(1447-1510) Sharing a memorial with Our Lady of Sorrows is the “Apostle of Purgatory.” Catherine was born to Italian nobility and related to two popes. She entered an arranged marriage at 16 that was childless, and her husband was cruel and unfaithful. Catherine fell into a depression and became indifferent to the faith. Around the age of 26, while going to confession at a convent, Catherine had a mystical revelation of God’s love and her own sinfulness that altered her life. She brought her husband back to the faith, and together they served the sick and poor.
Saint Catherine describes the purification of purgatory not as a place, but an interior experience. “With her life St. Catherine teaches us that the more we love God and enter into intimacy with him in prayer the more he makes himself known to us, setting our hearts on fire with his love” (Pope Benedict XVI, General Audience, January 12, 2011). Steps 4 and 11 resonate here.
“If it were given to a man to see virtue’s reward in the next world, he would occupy his intellect, memory and will in nothing but good works, careless of danger or fatigue” (Saint Catherine of Genoa).