St Catherine of Alexandria (Optional Memorial): Apocryphal. Born to the nobility. Learned in science and oratory. Converted to Christianity after receiving a vision. When she was 18 years old, during the persecution of Maximinus, she offered to debate the pagan philosophers. Many were converted by her arguments, and immediately martyred. Maximinus had her scourged and imprisoned The empress and the leader of the army of Maximinus were amazed by the stories, went to see Catherine in prison. They converted and were martyred. Maximinus ordered her broken on the wheel but she touched it and the wheel was destroyed. She was beheaded and her body whisked away by angels.
Immensely popular during the Middle Ages, there were many chapels and churches devoted to her throughout western Europe and she was reported as one of the divine advisers to Saint Joan of Arc. Her reputation for learning and wisdom led to her patronage of libaries, librarians, teachers, archivists and anyone associated with wisdom or teaching. Her debating skill and persuasive language has led to her patronage of lawyers. And her torture on the wheel led to those who work with them asking for her intercession. She is one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers.
While there may well have been a noble, educated, virginal lady who swayed pagans with her rhetoric during the persecutions, the accretion of legend, romance and poetry has long since buried the real Catherine. She was beheaded c 305 in Alexandria, Egypt.
Patronages:
• apologists
• craftsmen who work with a wheel
• archivists
• attornies, barristers, lawyers, jurists
• dying people
• educators, teachers
• girls
• knife grinders, knife sharpeners
• librarians
• libraries
• maidens, unmarried girls and women
• mechanics
• millers
• nurses
• old maids
• philosophers
• potters
• preachers
• scholars
• schoolchildren, students
• scribes
• secretaries
• spinners
• stenographers
• tanners
• theologians
• turners
• University of Heidelberg
• University of Paris
• wheelwrights
• Dumaguete, Philippines, diocese of
• Saint Catharines, Ontario, diocese of
• 12 cities
Attributes: • spiked wheel • woman strapped to the spiked wheel on which she was martyred • woman arguing with pagan philosophers.
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Bl Adalbert of Caramaico
St Alanus of Lavaur
St Audentius of Milan
St Bernold of Ottobeuren
Bl Conrad of Heisterbach
Bl Ekbert of Muensterschwarzach
Bl Elisabeth Achler
St Erasmus of Antioch
Bl Garcia of Arlanza
Bl Guido of Casauria
St Imma of Wurzburg
Bl Jacinto Serrano López
St Jucunda of Reggio Aemilia
Bl Maria Corsini Beltrame Quattrocchi
St Mercurius of Caesarea
St Moses of Rome
St Peter of Alexandria
Bl Santiago Meseguer Burillo
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Martyrs of Africa – (13 saints): A group of 13 Christians murdered together for their faith in Africa, date unknown. The only details to have survived are their names – Claudian, Cyprian, Donatus, Felix, Januarius, Julian, Lucian, Marcian, Martialis, Peter, Quirianus, Victor and Vitalis.
AnaStpaul 