St. Catherine of Genoa: Treatise on Purgatory

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CHAPTER X. HOW GOD MAKES USE OF PURGATORY TO RENDER THE SOUL PERFECTLY PURE;
THE SOUL THERE ATTAINS SUCH PURITY, THAT WERE IT TO STAY AFTER BEING CLEANSED IT WOULD NO LONGER SUFFER.


Again, I see that the love of God directs towards the soul certain burning rays and shafts of light, which seem penetrating and powerful enough to annihilate not merely the body, but, were it possible, the very soul itself. These work in two ways; they purify, and they annihilate.

Look at gold: the more it is melted, the better it becomes; and it could be melted so as to destroy every single defect. Such is the action of fire on material things. Now the soul cannot be annihilated so far as it is in God, but only in itself; and the more it is purified, so much the more it annihilates self, till at last it becomes quite pure and rests in God. Gold which has been purified to a certain point ceases to suffer any diminution from the action of fire, however great it be; for the fire does not destroy gold, but only the dross that it may chance to have.

In like manner the Divine fire acts on souls: God holds them in the furnace until every defect has been burnt away, and He has brought them, each in his own degree, to a certain standard of perfection. Thus purified, they rest in God without any alloy of self: their very being is God; they become impassible because there is nothing left to be consumed. And if in this state of purity they were kept in the fire, they would feel no pain; rather it would be to them a fire of Divine Love, burning on without opposition, like the fire of life eternal.

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CHAPTER XI. THE DESIRE OF THE SOULS IN PURGATORY TO BE QUITE FREE FROM THE STAINS OF THEIR SINS — THE WISDOM OF GOD IN SUDDENLY HIDING FROM THOSE SOULS THE DEFECTS THEY HAVE.


The soul in its creation was invested with all the conditions of which it was capable for reaching perfection, supposing it to live according to the appointment of God, and keep altogether from the defilements of sin. But, marred by original sin, it loses all its gifts and graces, becomes dead; and God alone can raise it to life again. And when He has done so by baptism, still the propensity to evil remains, which, if unresisted, inclines and leads to actual sin, whereby the soul again dies. Again God restores it to life; but after this it is so tainted, so turned to self, that to recall it to its first state needs all that Divine agency that I have been speaking about, without which it never could be recalled. And when the soul finds itself on its way back to that first state, it is so enkindled with the desire of becoming one with God, that this desire becomes its purgatory; not that the soul can look at purgatory as such, but the instinct by which it is kindled, and the impediment by which it is hindered, constitute its purgatory.

God performs this last act of love without the co-operation of man; for there are so many secret imperfections within the soul, that the sight of them would drive it to despair. These are, however, all destroyed during the process I have described; and when they are consumed, God shows them to the soul, that it may understand that it was He who kindled that fire of love which consumes every imperfection there is to be consumed.

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CHAPTER XII. THE UNION OF SUFFERING AND JOY IN PURGATORY.


Know that what man deems perfection is in the sight of God a defect. All the things which have the appearance of perfection, so far as they come before the sight, the feeling, the understanding, the memory, or the will, are tainted and spoilt if not recognised as from God. For a work to be perfect, it must be wrought in us, without our co-operation as principal agents; it must be God's work, done in God, and man must not in any way take the lead. Such precisely is that operation of His pure and simple love which God finally works in us, without any merit of our own; wherein he so penetrates and burns the soul, that the surrounding body is consumed away, and can no more hold up, than one could remain alive and rest patiently amid the flames of a burning fiery furnace. It is true that the overflowing love of God bestows upon the souls in purgatory a happiness beyond expression great: but then this happiness does not in the least diminish the pain — rather the pain is constituted by this love finding itself impeded; the more perfect the love of which God makes the soul capable, the greater the pain.

In this manner the souls in purgatory at the same time experience the greatest happiness and the most excessive pain; and one does not prevent the other.

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CHAPTER XIII. HOW THE SOUL, RECOGNISING ITS OWN IMPERFECTION, RUSHES OF ITSELF INTO PURGATORY.


God created the soul to enjoy the fruition of Himself, for which end He endowed it with such a powerful instinct, that, were it to find anything it has done to be contrary to its fulfilment, it would instantly chastise and correct it by its own good will, without waiting for any other judgment.

I will explain myself by a comparison. Suppose that on the day of judgment every one were to be freed from his sins by the blood of Christ, yet some blemishes and deformities were left in the soul through sin: such, for instance, as a shortness of sight, preventing one from beholding the divine light, or contracted limbs, causing one to walk and to work imperfectly, with many other similar defects; all of which would be discovered in that clear light. Now, if such a soul were placed before the face of God, it would feel that it could not bear that presence, it would feel the contrast between what it is and what it ought to be; and so, that self-love which God infuses into it as part of its creation would of itself be a hell to it, or rather would put it into purgatory for its own purification, without any other judge or sentence.

The soul sees by the divine light how disfigured it is, and, urged by that natural instinct which God has planted in it for the purpose of keeping it pure, understands full well that only by some such purging can it restore itself to the purity in which God designed it. It accordingly chastises itself in purgatory, without any external compulsion whatsoever. The soul, that is to say, creates its own purgatory by its own act of love; not that the soul was damned, but the soul was not fit to be in heaven; and the soul, out of love for God and desire for the divine union, accepts this purgatory.

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Chapter XIV. On the Submission to the Will of God That the Souls in Purgatory Have.


These souls are so closely united, so transformed into the will of God, that in all things they are satisfied with His most holy decree; and were a soul presented before God with ever so little to purge away, it would suffer grievous hurt and a torment worse than ten purgatories. That unspotted sanctity, that perfect justice, could not endure it; to do so would be unbecoming on the part of God. Should, then, the soul perceive that it lacked even a moment of satisfying God most completely, it would be to it a thing intolerable; and rather than stand thus imperfectly cleansed in the presence of God, it would plunge at once into a thousand hells.

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Chapter XV. How the Souls in Purgatory Rebuke the Men of This World.


"Would that I could cry out," said this blessed soul, when under Divine illumination she saw these things, "loud enough to strike with fear every man upon the earth, and say, Miserable beings, why suffer ye yourselves to be so blinded by this world as to make no provision for the dire strait ye will find yourselves in at the hour of death? Ye all shelter yourselves under the hope of God's mercy, which ye say is so great; and ye consider not that this very goodness of God will rise up in judgment against you for having opposed the will of so good a Master: His mercy ought to constrain you to do all His Will, and not encourage you to do evil. Be assured that His justice cannot yield, but must in one way or other be fully satisfied. Let no one buoy himself up saying, 'I shall confess; and then I shall receive a plenary indulgence, whereby I shall be cleansed from all my sins and get through safely.' Know that a plenary indulgence requires confession and contrition; and this latter is so difficult to obtain, that if ye knew how difficult, ye would tremble with fear, and rather make sure of not gaining than of gaining the indulgence."

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Chapter XVI. The Saint Shows That the Sufferings of the Souls in Purgatory Do Not Destroy Their Peace or Their Joy.


I see that the souls in purgatory in the midst of their pains are sensible of doing two things:

First, that they are suffering willingly; for when they perceive their own deserts and God's Majesty, they think that He is treating them with great leniency in afflicting them as He does; for had not goodness tempered justice with mercy through the satisfactions of the precious Blood of Jesus Christ, a thousand hells would have been the portion of a single sin through all eternity. Hence they suffer all their pains gladly, and would not rid them of a single pang, knowing that all is justly deserved and righteously ordained: they no more complain of God, so far as their will is concerned, than if they were in life eternal.

Secondly, they are conscious of feeling positive satisfaction in beholding the love and mercy with which God orders His work within them. They are made sensible of these two facts at one and the same moment, and being in a state of grace, understand them as they are, each soul according to its capacity; and they experience great happiness, which never grows less, but, on the contrary, goes on increasing the nearer they approach God. They do not know these things directly in themselves, but in God, on whom their attention is more fixed — far more — than on the pains they suffer, and of whom in comparison they make far more account. For one glimpse of God exceeds every pain and every joy a man can conceive, and though it exceeds, does not take away one particle of the joy or of the pain.

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Chapter XVII. The Saint, in Conclusion, Applies All That Has Been Said of the Souls in Purgatory to What She Feels and Experiences in Her Own Mind.


That which I have thus described as going on within the souls who are actually in purgatory, I have experienced in my own soul, especially during the last two years; and each day I see and feel it more clearly. I perceive my soul in the midst of my body as in a purgatory, conformed and like to the true purgatory, in measure, however, that the body may be able to endure it and not die; yet the pain goes on increasing gradually until death. I see the soul estranged to all things, even spiritual, which can give it nourishment — as joy, delight, consolation; and it has no power of tasting anything temporal or spiritual by will, by understanding, by memory, so that I can say, "This thing pleases me more than that other."

My soul is, as it were, besieged in such a manner that all spiritual or bodily refreshments are gradually cut off; and when they have been cut off, the soul, although it knows well how it could have been fed and comforted by them, looks on them with feelings of hatred and abhorrence, and rejects them all without repairing its loss. This happens because there exists within the soul an impulse to get rid of every hindrance to its perfection; and that, too, with such severity to itself, that it would almost suffer itself to be cast into hell to reach this end: and so it goes on, removing everything which might feed the inward man, and besieges itself so straitly, that not even the least particle of imperfection can pass without being spied out, and rejected with abhorrence.

My body, too, since it can no longer communicate with the soul, is in like manner besieged, and unable to obtain anything to refresh its human nature; there is no comfort for it but God, Who does all He does to satisfy His justice lovingly and with great mercy. When I see this, I feel satisfaction and peace; but my sufferings are not the less, nor am I the less straitly besieged. No sufferings, however, could make me wish it otherwise than God has determined for me; I remain in my prison without a wish to come out till God has done all that I need. My happiness is that God should be satisfied; and the greatest pain I could endure would be being excluded from His ordinance, for I see how just and merciful it is.

I am sensible of all these things I have described as it were by sight and touch, but I cannot find fitting words to express myself as I could wish. I have said what I have, because I was conscious of its going on spiritually within me. The prison in which I fancy myself shut up is the world; the chain by which I am held is the body; the soul enlightened is she who, knowing well the grievousness of being detained and kept back by any hindrance from reaching her end, suffers thereby great pain, inasmuch as she is very tender. God, by His grace, bestows upon her a dignity which makes her like God, and not only like God, but even one with Him through participating in His goodness; and as it is impossible that God should suffer pain, so it is with the souls that approach Him; and the nearer they approach Him, the more they share in that which belongs to Him.

The hindrance, then, that the soul meets with, causes it to feel an intolerable pain; and the pain, together with the hindrance, obstruct those properties which it has by nature and which by grace are revealed to it; and not being able to attain them, although capable of them, the soul remains in suffering great in proportion to its appreciation of God. This appreciation of God grows with its knowledge of God; and its knowledge is greater the more it is free from sin: and the delay becomes more and more terrible, because the soul wholly immersed in God, knows Him without error, there being nothing in the way to prevent such knowledge. The man who would sooner die than offend God, feels death and the pain of dying; but the sight of God supplies him with a zeal which makes him think more of the Divine honour than bodily death.

In like manner, a soul knowing what God has appointed for it thinks more of the appointment than any outward or inward pain, no matter how dreadful; and this because God, the Author of it, surpasses everything that can be thought of or imagined. The participation of Himself that God grants the soul, however slight it be, keeps it so wholly taken up with His Majesty that it can think of nothing else; everything to do with self passes away — it neither sees, speaks, nor knows loss or pain of its own; but all this, as has been already clearly said, it perceives at the instant of passing from this life. Finally, in conclusion, I mean that God, who is good and great, destroys all which is of man, and purgatory purifies it.

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**Appendices**

Appendix A.

The Saint must here be understood to mean that the souls in purgatory cannot recollect the specific reasons of the pains they suffer; that they cannot say, "I have done such and such sins, for which I deserve to be here." She cannot mean absolutely that they do not know that the pains they suffer are in punishment for their sins. For besides such ignorance being scarcely conceivable, it is contrary to her own express statement in chap. vii., where she says, that "that which causes the souls in purgatory most pain, is the seeing in themselves a thing displeasing to God; and the being conscious that it has been committed against so much goodness."



Appendix B.

There is a difference of opinion among theologians as to the nature of that purification which the souls undergo in purgatory. From what are they purified? From the guilt of sin, or simply from imperfections? If from imperfections, in what sense do they become perfect? In that they are intrinsically improved; or is it merely that they have bettered their condition before God?

Bellarmine goes so far as to maintain that the culpa, or guilt, of venial sin is remitted in purgatory. To Calvin's objection to Matt. xii. 32 being quoted in favour of purgatory, because there Our Lord is speaking of sin being remitted in the world to come quoad culpam, whereas purgatory only remits sin quoad poenam, he replies, that at least venial sin is remitted in purgatory quoad culpam (De Purg. lib. i. c. iv. 6). He says that the true opinion is St. Thomas's, that the guilt of venial sin, culpae veniales, is remitted in purgatory by an act of love and patient endurance (De Purg. lib. i. c. xiv. 22).

Suarez, on the other hand, does not seem to admit that purgatory betters the soul in any other sense than enabling it to discharge the debt of punishment due to sin (Suarez, Disp. xi., sec. iv. a. 2, § 10). All the guilt of sin, he says, is remitted at the first moment of the soul's separation from the body — in primo instanti separationis animae a corpore — "by a single act of contrition, whereby the will is wholly converted to God, and turned away from every venial sin" (§ 13). And in this way, he says, sin may be remitted — quoad culpam — in purgatory, because the soul's purification dates from this moment (§ 10). As to bad habits and vicious inclinations, he says, "We ought not to imagine that the soul is detained for these: for so far as they arise from the sensitive appetite, they are laid aside with the body; so far as they are in the will, they are either taken away at the moment of death, or expelled by an infusion of the contrary virtues when the soul enters into glory" (Disp. xlvii. sec. i. 6).

Now which view, it may be asked, does St. Catherine countenance in the present treatise — that of Bellarmine or that of Suarez? She is plainly unfavourable to Bellarmine's view of the culpa, or guilt of venial sin, being remitted in purgatory: for she says (chap. iii.) that "the souls in purgatory are free from the guilt of sin, and nothing is between God and them except the punishment"; and in chap. iv., that the souls in purgatory have only the punishment, the guilt — la culpa — having been cancelled at the moment of death; and so far she supports Suarez. Yet there are not wanting many passages which make it very doubtful whether she is altogether on his side.

What does the Saint understand by the macchia, or stain, which she says is upon the soul after sin, and to get rid of which it must needs go through purgatory? According to St. Thomas, the effect of sin is threefold: 1. It weakens the soul's natural propensity to good — corrumpit bonum naturae; 2. It leaves a stain — causat maculam — on the soul; 3. It incurs a debt of punishment — facit hominem reum poenae. The stain, or macula, is altogether a privative idea. As the result of mortal sin, "it is that shadow which is upon the soul when the light of grace can no longer shine there, which shade in some way or other takes its shape* from the actual sin which has caused it — Est privatio nitoris gratiae seu quod idem est ipsiusmet gratiae connotans peccatum actuale praecedens a quo causatur" (Billuart, vol. iv. d. vii. a. 11). As the result of venial sin, it is the diminution of the fervour of charity: Est privatio fervoris charitatis ex peccatis actualibus venialibus (Ibid.).

Speaking analogously of the souls in purgatory, does the Saint mean by the macchia, or stain, that shade or gloom which is over the soul in consequence of being deprived of the light of glory?

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* "Sicut umbra quae est varia pro diversitate corporum." (St. Thomas, Sum. Th. I. 2, q. 86.)

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The comparison in chapter ii. at first sight seems favourable to such a notion; but then it is to be observed in that comparison, that the Saint has evidently before her mind the ruggine del peccato as the cause, not the effect, of God's not shining into the soul.

Perhaps, then, there is no reference in this macchia to St. Thomas's macula. It may simply mean the state of the soul which has not paid the debt of punishment when it ought. For that it includes in it the idea of an imperfection in the soul, and not simple punishment, seems evidently implied by its being opposed (chapter viii.) not merely to God's justice, but to His purity. But does it not also include the corruptio naturalis boni — that weakness in the direction of virtue, those bad dispositions, those unheavenly tastes, which the soul contracts through sin, and which remain after the guilt of sin is remitted? Certainly such could be got rid of, as Suarez suggests, in a moment; but there seems a moral fitness that it should not be so — that as they have been gained by slow degrees, and a repetition of acts, they should be got rid of by a like process — that in getting back to virtue we should have to retrace the steps we have taken in departing therefrom. We know that such is God's way of dealing with souls in this life; why should we think it is different in purgatory?

There are several passages in the treatise which make one think that this must have been St. Catherine's view. In chapter xi. she almost, if not quite, says so. She says that when the soul has been restored to grace, it often remains so stained and turned to self (imbrattata e conversa verso se stessa), that to recall it to its first state, as God created it, needs all those operations of the Divine power which she has been describing, without which it could never be recalled. Now what can she mean here but selfish habits? She concludes the treatise by saying, that "God, Who is great and good, destroys all that is of man, and purgatory purifies it." Now what can be meant by all that is of man except earthly inclinations?

It is very easy to reconcile what the Saint says elsewhere, which looks the other way. For instance, in chapter iii., where she says, that there is nothing between God and the souls except the punishment, it may be conceived that the Saint includes this very getting rid of the bad inclinations as a part of the punishment: observe, in connection with the preceding context, what she says in chapter xi. about the istinto acceso ed impedito constituting the soul's purgatory. Again, it may be thought, that in chapter i., the idea of imperfection is excluded from the souls in purgatory; but the Saint there only speaks of the impossibility of acts of imperfection existing in purgatory: such inclinations and habits as are here supposed are altogether passive. And that she does not exclude all idea of imperfection is evident both, as was said before, from her making the impediment something opposed to God's purity, and from her own express statement in chapter xi., where she says that "there are so many secret imperfections in the soul, that were it to see them it would be driven to despair; that God in that final condition of the soul consumes them, and when consumed, shows them to the soul, that it may know that it is He who has caused the fire of love, which consumes whatever of imperfection there is to consume."

Bellarmine, an authority on such a subject by no means inferior to Suarez, doubts, "An sicut in hac vita immoderatus amor erga temporalia purgatur a Deo variis afflictionibus, ut mortibus uxoris, liberorum, &c., ita etiam credibile sit, post hanc vitam adhuc remanere in anima separata aliquas reliquias talium affectionum actualium quae purgari debeant tribulationibus et molestiis" (De Pur. lib. i. c. xv. 25).

On the whole, there does not appear anything contrary to sound theology in the idea of such an intrinsic improvement taking place in the soul in purgatory as is implied in the gradual getting rid of passive bad habits and earthly tastes. Such a notion is very much in accordance with what we know of God's dealings with the soul here on earth, and seems countenanced by the present treatise.