Pope urges prayer for the salvation of souls

The purifying power of God’s love and the importance of prayer for salvation of souls were at the heart of Pope Benedict’s catechesis this Wednesday. In the second general audience of the new year, the Holy Father returned to his series of lessons on the great female figures in the life of the Church, focusing this week on Saint Catherine of Genoa.

A fifteenth-century saint, St Catherine was best known for her vision of purgatory. “Married at an early age, some ten years later Catherine had a powerful experience of conversion; Jesus, carrying his cross, appeared to her, revealing both her own sinfulness and God’s immense love”.

The Pope described her as a “woman of great humility”, who combined “constant prayer and mystical union with a life of charitable service to those in need, above all in her work as the director of the largest hospital in Genoa”.

He continued “Catherine’s writings on purgatory contain no specific revelations, but convey her understanding of purgatory as an interior fire purifying the soul in preparation for full communion with God. Conscious of God’s infinite love and justice, the soul is pained by its inadequate response, even as the divine love purifies it from the remnants of sin. To describe this purifying power of God’s love, Catherine uses the image of a golden chain which draws the soul to abandon itself to the divine will”.

By her life and teaching, he concluded “Saint Catherine of Genoa reminds us of the importance of prayer for the faithful departed, and invites us to devote ourselves more fully to prayer and to works of practical charity”.Listen: