The saint of pure love: examining Catherine of Genoa's mystical doctrine of purgatory

Barrow, Michael (2011) The saint of pure love: examining Catherine of Genoa's mystical doctrine of purgatory. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

Saint Catherine of Genoa (1447-1510) was a lay woman who underwent a mystical conversion at about the age of twenty-six. In this divine and transcendental moment, Catherine would come to understand God and the operation of God in her life as Pure Love. She continued to live in this divine condition throughout the rest of her life and, would eventually understand - through further divine infusion - that her mystical life was, in fact, a progression through purgatory that would lead her to the restoration of her true self in and as Pure Love. It is the objective of this study, therefore, to examine her doctrine of purgatory in its historical context, and theologically, through the religious element of mysticism in an effort to understand how the doctrine manifested itself in her life.

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