Praised be Jesus and Mary.
Saint Catherine of Alexandria is the patroness of philosophers and preachers.
Hers was one of the voices that was heard by Saint Joan of Arc.
She was born in the fourth century of nobility before her baptism.
She saw in a dream the Blessed Virgin asking her son to receive her among his servants.
But the divine infant turned away, saying that she was not yet regenerated by the waters
of baptism.
So she didn't waste any time receiving that sacrament.
And afterwards, when the dream was repeated, Catherine was received with great affection
and our Lord espoused her before the court of heaven.
She was given a fine ring, and when she woke up, the ring was on her finger.
She was quite intelligent and even undertook the study of philosophy and theology.
At that time, there were various schools in Alexandria where there were excellent Christian
scholars.
And she made great progress and became able to defend the truths of the faith, even against
the cunning sophists.
And at that time, Maximinus II was emperor of Egypt and ordinarily resided in Alexandria.
And he was a great scholar.
And he was a great scholar.
And he was a great scholar.
And he was a great persecutor of Christians.
When he announced that there would be a huge pagan sacrifice with many bulls and sheep
offered to their false gods, Saint Catherine strove to strengthen the Christians against
the fatal errors of the infidels, proclaiming that they were pure illusion.
Is the
attract so many people to such an abominable cult and that by his high office, he was obliged
to turn them away from it, and since reason itself shows that there can only be one sovereign
being, and she begged him to cease so great a tragedy by giving the true God the honor
due to him, lest he reap the wages of his indifference in this life as well as in the
next, and the emperor decided to call 50 of his sophists to bring back this.
This maiden from her heirs, and there was a large audience assembled with the emperor
to hear this debate, and St. Catherine began by saying to the emperor that the true God
she adored rendered her victorious.
. . .
If he did render her victorious, that the emperor should adopt her religion and renounce
the cult of the demons.
Well, he wasn't too pleased with that and replied that it wasn't for her to lay down
conditions for this debate, and the head of the sophists began
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These persons predated this new religion she was following, and she listened carefully before answering,
then spoke, showing that the fables which Homer and other poets invented concerning their divinities were ridiculous,
and the fact that many offered a cult to them, as well as the abominable crimes attributed to them proved them to be God's only, in the opinion of the untutored and the gullible.
And then she went on to prove that the prophecies of the Hebrew scriptures had,
clearly announced the time and the circumstances, the life of the future Savior, and that all these were now fulfilled.
Progedy, the head of the sophists, acknowledged that she was entirely correct and renounced his errors.
And all the other sophists said that they could not oppose their mentor,
and Maximus had them all put to death by fire.
But the fire did not consume their bodies.
And through this miracle, was sadly so clear that the christianic Christians Came back and died!
They saw clearly, that these men had died as xxLxx Christians receiving the baptism of Blood,
and that there may on under God therefore be some wicked act against their faith to guard themselves against this line ofESHtemanism.
They saw clearly that these men had died as xxLxx Christians receiving the baptism of Blood,
and since they had stood up and kill all the rest of the xxLxx missionariesariat,
and since they had stood up and killed all the rest of the xxLxx missionariesariat,
Since the emperor couldn't outwit St. Catherine,
he offered her a royal marriage if she would deny her faith.
And her refusal landed her in prison.
And while Maximus was away,
she converted his wife and his captain of the guards
and 200 of his soldiers.
And upon his return, he had all of them put to death
and delivered Catherine back up into prison
and then to tortures.
The famous will of St. Catherine,
which in reality were several interacting wills,
which he invented to torture her,
was furnished with sharp,
razor blades and sharp points of iron.
And it's said that all those who saw it trembled.
But as soon as it was set into motion,
it miraculously shattered into pieces,
which flew in all directions and wounded the spectators.
Maximus finally commanded that she be decapitated.
And after,
after praying that her mortal remains would not,
or that they would be respected,
she offered her neck to the executioner.
And the story of St. Catherine continues
with the discovery of the intact body
of a young, beautiful girl on Mount Sinai
in the 9th century.
That's four centuries later.
The church, in the opening prayer
of the Old Mass, for her feast,
bears witness to the transport of her body.
The prayer said,
O God, you gave the law to Moses on Mount Sinai
and later had the body
of the blessed Virgin Catherine miraculously carried
to the same spot by your holy angels.
grant through her merits and prayers
that we may reach the mountain
which is Christ.
You know, we have to keep in mind
that the fidelity, you know,
displayed by the saints
and their martyrdom
cannot be isolated
from their previous lives.
But it's the logical conclusion.
So if we wish to imitate their perseverance,
let us imitate their fidelity to grace.
And Maximus' blind fury
against St. Catherine is symbolic
of the anger of the world
in all ages
in the face of truth and justice
even in our own day.
So, you know, when we live
a life of truth and justice,
we can expect the forces of evil
to oppose us.
So our perseverance, though,
in the truth and in,
in the goodness of,
however, these will be what
is everlasting.