The second operation of grace in these souls consists in the peace with which they are filled in view of the divine ordinances, and the love and mercy of God manifested in their behalf.
The knowledge of these two operations is imprinted by God on these souls in an instant, and, as they are in a state of grace, they comprehend them, every one according to his capacity. They feel a great joy, which, far from diminishing, goes on increasing in proportion as the time for their union with God approaches.
These souls do not view these things in themselves or as belonging to themselves; they view them in God, with whom they are far more occupied than with their own torments. For the least glimpse man has of God transcends every pain and every imaginable joy.
Nevertheless, their excessive joy does not in the least detract from their pain, nor their extreme pain in the least from their joy.
Chapter XVII.
In Which St. Catharine Applies What
She Has Written Of The Souls In
Purgatory To What She Has Felt
And Experienced In Her Own Soul.
My own soul has experienced the same state of purification as that of the souls in purgatory—especially within two years—and each day I see and feel this more clearly. My soul remains in the body as in a purgatory, but only in such a degree of suffering as the body can endure without dying. And this suffering will go on increasing by degrees till the body is no longer able to support it, and will really die.
My mind has become unused to all things, even spiritual, which could refresh it, such as joy, pleasure, or consolation. It is no longer able, by will, understanding, or memory, to relish anything, whether of a temporal or spiritual nature, so that I can say one thing pleases me more than another.
My soul has been so besieged, as it were, that by degrees it has been deprived of all that could refresh me spiritually or corporally. Even this privation makes me feel the power these things have of nourishing and refreshing me; but the soul, conscious of this power, loathes and abhors them to such a degree that they have ceased for ever to tempt me.