The story of the saint we commemorate today, Saint Catherine of Alexandria, sparkles with literal pyrotechnics.<\/p>\n
Catherine is said to have been a Christian virgin living in Alexandria, Egypt, who learned of the Emperor Maximinus\u2019 desire to promote a festival in favor of the gods and went straight to the emperor to protest. Determined to put this feisty young woman in her place, Maximinus gathered fifty pagan philosophers to debate her. Yet Catherine not only countered their arguments, but also convinced many of them of the truth of Christianity.<\/p>\n
Outraged, Maximinus sentenced the men to death. He then turned to Catherine and offered her the chance to be his co-ruler, if only she would deny Christ. Catherine retorted that she would not reject Christ, her bridegroom\u2014whereupon Maximinus condemned her to prison. When that failed to soften her, he commanded that Catherine be tied to a giant spiked wheel designed to tear her body apart. At this, Catherine turned to prayer, and the wheel exploded in pieces. Finally, Maximinus had her beheaded. The exploding wheel, an image that accompanies Catherine in much of religious art, has lent its name to a particular firework, the \u201cCatherine Wheel.\u201d<\/p>\n
All of this, you may be thinking, sounds rather far-fetched. And you would be in good company. In 1969, a commission appointed by Pope Saint Paul VI concluded that Catherine\u2019s story, which emerged hundreds of years after her death, is just that, a mere story. Lacking any clear historical evidence of Catherine\u2019s death, the commission removed her feast from the Church\u2019s universal liturgical calendar.<\/p>\n
For over thirty years, Catherine of Alexandria\u2019s story appeared to be mere \u201clegend.\u201d<\/p>\n
But then something unprecedented happened. In 2002, without any explanation, Pope Saint John Paul II put Catherine of Alexandria back into the calendar as an optional memorial. Some have attributed John Paul\u2019s decision to a desire for greater unity with the Eastern Orthodox Church which has always held Catherine in high esteem. Others have suggested that this philosopher-pope wanted Catherine, the traditional patroness of philosophers, to receive her due.<\/p>\n
But another possibility suggests itself, one that emerges when we consider Catherine\u2019s \u201ccult,\u201d the history of her veneration in the Church.<\/p>\n
Catherine was in fact an incredibly popular saint in the Middle Ages. She was revered as one of the fourteen \u201cHoly Helpers,\u201d the saints to whom prayers were raised for protection in times of plague and pestilence. Saint Dominic had a vision of Catherine of Alexandria. She was a particular patroness of Saint Gertrude the Great as well as Saint Catherine of Siena. And, perhaps most notably, Catherine of Alexandria was one of the three saints who appeared to Saint Joan of Arc and trained her for her famous mission leading the French army to victory. Joan went to her death swearing to the veracity of her three \u201cvoices.\u201d<\/p>\n
In other words, even if Catherine of Alexandria\u2019s life remains shrouded in what seems to be legend, she clearly has a proven track record for helping others from heaven. What we do not know of Catherine\u2019s life is made up by her \u201cafterlife,\u201d her powerful ongoing influence in the lives of others.<\/p>\n
It may be that Pope Saint John Paul II experienced this influence himself\u2014and this is why he had Catherine added to the calendar.<\/p>\n
And this fact of Catherine\u2019s rehabilitation restores for us the true wonder of the lives of the saints. For the saint is not some hero in a fairy tale, but someone who has lived a life that is meant for you and me. They offer a way forward for us that can truly change everything for us, were we to follow them.<\/p>\n
The saint is one who, little by little, has learned to give God control of his or her life. By saying \u201cyes\u201d to God in many daily acts of trust, the saint makes himself or herself over to God. And then God makes great things happen through the saint\u2014both in life y<\/em> afterlife. This is why Catherine of Alexandria is still on the calendar\u2014because God is at work in her and through her.<\/p>\n The path of surrendering to God that we see in the lives of the saints is, however, not simply passive: a letting oneself be taken and used. It is a process of learning and growing in the love of God, of loving and letting oneself be loved.<\/p>\n To understand this way of surrender we need to see it lived. Such witness is given by Elizabeth Ann Seton in her writings.<\/p>\n At the age of twenty-eight, the then-Episcopalian wife and mother wrote in her journal: \u201cThis blessed day. . . my soul was first sensibly conceived of the blessing and practicability of an entire surrender of itself in all its faculties to God.\u201d It was the beginning of a journey of self-surrender that played out throughout Elizabeth\u2019s entire life.<\/p>\n A little over a year later, this determination to surrender was put to the test, as Elizabeth accompanied her sick husband on a voyage to Italy for healing only to see him die soon after their monthlong confinement in a cold and dismal quarantine station.<\/p>\n Her determination was tested again when, while grieving her husband, she tasted the sweetness of the Catholic faith in Italy only to return to America to face the questioning and rejection of her friends and family.<\/p>\n Elizabeth\u2019s \u201centire surrender\u201d was lived in motherhood and widowhood and religious life\u2014and in the unexpected combination of all three. She learned to say \u201cyes\u201d in founding and leading, in suffering and in dying. Yes, even on her deathbed, Elizabeth professed her commitment to \u201cthe Will\u201d\u2014to prefer God\u2019s plan to hers. She would let God be God.<\/p>\n In all this, Elizabeth\u2019s first intuitions were confirmed again and again. She discovered that yielding is a \u201cblessing\u201d\u2014 something wonderful, freeing, a yoke that is easy and a burden that is light. And she showed us that such a life is \u201cpracticable\u201d\u2014that it is possible to give everything over, body and soul, intellect and will, through the \u201cyes\u201d of the everyday.<\/p>\n Elizabeth rose in the morning and gave God the day in confidence and trust. She went to bed offering her whole self again to Him. And in-between, there was the \u201cprayer of the heart,\u201d the \u201clook of love\u201d\u2014the many moments when she faced a difficulty and then recalled that God was a \u201ctender Father\u201d and confidently abandoned herself to him.<\/p>\n With Pope John Paul II, we can acknowledge that the afterlife of St. Catherine of Alexandria must be the result of true sanctity. But we can only begin to appreciate what this can mean for us through lived experience. Elizabeth Ann Seton shows us how it is done\u2014for our lives are not fairy tales, but something better: the opportunity to see His love made real in us and through us, both blessing and miracle.<\/p>\n