Today is the feast day of Catherine of Alexandria. Tradition passes down that she was a virgin martyr from the 4th century. She was revered greatly in the medieval period. Pope John Paul II restored the celebration of her memorial to the Roman Catholic calendar in 2002. A lot of the facts about the early Church martyrs are difficult to verify, but Tradition passes down that Catherine was born in the great city of Alexandria, Egypt to a noble family, that she was well educated, and a converted to Christianity. She went before the Roman Emperor Maxentius, eager to defend her Christian faith in the midst of a period of great persecution against Christianity. She refused to renounce her faith and defended it against a group of pagan philosophers, a debate which the emperor had arranged. Catherine withstood some torture and was beheaded, becoming a martyr for the faith. She died around the year 305. There is a monastery on Mount Sinai named after her, established around the year 550, one of the oldest monasteries in the world.
Our first reading comes from the book of Daniel, and the psalm actually does not come from the book of Psalms, but also from the book of Daniel. The book of Daniel in the Old Testament takes its name from its hero, who was allegedly among the first Jews deported to Babylon in the 6th century BC. The book of Daniel is classified as apocalyptic literature, with roots in the older teaching of the prophets, who often pointed ahead to the end times. The verses from Daniel in the psalm today come from a song that is sung by the men who are thrown into the fiery furnace by the king: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. God protects them when they are thrown in the fiery furnace, as they are not eaten up by the hot flames, but rather they are able to praise God for saving them when they refuse to honor a pagan God instead of the one true God.
What about us? Are we able to stand up for our faith and praise the Lord in difficult circumstances? With the influence of the secular world, the pressure we are under sometimes can be as strong as the pressure that confronted the Jews in exile. On Thursday, we will celebrate Thanksgiving even as our nation is divided in a lot of ways. May we praise the Lord this day and every day, even in the midst of tension, division, and the values of the secular world around us.
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