Saint Catherine of Alexandria

25 November  ·  Optional Memorial  ·  Red

The wheel built to break her lies broken, and Saint Catherine leans on it as on the arm of a chair, a sword in her hands and a palm along the floor. She looks straight out. The Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza found that Caravaggio first painted the wheel whole and then painted the break over it.

Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, 81 (1934.37)

Her life

Her story is told in Acts that have not come down in their first form, and the oldest pilgrims to Sinai never mention her; the Catholic Encyclopedia gives it as her legend tells it. Catherine was of noble birth and learned in the sciences, and when the emperor Maximinus persecuted the Christians of Alexandria she went to him and protested. He summoned numerous scholars to argue her down. He condemned her to be broken on a spiked wheel, and at her touch it was destroyed; then he had her beheaded, and angels carried her body to Mount Sinai, where a church and monastery were later built in her honour.

Few saints were more loved. Theologians, preachers and philosophers asked her prayers, and so did young women and students, wheelwrights and mechanics; she was counted with Saint Margaret and Saint Barbara among the fourteen Holy Helpers, and it was said she was one of the voices of Joan of Arc. Her feast is kept on 25 November in the Latin Church and the Eastern Churches alike. The wheel is a chair now. Every student who keeps the faith and keeps thinking sits in her company.

Léon Clugnet, “St. Catherine of Alexandria”, The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 3 (1908): newadvent.org

In Scripture

²⁷But the foolish things of the world hath God chosen, that he may confound the wise: and the weak things of the world hath God chosen, that he may confound the strong.

1 Corinthians 1:27, Douay-Rheims (Challoner).

In painting

The day in the next three years

Near this day

• Saint Clement I
• Saint Cecilia
• Saint Albert the Great
• Saint Andrew the Apostle

The saints of the year  ·  The feasts  ·  The Rosary

Written and checked by the Monstrance editors; sources cited. Scripture in the Douay-Rheims (Challoner). Every painting is in the public domain, and each caption follows the record of the institution that holds it.