Catherine of Genoa Quotes
Catherine of Genoa was an Italian mystic and philanthropist of the late fifteenth century. Married young to a difficult husband, she experienced a transformative conversion at twenty-six and devoted the rest of her life to the care of the sick at the Pammatone hospital, of which she eventually became director. The quotes below are attributed to Catherine of Genoa, organized by topic.
Browse Catherine of Genoa by topic
Catherine of Genoa on Death
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“Faith seems to me wholly lost, and hope dead; for it seems to me that I have and hold in the certainty that which I believed and hoped at other times. I no longer see union, for I know nothing more and can see nothing more than him alone without me. I do not know where the I is, nor do I seek it, nor do I wish to know or be cognizant of it.”
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Catherine of Genoa on God
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Attributed to Catherine of Genoa:
“My deepest me is God.”
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“The fire of divine love consumes all that is not love.”
Ch. IX -
Attributed to Catherine of Genoa:
“I cannot bear that the soul should fail to find its true repose in God.”
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“In God is my being, my I, my strength, my bliss, my desire. But this I that I often call so...in truth I no longer know what the I is, or the Mine, or desire, or the good, or bliss.”
P.108. -
“I find in myself by the grace of God a satisfaction without nourishment, love without fear”
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“I am so submerged in the sweet fire of love that I cannot grasp anything except the whole of love, which melts all the marrow of my soul and body.”
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“Many are astonished at this, and since they do not know the reason, they are offended. And truly, if it were not that God stands by me, the world would often consider me mad, and that is because I almost always live outside myself.”
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“God became man in order to make me God; therefore I want to be changed completely into pure God”
Ibid., P.109.
Catherine of Genoa on Knowledge
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“I cannot work, or walk, or stand, or speak, but all this seems to be a useless thing”
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Catherine of Genoa on Love
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Attributed to Catherine of Genoa:
“Pure love alone purifies the soul.”
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Attributed to Catherine of Genoa:
“True love does not seek itself; it loses itself in its beloved.”
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“I am so plunged and submerged in the source of his infinite love, as if I were quite underwater in the sea and could not touch, see, feel anything on any side except water”
Sally Kempton, Meditation for the Love of It: Enjoying Your Own Deepest Experience (2011), p. 227
Catherine of Genoa on Nature
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“Therefore it seems to me that I am no longer of this world, since I can no longer do the work of the world like the others; indeed, every action of others that I see disturbs me, for I do not work as they do, nor as I myself used to do. I feel altogether estranged from earthly affairs, and from my own most of all”
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