On St Catherine

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and

of the Holy Spirit. Amen. We're still celebrating

this profoundly beautiful, sweet, quiet feast

of the entrance of the Theotokos into the temple.

The icon is in the middle of the church. This

feast is about her dedication at the age of three.

dedication by her parents to God in fulfillment

of a promise. As parents, we make lots of promises

to God, but we don't often fulfill them. But

in this case, glory to God, and an amazing sacrifice

on their part as well. I won't say more about

this feast because we had it on Thursday, and

we sang wonderful hymns last night, and we have

a few more today. I want to spend a few moments

now, rather, and briefly, I hope, Remembering

one of the great saints of our church, I want

to congratulate all those that bear the name,

all the women in the parish that bear the name

Catherine. After the great martyr Catherine,

her fresco is over in the north aisle next to

St. Irene, and there's a lovely icon here next

to the Lord. Saints, our saints, are those whose

lives are so transformed. Their hearts are so

captivated with love of God and burning with

love of God and for their neighbor that they

are like God. A saint is not merely a kind or

compassionate or churchly person. A saint is

holy, and holiness comes from God. participation

in holiness of God. They share that, they bear

God. There's an old saying about the saints,

so we don't get frustrated or discouraged when

we read their lives, thinking that, well, that's

them. The old saying is this, I think it's St.

John Klimako said, everything in the life of

a saint is worthy of admiration. But not all

things are proper for emulation. We should keep

those words in mind, especially today when we

think about St. Catherine the Great Martyr. In

our everyday lives, in our society, in our times,

we have very little in common with the way she

lived. Hardly anything, probably. She lived in

the early 4th century. She was of noble lineage.

Her father was a patrician. He had a place in

the government, the imperial government. He was

a pagan. Her mother was a secret Christian. She

received the best possible education. You heard

last night, I read part of it last night, so

I won't go into all that again today. But the

best possible education, philosophy and rhetoric

and poetry and medicine and languages and mathematics,

she was stunningly beautiful. She was virtuous.

She was constantly courted for marriage, but

had no desire for that. And when her mother tried

to arrange something, she says, okay, but. this

person has to be of equal education, equal social

status, and equal wisdom and beauty to me. I'll

mention something later about that, because that's

an important thing to remember about how she

became a Christian, how she met Christ. And it

was only at the age of 18. And she was brought

before the authorities. So I'm skipping a whole

section here. She was brought before the authorities

when she confessed that she believed in the Lord

Jesus Christ as the Savior. You know, imperial

rhetoric, not rhetoric, imperial language about

the emperor was that he was the Son of God, and

he is the Savior, and he brings the gospel. These

are all technical names. she would not possibly

say the emperor is the savior and the son of

God. She was brought before the emperor Maximinos,

maybe it was Maximian, not 100 % sure about the

name, who flattered her. He was taken by her

beauty and by her wisdom, by her eloquence. He

promised her wonderful things. Just make a sacrifice.

of some incense, and that's it. She spoke to

the emperor so boldly and so decisively and so

eloquently about God, using language that he

would know of the philosophers, the ancient philosophers,

that he was speechless, it says. He was speechless.

He was captivated by that brilliance and her

beauty and her courage, and he thought, OK, I

can still win her for myself. She could be mine.

And so he arranged that a debate would take place.

And he was sure she would lose and bow her head

and accept the philosophy and the paganism. So

this is what it says in The Life of the Saint.

It says, deciding it was below him to argue with

a woman. The emperor announced that he would

seek to convert Catherine back to paganism by

means of 50 of the wisest, most cunning pagan

philosophers and rhetoricians in the land. He

summoned these learned men to Alexandria, where

they assembled in the arena and prepared to defeat

the maiden in a debate, addressing them using

examples of their own philosophers, their own

intellectual tradition. all 50 became silent.

And somehow their hearts were touched and they

were open to the Spirit of God. And as St. Paul

says, the preaching of the cross has made foolish

the wisdom of this world. And they all. All of

them, all 50, confessed their faith in Jesus

Christ. Sorry, Richard Dawkins and Christopher

Hitchens. All courageous 50 men whose hearts

somehow became alight with the love of God then

endured martyrdom before her. Still unable to

persuade the saint to change her mind, to renounce

Jesus Christ, the emperor tried to entice her

with the promise of riches and fame. Of course,

he had all these at his disposal, and she categorically

refused. What is that to me when the Lord who

has made heaven and earth and all things, visible

and invisible, will give me his kingdom? So she

refused, and so began terrible tortures. and

imprisonment. The story about the, is it called

the Catherine Wheel with the spikes? Well, it

fell apart before she ever was tortured by it.

And as these tortures and imprisonment continued,

more and more and more people seen her courage

and her faith and her love for God and her patience

and her fortitude were converted and she was

eventually beheaded. Again, St. Paul, if we are

children, then heirs, says St. Paul, heirs of

God, joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer

with him, that we also may be glorified together.

For I consider that the sufferings of this present

time are not worthy to be compared with the glory

which shall be revealed in us. Our own Catherine

de Carlo. in a wonderful essay, wrote this. She

said, St. Catherine always pointed the way to

Christ. As a result, her faith and courage bore

fruit, not only in her sanctity, her sainthood,

but also in the sainthood of hundreds of others,

perhaps thousands, yes, around her, as she inspired

the Empress. the emperor's wife, the military

gentle Porphyrius, who came with 200 guards,

the 50 philosophers, and numerous other onlookers

to her martyrdom to embrace Christ, paying the

ultimate price as testimony with their lives

to the resurrection. What does this have to do

with us? The times are so different. She was

so different. Everything is different. The lives

of the saints, however, are a reality check on

our own faith, especially the martyrs, our own

assumptions, our culture, our way of living as

Christians, whom it is we seek first and what

it is we seek first in our life. It's a reality

check. From the viewpoint of the lives... Of

the normal modern person, whatever normal is.

What Catherine did was insane. She had youth.

She had beauty. She had education. She had career.

She enjoyed life. She had happiness. She had

money. All gone. She gave it up. What kind of

power motivates a martyr, a person to do that?

No strength of conviction is going to help. Because

all conviction disappears in the face of severe

physical pain. You simply give in. St. Catherine

acted in this way, not on strength of her conviction,

the purity of her theological thought, but because

she had had a deep... Real experience of communion

with Jesus Christ. Christ was for her the only

and the supreme value. He gave her, and she experienced

this, peace, joy, happiness above all human well

-being. Nothing would convince her to renounce

Christ, the way, the truth, the life, and the

resurrection. A martyr is the one who bears testimony

to that resurrection. So what else have we learned

for ourselves in this brief account? Well, something

about the power of repentance. Because Catherine,

when she met a holy elder, taken to see that

elder by her mother, was introduced to Christ

and given an icon. She went home and prayed.

And she had this dream. Which the Theotokos holding

Christ. Comes and says. Oh my son. Look at this

beautiful woman. Educated. Lovely. Virtuous.

And in the dream she hears. Remember this is

a dream. She hears. She's ugly. I can't look

upon her. She has sin and pride. And she wakes

up and she has tears and she prays and she prays

all night long. She goes back to the holy elder,

Porphyrios. She's praying to God. This is her

repentance and she has another vision, another

dream in which the Theotokos says, she is beautiful,

my son. And he says, yes, she is beautiful. This

is her repentance. We can learn from that. that

we should not give up in our repentance. We should

not give up whatever happens to us. We also learned

that even Catherine, in her beauty and virtue

and pride and social connections, learned in

that vision that all those things would not save

her, and she needed Christ. We should certainly

emulate her in that repentance. And we can emulate

her in that fervent prayer all night long in

any way we can, desiring to meet Christ, to have

such an experience of the Lord that in the face

of resistance, we would stand firm because we

know God's love personally. We should... Finally,

emulate her to not be enticed or captivated or

distracted by the offers of riches or beauties

or wealth or anything else in this fallen world.

She placed all her hope on Christ who is risen

from the dead. We can be inspired by this saint

and indeed emulate her in so many ways. Through

her prayers, may our Lord grant us this vision.

His love and salvation and firmness in our faith.

Amen.