Spirituality: Wisdom placed at the service of the faith.
Reflection: Catherine was a learned noblewoman of Alexandria who rebuked the
emperor for persecuting Christians. He summoned fifty philosophers to refute her, but
she converted them all, and they were martyred. She was condemned to be broken on
a spiked wheel, which shattered at her touch, and so she was beheaded. Tradition says
angels carried her body to Mount Sinai, where the ancient monastery bears her name.
She is patroness of philosophers, students and young women, and was another of St.
Joan’s heavenly voices. Catherine shows that the mind, too, can bear witness to Christ.