Today we celebrate a very interesting woman. Her name was Catherine, and she lived in 15th century Italy. She was arranged to marry a man when she was only 16. He blew all of their money on gambling. She was miserable, and tried to find happiness in the pleasures of life. But these only left her feeling empty.
One day her sister suggested she go to confession. She did, and an overwhelming sense of her own sin and the love of God brought her to weeping, and she wept for three days. Then she came back and made her confession, and entered into a deep and mystical relationship with God. He revealed many things to her, which she wrote down and were published after her death. One of these things is that the fires of purgatory aren't so much exterior, painful flames as they are internal, purifying flames of love. These are very much like the flames that she experienced in confession that day.
I was not expecting what happened next. Her husband then had a miraculous conversion! And then they worked together, helping the poor, and lived happily ever after. That's not the ending we usually read in the lives of saints! You can read more about her here.
God, thanks for the example of repentance from this very interesting saint. St Catherine of Genoa, pray for us.
No comments:
Post a Comment