Treatise on Purgatory
St Catherine of Genoa
CHAPTER IX
All the things of which I have spoken, when compared with that of which I am assured in my intelligence, so far as I am able to comprehend it in this life, are of such intensity, that, by the side of them, all things seen, all things felt, all things imagined, all things just and true, seem to me lies and things of naught. I am confounded at inability to find stronger words. I see that God is in such perfect conformity with the soul, that when He beholds it in the purity wherein it was created by His Divine Majesty, He imparts a certain attractive impulse of His burning love, enough to annihilate it, though it be im mortal ; and in this way so transforms the soul into Himself, its God, that it sees in itself nothing but God, who goes on thus attracting and in flaming it, until He has brought it to that state of existence whence it came forth that is, the spotless purity wherein it was created.
And when the soul, by interior illumination, perceives that God is drawing it with such loving ardour to Him self, straightway there springs up within it a corresponding fire of love for its most sweet Lord and God, which causes it wholly to melt away: it sees in the Divine light how considerately, and with what unfailing providence, God is ever leading it to its full perfection, and that He does it all through pure love ; it finds itself stopped by sin, and unable to follow the heavenly attraction, I mean that look which God casts on it to bring it into union with Himself : and this sense of the grievousness of being kept from beholding the Divine light, coupled with that instinctive longing which would fain be without hindrance to follow the enticing look, these two things, I say, make up the pains of the souls in purgatory.
Not that they think anything of their pains, however great they be ; they think far more of the opposition they are making to the will of God, which they see clearly is burning intensely with pure love to them. God meanwhile goes on drawing the soul to Himself by His looks of love mightily, and, as it were, with undivided energy : this the soul knows well ; and could it find another purgatory greater than this by which it could sooner remove so great an obstacle, it would immediately plunge therein, impelled by that conforming love which is between God and the soul.
