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Catholic Saints
St. Catherine of Alexandria
00:16:24
Saint Catherine of Alexandria, a 4th-century Christian martyr, was known for her intelligence, beauty, and steadfast faith. She boldly debated Emperor Maxentius and his scholars, converting many before being imprisoned and martyred for refusing to renounce Christianity. Venerated as the patroness of philosophers and scholars, her legacy inspires courage and devotion.
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This episode is brought to you by our friends at the Jesuit Refugee Service. They work in 58 countries accompanying and serving forcibly displaced people, providing life changing emergency assistance, education, mental health support and more to millions each year. Get to know their work, visit jrsusa.org agustin.
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You're listening to a podcast on Catholic Saints. This podcast is produced by the Augustine Institute, an apostolate helping Catholics understand, live.
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And share their faith.
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Welcome to Catholic Saints. My name is Mary and I am joined here with Dr. Ariel Harms on another episode of Catholic Saints. Thank you for joining us.
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Thank you for having me, Mary.
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You're welcome. We're gonna talk about St. Catherine of Alexandria today, which I'm excited about. But first I would like to know, as we've journeyed from the west to the Midwest, what's been a highlight.
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Yeah, I'm really enjoying being back in the Midwest. It feels more homey to me. I grew up in the Midwest.
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Okay, so you've boomeranged back. Yeah, it often happens, right?
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Yeah, the boomerang went a few different ways. But I'm back in the Midwest now and it's good to be here. I especially like the people. They just are friendly and helpful, so kind. You don't usually, at least the other places that I lived, think about having conversations in the grocery store or with your neighbors necessarily. Right. But here, here you definitely do.
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So agreed. Yes. Usually your guards up sometimes when you're talking to strangers, but in the Midwest, you remember, these people are so kind and so good.
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Right. Very friendly, very friendly, very helpful.
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For those who don't know, the August Institute has purchased a beautiful campus in a town named Florissant, Missouri, which is pretty close to St. Louis. So we are entering into the fall winter months and really enjoying the kind people. So this podcast is going to dive into the life of Saint Catherine of Alexandria and we'd love to start with what do we know about her life? Where did she come from? A brief biography.
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Yeah. So we don't know a ton of specific details about St. Catherine of Alexandria because she lived around the early 4th century. So we don't know exactly when she was born or exactly what year she died, but she was born in Alexandria, Egypt, as you might have guessed by her title, of Alexandria. Right. And lived in the early 4th century. Probably died in the early 4th century. She wasn't very old when she died. And she was the daughter of Constos, governor of Alexandria, who was governor under the reign of the emperor Maximian. And at that time, Alexandria was a center of Greek Culture. And she, because of that, was able to receive an excellent education. Philosophy, rhetoric, all the different areas that she could be educated in. She was. And she excelled. She was a very, very smart young woman. Because of her beauty, wealth and education. She was sought after in marriage, but she actually wanted to marry someone who surpassed her in nobility, wealth, beauty and wisdom.
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Did she say that?
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Yes, she did.
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What?
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She definitely said that.
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Okay, that initially seems a little arrogant, Right? Well, I don't want to call a saint arrogant, so I feel.
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So she wasn't a saint at this point when she had made this decision.
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Okay.
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So I think. I think it's okay to say it. And we see that this actually figures very much into her conversion.
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Her parents want to set her up, but she said no.
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Her parents want to set her up, and men who were kind coming to talk to her father or who just knew of her, saw how beautiful she was and wanted to marry her. Right. That also figures later into her story. But her mother was a secret Christian. And when her mother heard, like, of her aspirations to marry someone who surpassed her in nobility, wealth, beauty and wisdom, she introduced her to a spiritual elder who lived a little bit outside the city of Alexandria in the desert. And the spiritual elder told her about Jesus Christ who met all of her criteria for marriage. Right?
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Yes, that is so true.
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Because he is more noble, of course. You know, having the whole world, he is more wealthy and of course, more.
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Beautiful as God, the ultimate source of.
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All virtue and the source of wisdom. Right. So here we have someone who meets her criteria, surpasses her in all of these things. And, you know, I'm not going to find anyone better either. Right.
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Little did she know.
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But the elder instructed her, this was before she was Christian, right. To pray. And she prayed all night and was actually granted a vision of Mary and Jesus according to the story. But at first, Jesus rejected her.
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Okay, that would be hurtful.
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Yes. Right. He rejected her as a bride because she was still a pagan.
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Ah.
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So she wanted to meet this man who met her criteria. And she had. She was granted a vision. And he said no. Right. And so she was, of course, extremely disappointed. And so she returned to the spiritual elder, who took time to instruct her in the Catholic faith and baptize her.
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Okay. So she had this vision. Well, but she was unbaptized.
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Well, she was unbaptized.
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Jesus and Mary.
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Of Jesus and Mary. And he saw her as, you know, a pagan who didn't believe. And so he said, this relationship isn't going to work, basically. Right. But so she was instructed in the Catholic faith, baptized, and then she has another vision where she was betrothed to Jesus, and he gives her a ring as the symbol of the betrothal.
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Okay. Was she a religious sister? Was she a consecrated? Did that exist?
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That really wasn't a movement in the church at this point. I mean, this is the time of the Desert Fathers, but it's still before the time of, say, Saint Benedict.
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Okay, Right. Okay.
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So. Or maybe even around the time of St. Benedict. He's, I think, a little bit later than this. Okay. But it. It's not a. It's not a thing yet. Okay, Right. So her betrothal to Jesus and this ring is the symbol of the betrothal is as far as we get with this. Okay. And I don't think she lives very long in this state of being betrothed to Jesus simply because of the rest of her story.
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You mentioned she died young.
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Yeah, she died young. So Catherine is actually best known for her dispute with pagan philosophers.
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Okay, that's helpful, because when she became a Christian, what did the second shift of her. Of her life look like?
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Yeah, so we don't know much about her life after that except that she, you know, was still in her, like, part of her father's household. Right. And as a governor, he would have been in the, like, pagan religious ceremonies and things like that. So there's a story that's told that ultimately leads to her death. Right. There's a festival when the emperor was in Alexandria and sacrificing Christians as part of this pagan festival to the pagan gods. And Catherine, being a new Christian and also being a fearless woman, decides to step in to talk to the emperor because she wants to stop, Put a stop to the sacrifice, ease the suffering of Christians. Right. And because of her beauty, the emperor's willing to listen.
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Okay. Beauty has its perks.
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Beauty has its perks. Right. So her beauty and charm was like, okay, I'm gonna give you at least a listen. It at least made him stop to think about this. Right. And so what he did because he couldn't really put up with stopping the persecution of Christians. That wasn't what he wanted to do. But he did want to convert her so that he wouldn't have to kill her too, basically, because that's what was happening to Christians at this time is that they were being put to death, right?
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Yes.
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So he decides to try to win her over by argument, and he is not going to do it himself. He's going to bring in because he's the emperor, 50 of the best pagan philosophers and rhetoricians, best trained to have a debate with her.
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I mean, that seems a little unfair.
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It does seem a little unfair. 50 versus 1. Right. But she wins the debate in the end. She persuades them to convert to Christianity and they're Martyred.
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Whoa, all 50?
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All 50. Right. So it's not as if there wasn't anything at stake for them in this. They were really convinced that Christianity was the truth. By her argument. It wasn't just like, here's a pretty face. We'll agree with what she says. It's like, no, if we agree with what she says, if we say, if our hearts are converted and we are not going to turn away from this, we're going to give our lives for it. And that's in fact, what they did. Right. Like, these 50 were just added to the Christians who were being offered in sacrifice in these festivals.
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Okay. Did that. Tina, did the Emperor convert after that?
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No, after you see 50, he was still not wanting to put her to death because she was so beautiful. Right. So he tries other things to convince her to convert back to paganism, to revert back to paganism, save her, wants to save her from martyrdom. He offers her riches and fame, and she says no. So he puts her in prison. His wife, the empress and soldiers go to see her, and she converts them too, and they're all put to death. And so now that his wife is dead, he says, well, why don't you marry me? Like, that's one of the things he offers. As long as you give up Christianity and marry me, like, I don't have to put you to death. And she refuses. Right, yeah.
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Wow.
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So, yeah, she's.
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Wow, this is an incredible story.
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Yeah. So anyway, she's then sentenced to death. She refuses to give up Christ.
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And so was her rejection of his betrothal the final straw that then said, okay, pretty much.
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Right, yeah. So in. She's put in prison, where she converts soldiers, guards, and sentenced to death by being broken on a wheel.
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Okay.
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Well, before that can happen, an angel comes and breaks the wheel instead of her being broken on the wheel. And more people are converted because of that.
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I'm assuming in religious art, is she often depicted with a wheel behind her?
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Okay, yes, yes. And so finally, she is beheaded for her faith. Yeah. But she's definitely quite the evangelist up until that point. Right. If we think about the number of people that she converted just in that short period of time.
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Yeah. That's a very beautiful story. Thank you. It's it's beautiful too, how she grew up in this well educated Greek culture society and how that was the foundation of her path to be being such an evangelist. And so sharp. And I'm assuming you would call her a preacher or just a very learned woman after Christ heart.
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Yeah.
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And was able to use that gift for. For the conversion of many to Christ. How would you summarize how St. Catherine has shaped the church today?
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I think she helps us to see a couple of things. First of all, that God can use all of our formation. Right. In his service as long as it's truly human formation. Right. So she received all of her education, of course, prior to her conversion, her education in philosophy and rhetoric and many other things all happened before her conversion. And God used that for his greater glory after her conversion.
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Right.
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So I think that that's a lesson for us and that those things, when they're really educating the human person, aren't against our faith. Right. But are can be used in service of our faith. So we see that. One of the other things I think we see from, say we can probably take a number of lessons out of her life. Right. But one that strikes me is just how important the Christian faith was to her. That her Christian faith was more precious than wealth, fame, and in the end, even life itself. And not just for her, but she was able to communicate it in such a way that those she evangelized saw it that way too. Right?
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Yeah, absolutely. And the 50 people she debated, the wife of the emperor, there had to be something so authentic and so clear in how she was sharing Christ that to make that impression, for not only herself to have given up her life, but for all these other people to be willing to, that even preceded her own death is remarkable.
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That's just a beautiful thought for those who might be called to evangelize. I mean, we're all called to evangelize. But as we think about that call to evangelize, like how we live it out, making sure that we're giving God the best that we can in our evangelization. Right.
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And I like what you said about everything. God is so intentional. And even the time, the place, the family, the culture that he places us in, and he nothing's wasted. He can use all things when we give it to Him.
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Yeah. He can be. He even uses something that we might see as insignificant, such as her beauty. Right. To give her more time to evangelize more people.
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Yes, absolutely. I've learned she is a patron of students, unmarried women, theologians, and I'm sure many others. I would add evangelist preachers to the list.
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I would think we should add those to the list. But I'm not in charge of doing like, you know, assigning patron saints to anything.
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So a fun, A fun fact is I had some friends who on her feast day, they would gather together and off in mass, ask for her intercession, particularly for their future spouses.
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Okay.
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For her intercession as patron of unmarried women. I think that's a fun tradition for.
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Their future spouses to be more noble, wealthy, beautiful and wise than they are.
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Or may they be Jesus, I propose.
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Right.
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So beautiful. Is there anything that we missed about her life that you'd like to add?
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Yeah, I don't think we did forget to mention her feast day, which is November 25th for us. It's coming right up.
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Great. Well, wonderful. Thank you for sharing this beautiful life of St. Catherine of Alexandria and St. Catherine of Alexandria. Pray for.
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Pray for us.