162 B. CATHERINE would not receivo her because she was too small and delicate. She then gaye tip for the time her project of a religious life, to which her parents were opposed, and at sixteen was given in marriage to Julian Adomo, a young nobleman, whose ambition, extravagance, and profligacy caused her much affliction. Her prayers for him, hor patience and her example, at length converted him, and he died a penitent of the Third Order of St. Francis. When Catherine became a widow, after ten years of marriage, she resolved to dedicate herself to the service of God, and after long deliberation -decided on choosing an active rather
- than a contemplative life, and devoted
herself to the service of the sick in the ^reat hospital of Genoa, whore she lived many years as mother superior. She 4iended the sick with the greatest kind- ness, and did not shrink from rendering them the most painful and revolting 6ervices. She extended her charity to all lepers and other indigent and suffer- ing persons in the city, and employed fit agents to discover and relieve them. She died in her sixty-third year, Sept. 14, 1510. Both during hor married life and afterwards, she made it a rule never to excuse herself when blamed, and took for her motto a sentence from the Lord's Prayer, " Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. She wrote several treatises, the chief of which are entitled respectively, " On Purgatory " and " A Dialogue ; " the subject of the latter is Divine love and the happiness it imparts to the devout soul. Baillet says that her writings were never thoroughly approved by the Church — a fact which delayed her ca- nonization. Pope Benedict XIV. placed her name in the Roman Martyrology, B. Caiherina Oenuensis lUustrata, Genoa, 1082, by Parpera the oratorian, contains an account of her doctrine and a pane- gyric on her holy life. B.M. Sticker, in AA.SS., Sept. 15. Butler, Lives^ Sept. 14. Baillet, Vies, B. Catherine (13) of Genoa, one of seventy- two nuns who died in the odour of sanctity between 1439 and 1715. They were of the Order of St. Ambrose and St. Marcelline, commonly called the Annunciation of Lombardy. Helyot, Ord. Mon.j iv. chap. 10. B. Catherine (14) of Racconigi, Sept. 5. 1486 - 1547. 3rd O.S.D. Catherine was the daughter of George Mattel, a locksmith of Piedmont. At the time of her birth her family were reduced to great poverty by a war be- tween the Duke of Savoy and the Marquis of Saluzzo. She made her first acquaint- ance with life in cold and penury, but heavenly gifts and graces were bestowed on her from her earliest childhood. She had visions of saints and angels, and commended herself especially to the guardianship of St. Stephen, because in the early Church ho had the care of women who were in need of alms. While still a child, she received tho Holy Ghost four times in visible forms, namely, of a dove, rays of light, a cloud, and tongues of fire. On the last occasion she made her first confession, was absolved by a saint, and received the gift of knowing true from false visions. Between her sixth and twenty-sixth year Christ appeared to her three times, and married her with a different ring each time. He several times took her heart out of her body and put it back ; once Ho kept it forty-five days, during which she lived without a heart, and with a great open place in her side. She had the stigmata. She described the personal appearance of saints she had seen in visions. St. Agnes (2), she said, was little and plump, with rosy cheeks and curly hair. Although poor, she was very charitable. She deemed it better to be without clothes than without charity. At thirteen she gave her chemise to Christ under the form of a beggar, and Ho gave her a beautiful white robe in its stead. St. Catherine (3) of Siena, who had been dead more than a hundred years, appeared to her as a beggar. Devils persecuted her, disguised as men, beasts, birds, and corpses. She was defended against them and against sin by saints and angels. She was taken to purgatory, where she comforted the souls and felt the fire. She also visited heaven and hell, and recognized some of her friends in each of the three places. She released many souls from purgatory by her
