Catherine: Name Day and Patron Saint

St Catherine was the daughter of Konstos, governor of Alexandria in the days of the emperor Maximian. Beautiful, of noble birth and deeply learned, she said she would marry only a man who surpassed her in nobility, wealth, beauty and wisdom. Her mother, secretly a Christian, sent her to a holy elder living in a cave outside the city, who spoke to her of the Heavenly Bridegroom. After he taught and baptized her, she saw Christ in a vision, and He gave her a ring as a sign of her betrothal to Him. When the emperor held a pagan festival in Alexandria, Catherine went before him and confessed Christ. He gathered fifty of the most learned philosophers and orators of the empire to argue with her, and she answered them so well that they came to believe in Christ. Neither riches nor fame could move her, so she was tortured and imprisoned. In prison the Empress Augusta and the commander Porphyrios visited her and were won by her teaching. She was bound to spiked wheels, but an angel shattered them before the crowd, and the empress, Porphyrios and two hundred soldiers confessed Christ and were beheaded. At last Catherine too was beheaded. Tradition says angels carried her body to Mount Sinai, where her head and left hand rest in the monastery later named for her. The Church keeps her feast on 25 November (7 December on the Old Calendar). She is called upon for relief and help in difficult childbirth.

What the faithful pray for

• relief and help in a difficult childbirth
• wisdom and the right words when speaking of the faith
• students and all who seek true wisdom
• purity of heart and faithfulness to Christ
• courage when pressed to deny the faith