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030 - Part 2 Chapter 9 · Spiritual Dialogues of St. Catherine of Genoa

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  Speaker 1: Part two, chapter nine of Spiritual Dialogue by Saint Catherine
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  Speaker 1: of Genoa. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: Recording by Anne Boulay, Part two, chapter nine. When the
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  Speaker 1: Spirit saw the soul led to the portals of divine love,
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  Speaker 1: from which she was neither able to advance nor to recede.
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  Speaker 1: Anne saw moreover that she had been conducted thus far
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  Speaker 1: with much assistance from God, who had pleasantly occupied, without
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  Speaker 1: wholly satisfying all her facilities. He thus spake, Spirit, now
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  Speaker 1: is the time for me to repay the soul for
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  Speaker 1: what she has done to me. For many years I
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  Speaker 1: have been subject to her, and, with cruelties too great
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  Speaker 1: to be described, excluded from my home. For she was
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  Speaker 1: so restrained and oppressed by earthly things that the powers
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  Speaker 1: I possessed were not sufficient to enable me to attend
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  Speaker 1: to my own spiritual concerns. I called to my aid
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  Speaker 1: the certainty of death, the fear of hell, the hope
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  Speaker 1: of heaven, preaching, and other aids afforded by the Church,
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  Speaker 1: and also by divine inspirations, infirmities, poverty, and other worldly tribulations,
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  Speaker 1: in order that deprived of all things earthly, she might
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  Speaker 1: in her extreme need, when all other resources had failed
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  Speaker 1: her have recourse unto God. But though in her great necessity,
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  Speaker 1: she sometimes turned to him and promised, with his assistance,
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  Speaker 1: to do great things. Yet when that moment was passed,
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  Speaker 1: she returned to her accustomed practices, and I to my prison.
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  Speaker 1: And this has happened many times. But now that I
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  Speaker 1: see my soul, with her senses and also those of
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  Speaker 1: the body, arrived at a point from which she can
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  Speaker 1: neither advance nor recede, I will subject and restrain them
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  Speaker 1: all in such a way that they can neither impede
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  Speaker 1: nor retard me. Complaints will not avail them. They will
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  Speaker 1: be as much at my discretion as I have been
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  Speaker 1: at theirs. But I shall not be as cruel to
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  Speaker 1: them as they have been to me, for they never
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  Speaker 1: afforded me the smallest help, even when I was most
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  Speaker 1: oppressed and surrounded by my enemies. I will keep the
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  Speaker 1: soul in restraint and in subjection, and inflict upon her,
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  Speaker 1: without mercy, all the suffering she can bear. I have
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  Speaker 1: her in my hands, and I will leave her so naked, desolate,
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  Speaker 1: and forsaken, that she will not know where to turn
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  Speaker 1: except for the bare necessities which will keep her alive
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  Speaker 1: to suffer a yet longer martyrdom. And this will be
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  Speaker 1: in secret, in order that no one may give her
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  Speaker 1: any remedy. Not one of her members will escape suffering
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  Speaker 1: until my work is finished. Whosoever shall behold her in
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  Speaker 1: such torments will wish her dead, and she would herself
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  Speaker 1: wish it if she could do so without sin, Soul,
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  Speaker 1: I have heard enough of your threats, and am sufficiently
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  Speaker 1: well acquainted with the prospect of what I am to suffer.
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  Speaker 1: But the reason of this suffering I have not been
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  Speaker 1: able to understand, although it has been promised to me spirit,
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  Speaker 1: I mean to separate myself from you, and for the
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  Speaker 1: present I will answer you in words. Hereafter I will
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  Speaker 1: do so more effectually by deeds which will make you
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  Speaker 1: envy the dead. You have been conducted even to this
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  Speaker 1: threshold by many gentle means and divine graces, which you
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  Speaker 1: have assumed and appropriated to yourself, and have hidden them
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  Speaker 1: with the subtlety of which you are not yourself aware.
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  Speaker 1: For they have become yours by such long use that
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  Speaker 1: no eye but that of God can discern them. Neither
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  Speaker 1: would you believe it did not God himself declare it.
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  Speaker 1: Gradually you will come to understand by experience that even
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  Speaker 1: in the first light that was given you, you appropriated
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  Speaker 1: your share. And so of contrition can confession, satisfaction, prayer,
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  Speaker 1: and other virtuous acts of interior and exterior detachment of
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  Speaker 1: the sweet love of God, of the alienation of the
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  Speaker 1: bodily senses, so that they appeared as if dead, because
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  Speaker 1: they were entirely controlled by the divine operation. And inasmuch
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  Speaker 1: as those works had long sustained your faculties, and the
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  Speaker 1: love of God was so strong and powerful within you,
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  Speaker 1: you seemed to yourself to be in heaven, and enjoyed
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  Speaker 1: it all within yourself, as if it were yours by right,
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  Speaker 1: and had been bestowed on you by God as the
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  Speaker 1: reward of your merits. You did not return it wholly
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  Speaker 1: and entirely to Him, as you should have done in
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  Speaker 1: all simplicity and uprightness. And in this you have been dishonest,
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  Speaker 1: and have defiled yourself. And therefore you must suffer all
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  Speaker 1: I have foretold. You learn what a task it is
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  Speaker 1: to purge a soul here below and restore her with
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  Speaker 1: no further purgatory to her pristine purity. And when it
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  Speaker 1: is God's will to elevate her to a high degree
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  Speaker 1: of glory. It becomes more especially necessary, not alone to
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  Speaker 1: purify her, but to make her pass through many cruel sufferings,
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  Speaker 1: that she may gain merit by many and grievous pains.
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  Speaker 1: When the time came which pleased God, he drew the
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  Speaker 1: spirit so secretly and closely to himself that it held
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  Speaker 1: no communication with the soul, nor the soul with the body,
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  Speaker 1: and both were left so bare and dry that it
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  Speaker 1: was hard for them to live at all, and especially
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  Speaker 1: at first when they were passing from one extreme to
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  Speaker 1: the other, although God was secretly attracting them by little
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  Speaker 1: and little at length, that befell the soul, which happens
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  Speaker 1: to a bombshell when fire being applied, it explodes and
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  Speaker 1: loses both fire and powder. Thus the soul, having conceived
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  Speaker 1: the fire of pure divine love, suddenly lost that which
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  Speaker 1: had before inflamed her, and, deprived of all sensibility, could
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  Speaker 1: never more return to it. She resembled a musical instrument, which,
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  Speaker 1: while furnished with strings, sends forth sweet melody, but being
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  Speaker 1: deprived of them, is silent. So she who had hitherto
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  Speaker 1: with the senses of both soul and body discoursed such
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  Speaker 1: sweet music. Now bereft of these, remained stringless and mute.
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  Speaker 1: When she found herself closely pressed by the spirit, with
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  Speaker 1: no hope of relief, for she remembered all his threats.
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  Speaker 1: She cried to God and said end of Part two,
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  Speaker 1: Chapter nine,