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 CATHERINE

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CATHERINE

panegyric on the saint, to be in a great measure false, and it was just at this time that the feast of St. Cath- erine disappeared from the Breviary of Paris. Since then devotion to the virgin of Alexandria has lost all its former popularity.

Mignk, P. C, CXVI. col. 276-301; Yiteac Passions des saints Ecaterine et Pierre cC Alexandrie, Barbara et Anysia (Paris. 1897); Varnhagen, Zur Geschichte der Legcnde der Knth<ir,na von Alerondnen (Erlangen. 1891); Analecta Bollan- diana (Brussels, XXII, 1903, 423-436; XXVI. 1907. 5-321.

Leon Clugnet. Catherine of Aragon. See Henry VII 1.

Catherine of Bologna, Saint, Poor Clare and mystical writer, b. at Bologna, 8 September, 1413; d. there, 9 March, 1463. When she was ten years old, her father sent her to the court of the Marquis of Fer- rara, Nicolo d'Este, as a companion to the Princess Margarita. Here Catherine pursued the study of literature and the fine arts; and a manuscript illu- minated by her which once belonged to Pius IX is at present reckoned among the treasures of Oxford. After the marriage of the Princess Margarita to Roberto Malatesta, Prince of Rimini, Catherine re- turned home, and determined to join the little com- pany of devout maidens who were living in commu- nity and following the rule of the Third Order of St. Augustine in the neighbouring town of Ferrara. Later the community, yielding to the entreaties of Catherine, adopted the Rule of St. Clare, and in 1432 they were clothed with the habit of the Second Order of St. Francis by the provincial of the Friars Minor. The increasing number of vocations, however, made it necessary to establish other monasteries of the Poor Clares in Italy, and in pursuance of the Brief of Callis- tus III, "Ad ea quae in omnipotentis Dei gloriam", convents were founded at Bologna and Cremona. St. Catherine was chosen abbess of the community in her native town, which office she held until her death. The grievous and persistent temptations which in the early days of her religious life had tried her patience, humility, and faith, especially the latter virtue, gave place in later years to the most abundant spiritual consolation, and enjoyment of the heights of contem- plation. A large part of St. Catherine's counsels and instructions on the spiritual life are to be found in her "Treatise on the Seven Spiritual Weapons", which contains, besides, an account of the saint's own strug- gles in the path of perfection, and which she com- posed with the aid of her confessor shortly before her death. The body of St. Catherine, which remains in- corrupt, is preserved in the chapel of the Poor Clares at Bologna. St. Catherine was canonized by Pope Benedict XIII. Her feast is kept on the 9th of March throughout the Order of Friars Minor.

Waddinc, Innoles Minm-um, X, 184; XII. 307; XIII, 324, and passim; ActaSS., Mir, h. 11.::.", s'.i; In,, Lit;. < ,d the Saints and Blessed of th, Three Orders <>/ St. Francis (Taunton. 1SS5), I, 394-437; Zamboni, La Vita di Santa Caterina di Bologna (Bologna, 1877).

Stephen M. Donovan.

Catherine of Genoa, Saint, (Caterina Fieschi Adorno), b. at Genoa in 1447. d. at the same place 14 Sept., 1510. The life of St. Catherine of Genoa may be more properly described as a state than as a life in the ordinary sense. When about twenty-six years old she became the subject of one of the most extraordinary operations of God in the human soul of which we have record, the result being a marvellous inward condition that lasted till her death. In this state, she received wonderful revelations, of which she spoke at times to those around her, but which are mainly embodied in her two celebrated works; the "Dialogues of the Soul and the Body", and the "Treatise on Purgatory". Her modern biographies,

chiefly translations or adaptations of an old Italian one whirl, is itself Founded on "Memoirs" drawn tip by t he saint 's own confessor and a friend, mingle what facts they give of her outward life with accounts of

her supernatural state and "doctrine", regardless of sequence, and in an almost casual fashion that makes them entirely subservient to her psychological his- tory. These facts are as follows:

St. Catherine's parents were Jacopo Fieschi and Francesca di Negro, both of illustrious Italian birth. Two popes — Innocent IV and Adrian V — had been of the Fieschi family, and Jacopo himself became Vice- roy of Naples. Catherine is described as an extraor- dinarily holy child, highly gifted in the way of prayer, and with a wonderful love of Christ's Passion and of penitential practices; but, also, as having been a most quiet, simple, and exceedingly obedient girl. When about thirteen, she wished to enter the convent, but the nuns to whom her confessor applied having refused her on account of her youth, she appears to have put the idea aside without any further attempt. At sixteen, she was married by her parents' wish to a young Genoese nobleman, Giuliano Adorno. The marriage turned out wretchedly; Giuliano proved faithless, violent-tempered, and a spendthrift, and made the life of his wife a misery. Details are scanty, but it seems at least clear that Catherine spent the first five years of her marriage in silent, melancholy submission to her husband; and that she then, for another five, turned a little to the world for consola- tion in her troubles. The distractions she took were most innocent; nevertheless, destined as she was for an extraordinary life, they had the effect in her case of producing lukewarmness, the end of which was such intense weariness and depression that she prayed earnestly for a return of her old fervour. Then, just ten years after her marriage, came the event of her life, in answer to her prayer. She went one day, full of melancholy, to a convent in Genoa where she had a sister, a nun. The latter advised her to go to confession to the nuns' confessor, and Catherine agreed. No sooner, however, had she knelt down in the confessional than a ray of Divine light pierced her soul, and in one moment manifested her own sinful- ness and the Love of God with equal clearness. The revelation was so overwhelming that she lost con- sciousness and fell into a kind of ecstacy. for a space during which the confessor happened to be called away. When he returned, Catherine could only mur- mur that she would put off her confession, and go quickly home.

From the moment of that sudden vision of herself and God, the saint's interior state seems never to have changed, save by varying in intensity and being ac- companied by more or less severe penance, according to what she saw required of her by the Holy Spirit, Who guided her incessantly. No one could describe it except herself; but she does so, minutely, in her writings, from which may here be made one short extract :— " [The souls in Purgatory] see all things, not in themselves, nor by themselves, but as they are in God, on whom they are more intent than on their own sufferings. . . . For the least vision they have of God overbalances all woes and all joys that can be conceived. Yet their joy in God does by no means abate their pain. . . . This process of purification to which I see the souls in Purgatory subjected, I feel with- in myself." (Treatise on Purgatory, xvi. xvii.) For about twenty-five years, Catherine, though frequently making confessions, was unable to open her mind for direction to anyone; but towards the end of her life a father Marabotti was appointed to be her spiritual guide. To him she explained her states, past and present, in full, and he compiled the- "Memoirs" above referred to from his intimate personal know- ledge of her. Of the saint's outward life, after this great change, her biographies practically tell us but two facts! that she at last converted her husband, who died penitent in 14>l7; anil that both before and after his death though more entirely after it — she gave herself to the care of the sick in the great Hos-