Saint Catherine of Alexandria, Virgin and Martyr, A.D. 302
by VP
Posted on Monday November 25, 2024 at 12:00AM in Saints
"A NOBLE virgin of Alexandria; who in her youthful years sought satisfaction in the study of virtue, and in improving her mind in Christian learning. She became so inflamed with a zeal for truth, that meeting the emperor Maximinus II. she reproached him with injustice and cruelty, for persecuting the innocent Christians. By her reasoning she also triumphed over an assembly of the most acute philosophers; and persuaded them to sacrifice their lives for Christ, though they had undertaken, by the emperor's order, to reason her out of her faith. Upon which, Maximinus being enraged, and finding that no reasons or flatteries could prevail, commanded her to be scourged, to be kept in prison without friends or food, and to have her body torn on a wheel. Her constancy overcoming these torments, she was at length beheaded, and so finished a glorious martyrdom, in the year 302. In this saint, all virgins and other Christians have a lesson to condemn their reading of plays
and romances, and all their usual vanities, which only dissipate and
weaken their minds; and to encourage them to a better study, whereby
they may come to the knowledge of God and themselves, and discover those ways, which lead to happiness.
