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THE LIFE STORY OF SAINT CATHERINE OF ALEXANDRIA
 Feast day: November 25. One of the Fourteen Holy Helpers; patroness of unmarried women, students, philosophers, nurses, and craftsmen who use a wheel (potters, spinners, millers).
Attribute: A Wheel
The daughter of a pagan princess in Egypt, Catherine of Alexandria reportedly had a halo already encircling her head when she was born. As she grew, Catherine immersed herself in a meditative, studious life and became a quite and quite beautiful girl. When she was fourteen her father died, making her the queen. This advancement in society led to numerous offers of marriage, which she repeatedly deferred. Around this time, it was rumored that the Virgin Mary had presented herself in a vision to a hermit and ordered him to find Catherine and tell her that she had been chosen to become a bride of Christ. The hermit gallantly made his way into the queen’s quarters and, while showing her a picture of the Madonna and child, told the queen his message. Catherine was instantly converted.
A new but devoted believer, Catherine energetically protested the persecution of Christians by the emperor Maxentius. The emperor responded by lusting after Catherine continued to decline any physical advances and enraged her suitor with her impenetrability. The emperor called in fifty philosophers to argue Catherine from her beliefs; she successfully debated them all. He then threw Catherine into prison to starve; she responded by converting not only her attendants but the empress as well. The emperor executed his wife for heresy and, perversely, proposed marriage to Catherine. When she firmly, and finally, refused, he ordered the girl to be ripped apart between spiked wheels. As she was placed between the teeth of the wheels, a lightning bolt erupted from the sky, smiting the wheels and shattering them into a million pieces, injuring many bystanders. The emperor immediately ordered Catherine to be beheaded, and milk-not blood was said to have flowed from her severed head.
One of the most popular saints of the Middle Ages, Catherine’s grisly death and honorable life made her a great favorite of artists and writers, who have memorialized her image throughout the Christian world. Catherine is widely depicted in art with a wheel, the origin of the “catherine wheel” fireworks, and with a sword, books, scientific instruments, globes and maps. The mystical marriage of Saint Catherine was also a popular subject in art from the fourteenth century: she is shown accepting a wedding ring from the Christ child, who leans toward her from Mary’s lap. Catherine is invoked to protect the dying.
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