September 15th - St. Catherine of Genoa, Mystic
Born in Genoa, Italy, 1447; died there, September 14, 1510; beatified in
1737
and equipollently (with equal power) canonized by Pope Benedict XIV a few
years
later (others say she was canonized in 1737); feast day formerly on March
22.
"He who purifies himself from his faults in the present life, satisfies
with a
penny a debt of a thousand ducats; and he who waits until the other life
to
discharge his debts, consents to pay a thousand ducats for that which he
might
before have paid with a penny."
-Saint Catherine, Treatise on purgatory.
The biography of Saint Catherine of Genoa, who combined mysticism with
practicality, was written by Baron Friedrich von Hügel. She was the fifth
and
youngest child of James Fieschi and his wife Francesca di Negro, members
of the
noble Guelph family of Fieschi, which had produced two popes (Innocent IV
and
Adrian V). After her birth, her father later became viceroy of Naples for
King
René of Anjou.
From the age of 13 Catherine sought to became a cloistered religious. Her
sister
was already a canoness regular and her confessor was the chaplain of that
convent. When she asked to be received, they decided that she was too
young.
Then her father died and, for dynastic reasons, her widowed mother
insisted that
the 16-year-old marry the Genoese Ghibelline patrician, Guiliano Adorno.
Her
husband was unfaithful, violent, and a spendthrift. The first five years
of
their marriage, Catherine suffered in silence. In some ways it seems odd
that he
did not find her attractive, because Catherine was a beautiful woman of
great
intelligence, and deeply religious. But they were of completely different
temperaments: she was intense and humorless; he had a zest for life.
Then she determined to win her husband's affection by adopting worldly
airs. As
it turns out, this only made her unhappy because she lost the only
consolation
that had previously sustained her- her religious life. Ten years into her
marriage, Catherine was a very unhappy woman; her husband had reduced them
to
poverty by his extravagance. On the eve of his feast in 1473, Catherine
prayed,
"Saint Benedict, pray to God that He make me stay three months sick in
bed." Two
days later she was kneeling for a blessing before the chaplain at her
sister's
convent. She had visited her sister and revealed the secrets of her heart.
Her
sister advised her to go to confession.
In following her sister's advice, Catherine experienced a sort of ecstasy.
She
was overwhelmed by her sins and, at the very same time, by the infinite
love of
God for her. This experience was the foundation for an enduring awareness
of the
presence of God and a fixed attitude of soul. She was drawn back to the
path of
devotion of her childhood. Within a few days she had a vision of our Lord
carrying His cross, which caused her to cry out, "O Love, if it be
necessary I
am ready to confess my sins in public!" On the Solemnity of the
Annunciation she
received the Eucharist, the first time with fervor for ten years.
Thus began her mystical ascent under very severe mortifications that
included
fasting throughout Lent and Advent almost exclusively on the Eucharist.
She
became a stigmatic. A group of religious people gathered around Catherine,
who
guided them to a spirit-filled life.
Eventually her husband was converted, became a Franciscan tertiary, and
they
agreed to live together in continence. Catherine and Giuliano devoted
themselves
to the care of the sick in the municipal hospital of Genoa, Pammatone,
where
they were joined by Catherine's cousin Tommasina Fieschi. In 1473, they
moved
from their palazzo to a small house in a poorer neighborhood than was
necessary.
In 1479, they went to live in the hospital and Catherine became its
director in
1490. The heroism of Catherine's charity revealed itself in a special way
during
the plagues of 1493 and 1501. The first one killed nearly 75 percent of
the
inhabitants. Catherine herself contracted the disease. Although she
recovered,
she was forced to resign due to ill health three years later.
After Giuliano's death the following year (1497), Catherine's spiritual
life
became even more intense. In 1499, Catherine met don Cattaneo Marabotto,
who
became her spiritual director. Her religious practices were idiosyncratic;
for
instance, she went to communion daily when it was unusual to do so. For
years
she made extraordinarily long fasts without abating her charitable
activities.
Catherine is an outstanding example of the religious contemplative who
combines
the spiritual life with competence in practical affairs. Yet she was
always
fearful of "the contagion of the world's slow stain" that had separated
her from
God in the early years of her marriage.
Her last three years of life were a combination of numerous mystical
experiences
and ill health that remained undiagnosed by even John-Baptist Boerio, the
principal doctor to King Henry VII. In addition to her body remaining
undecomposed and one of her arms elongating in a peculiar manner shortly
before
her death, the blood from her stigmata gave off exceptional heat.
A contem****ary painting of Catherine, now at the Pammatone Hospital in
Genoa,
possibly painted by the female artist Tomasina Fieschi, shows Catherine in
middle age. It reveals a slight woman with a long, patrician nose;
pronounced,
cleft chin; easy smile of broad but thin lips (and, surprisingly, deep
laugh
lines); high cheekbones; and large dark eyes punctuated by thin, graceful
eyebrows.
"Dialogue Between the Soul and the Body" and "Treatise on Purgatory" are
outstanding works in the field of mysticism, which were inspired by her
and
contain the essence of her, but were actually composed by others under her
name.
She is the patron of Genoa and of Italian hospitals (Attwater,
Benedictines,
Delaney, Farmer, Harrison, Schamoni, Schouppe, Walsh).
Saint Quote:
"There would be no need for sermons, if our lives were ****ning; there
would be
no need for words, if we bore witness with our deeds. There would be no
pagans,
if we were true Christians."
-Saint John Chrysostom
Bible Quote:
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Rom. 12:21)
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YOUR CROSS
The everlasting God has in His
Wisdom foreseen from eternity,
the cross He now presents to
you as a gift from His
innermost heart. This cross He
now sends you He has
considered with his all-knowing
eyes, understood with His
divine mind, tested with His
wise justice, warmed with
loving arms and weighted with
His own hands to see that it
not be one ounce too heavy for
you. He has blessed it with His
Holy Name, anointed it with His
grace, perfumed it with his
consolation, and taken one last
glance at you and your courage
-has sent it to you from
heaven, a special greeting
from God to you, an alms of
the all merciful love of God.
St. Frances de Sales
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