‘Pains of Purgatory - Blessed Catherine de Racconigi. - "Purgatory" by Rev. Shouppe; 1929; Chapter XV; p. 46-47
“We read of a similar fact in the Life of B. Catherine de Racconigi.1 One day, when suffering so intensely as to need the assistance of her sisters in religion, she thought of the souls in Purgatory, and, to temper the heat of their flames, she offered to God the burning heat of her fever. At that moment, being rapt in ecstasy, she was conducted in spirit into the place of expiation, where she saw the flames and braziers in which the souls are purified in great torture.Whilst contemplating, full of compassion, this piteous spectacle, she heard a voice which said to her, "Catherine, in order that you may procure most efficaciously the deliverance of these souls, you shall participate, in some manner, in their torments." At that same moment a spark detached itself from the fire and settled upon her left cheek. The sisters present saw the spark distinctly, and saw also with horror that the face of the sick person was frightfully swollen. She lived several days in this state, and, as B. Catherine told her sisters, the suffering caused by that simple spark far surpassed all that she had previously endured in the most painful maladies. Until that time Catherine had always devoted herself with charity to the relief of the souls in Purgatory, but from thenceforward she redoubled her fervour and austerities to hasten their deliverance, because she knew by experience the great need in which they stood of her assistance.”
Image: After Gustave after Dore - Purgatorio Canto 20 ‘The souls of the avaricious’