Treatise on Purgatory
St Catherine of Genoa
CHAPTER XI
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.
