married at an early age, some ten years later Catherine had a powerful\u00a0experience of conversion; Jesus, carrying his &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/2011\/01\/saint-catherine-of-genoa-a-lif\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Saint Catherine of Genoa: a life of humility, constant prayer &#038; mystical union, charitable service<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[2222,1770,2162],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26146"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26146"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29136,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26146\/revisions\/29136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}