St Catherine of Genoa (1447-1510) wife and mystic
What
seems to come out of St Catherine of Genoa's life is that for her the
spiritual life is a beautiful purgatory. Her personality is both
enigmatic and engaging.
Her marriage
Catherine's was a noble family, the
Fieschi. As they had two popes in the family, they were Guelphs
(supporters of the papacy). Her father died when she was young and
despite wanting to be a nun at 13, her brother arranged a political
marriage for her at 16 with a Ghibelline (supporters of the emperor),
Giuliano Adorno, to end a feud between two families. It wasn't a happy
marriage: Catherine was intense by nature, Giuliano was hot-tempered,
wayward and had several affairs. They had no children. One day in 1473
Catherine was so depressed she prayed God to keep her sick in bed for
three months.
Turn around
Two days after her prayer, Catherine
was filled with an overwhelming sense of God's love and she had a vision
of Christ's passion. This coincided with a reversal in Giuliano's
fortunes; his character changed and he became a Franciscan tertiary.
They both moved out of their palazzo into a small house. She devoted
her life to looking after terminally-ill patients in the Pammatone
hospital in Genoa where she became the director.
Giuliano also joined in
the work and both worked without pay.
The plague struck Genoa at this time and both were affected,
but Catherine was able to nurse her husband - with real affection -
until he died in 1496. She also cared for his longstanding mistress and
her daughter.
Spirituality
Catherine had an intense spiritual
life, going to daily Mass and receiving communion - which was quite
uncommon at that time. She fasted completely throughout Lent and Advent,
taking only water mixed with salt and vinegar to remind herself of the
drink offered to Our Lord on the cross, and during these fasts she
enjoyed exceptional health and vigour.
She had no formal spiritual direction and never went to confession
until, after Giuliano's death, she met a sympathetic priest, Don
Cattaneo Marabotto, who succeeded her as head of the hospital. To him
she made a general confession and it was he who wrote her biography.
Together with a young lawyer Ettore Vernazza, they were part of a group
of disciples with whom she shared her insights.
During the ten years before her death, Catherine wrote a Treatise on Purgatory,
which she describes as a place of joy rather than a place of physical
suffering; it also seems to be a metaphor for how she experienced her
own spiritual life.
Similarly her Dialogue of the Soul and Body is a witty conversation embodying the internal conflict she had undergone between her spiritual goals and her bodily desires.
Death and legacy
Catherine died of natural causes
on 14th September 1510 at Genoa, Italy and was canonised in 1737. Many
spiritual writers - Baron Von Hügel, Kathleen Jones and Benedict J.
Groeschel - have written about her enigmatic but engaging personality.