St. Catherine of Alexandria

Biography

St. Catherine of Alexandria (d. c. 305) was one of the most beloved saints of the Middle Ages, yet almost nothing about her can be confirmed historically. Her story comes from accounts written several centuries after the events they describe. According to tradition, she was a young noblewoman of Alexandria in Egypt, highly educated in philosophy and eloquent in speech, who became a Christian. When the emperor, usually identified as Maxentius, persecuted Christians, she boldly confronted him and denounced the worship of idols. The emperor summoned fifty philosophers to refute her, but, the story says, she answered them so well that they were converted and themselves martyred. She was condemned to be broken on a spiked wheel, which shattered at her touch, and she was then beheaded. Tradition holds that angels carried her body to Mount Sinai, where the ancient monastery that bears her name still stands. Her cult spread widely in the East and then in the West after the Crusades. She was counted among the Fourteen Holy Helpers, and St. Joan of Arc said that St. Catherine was one of the saints whose voices she heard. Because of the uncertainty of the historical record, her feast was removed from the General Roman Calendar in 1969, but in 2002 it was restored as an optional memorial. Her story remains a witness to the harmony of faith and learning.

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