The Philosopher On Screen

Following on yesterday's post, it seems there is a movie about St Catherine of Alexandria due to be released next year.  It will star Peter O'Toole, one of Ireland's great actors who, despite his advanced age, is still in demand and delivering good performances.

 

This new movie is said to tell the story of St Catherine, but given that we know so little about her, apart from the legends, an accurate historical biopic would be difficult to construct, but then that leaves scope for creativity.

I have posted the official trailer below, see what you think. To be honest I'm not inspired, it seems rather amateurish.  I also detect that the filmmakers have decided that Catherine will be the centre of the revolution against Rome.  Hmmm?   

 

The Philosopher

Of all the great philosophers who attained sanctity, in her wisdom, the Church invokes the virgin martyr, Catherine of Alexandria as patron saint of philosophers.  I tend to think it is because, according to tradition, she defended the Christian faith through philosophy and revealed that faith and reason are not opposed to each other, but rather partners in the human quest for knowledge, discovering the meaning of life and discerning the existence of God.  That she was a humble lay woman also speaks volumes: no professor here, but a women who consecrated herself to Christ and sought to live the Gospel in her day to day life.

 

Thank God Blessed John Paul II rehabilitated her and put her back on the General Calendar: like St Christopher, St Philomena and St Simon Stock, Catherine's existence had been rejected by certain scholars who put too much weight on the legends and, unfortunately the Church, following their line, consigned her to the realm of the legendary.  Blessed John Paul could discern between the Saint who existed and about whom we may know very little and the legends which grew up around their memory, so he restored to the Church her patron of philosophers.  Quite appropriate given that he was a philosopher himself.

 

St Catherine is an important patron for all us and the laity in particular.  Okay, we are not all called to be philosophers, not in a professional capacity anyway, but we are called to understand our faith and be able to explain it.  No Catholic is exempted from this - the Year of Faith which ended yesterday was to remind us to our responsibility to continue learning about our faith - we are all called to catechise.  As a laywoman, Catherine, I hope, will inspire laypeople to see their role as teachers and evangelisers. 

 

I suppose that is why I failed to understand why Catherine was debunked by the Church in a period when she should have been becoming more important in the life of the Church: after all, she is a great example of what Vatican II wanted the laity to become: men and women living and defending the faith in the world.  Anyway, no use raking over what was done in the past - mistakes were made but we need to move on and get down to work: we have lost a lot of ground.  I pray St Catherine and all the Saints will inspire and motivate us as we all play our part in the New Evangelisation.

A Virgin Most Powerful

For some reason things seem brighter this morning, even though the wind is howling outside and the rain is being dashed against the window.  The appointment of Mgr Brown has me in much better form, it is like a streak of light, even if it's faint, in the darkness which is Ireland in these times.  But we must pray hard that all will go well.  So Catholics of Ireland, and all our friends around the world, please pray for the Church in Ireland.

And what a feast day today: St Catherine of Alexandria!  I love this lady - she's a gal with guts, as some of my New Yorker friends would say, and indeed she is.  No messing with this Virgin that's for sure.  Like St Augustine, Blessed John Henry Newman and St Edith Stein she thought her way into the Church - she was, like them, a philosopher.  Like them she had to take the final step in faith, and according to tradition, it was a vision which brought her in.

Like the three above, she did not retire into private life and keep her faith to herself: she proclaimed it, and even entered into a dialogue with her fellow philosophers.  They could not confound her arguments and unable to surrender to the true God themselves, they denounced her to the authorities and she was put to death for her faith.  Virgin and Martyr, Catherine wears the two crowns in heaven.  The legend tells us they tried to kill her in a variety of ways, all of which failed, until they finally beheaded her.  You know these Roman ladies were tough women - they do not die easily.  As it took several attempts to execute Catherine, so too with St Cecilia and St Philomena.

Speaking of St Philomena, like her, Catherine was dismissed as a legendary figure during the upheaval surrounding Vatican II.  She was taken off the calendar with St Christopher and a number of others.  However, madness subsided, faulty scholarship was exposed, and Blessed John Paul II restored Catherine to the General Calendar in 2002.  Interesting, even in these times Catherine is still falling foul of scholars. 

I suppose these scholars were examining the legends, and saw that there was little evidence for most of what was contained in them: fair enough, but because the legend might not be entirely true does not mean the Saint did not exist and that the remains venerated in the tomb are not the relics of the martyr.  With some of our martyrs we know very little about them, yet we know they were put to death for their faith and that devotion to them sprung up and their relics were venerated.  Oftentimes that is enough for us.

The same can be said for St Philomena who, in terms of Saints, is very much the elephant in the room.  While the cult was suppressed, the shrine was not touched and as clear from a letter of Pope Paul VI to a bishop in India, devotion to her may continue as before.  It is a very strange situation.  Again the controversy here surrounds a side issue - the slab which closed her tomb.  Scholars maintain that she never existed because they believe the two parts of the slab were put in the wrong way round. 

Yet they ignore the vital evidence: the body of a teenage girl ,who was most obviously beheaded, was found in the tomb.  The usual phial of blood was found beside the body - always taken as a symbol of martyrdom and included at the burial of the remains - though scholars say in Philomena's case this cannot be taken as any evidence of martyrdom.  They have also ignored the Church's investigation into the case and into the miraculous cure of the Venerable Pauline Jaricot, one of the witnesses to which was Pope Gregory XVI.  They also ignored the plethora of miracles attributed to her intercession from all over the world as devotion to her suddenly sprung up in the Church.  They maintain the miracles were worked by others.  Sometimes it takes more faith to believe the scholar's arguments than to accept the existence and the intercession of St Philomena!

I hope some day, like St Catherine, Philomena will be rehabilitated officially, instead of the present situation which is tacit approval but "say nothing and don't notice what's going on".   Yet devotion to her is growing again: there are statues and prayer cards all over the place.  The shrine of St Jean-Marie Vianney in Ars promotes her cult through the shrine there and takes an intense interest in her rehabilitation; and though I have not yet been to Mugnano (it's on the list), I believe it is a wonderful place of prayer.  Are there any relics of her around, I wonder?

But in the meantime, today is Catherine's day.  We'll light the fireworks (Catherine Wheels) and honour the philosopher martyr - her intercession is much needed today.

St Catherine the Philosopher

Got to love today's feast - for a number of reasons.  The first is the wonderful example St Catherine of Alexandria offers to us as we struggle to live in a difficult age, an age which is no longer convinced by the Gospel.  The image of St Catherine debating with the philosophers and showing them that Christianity is worthy of credibility, and does stand philosophically, is a powerful one for our time which is, perhaps, the greatest age of disbelief.  For her efforts she is the patron saint of philosophers and she wasn't even a philosopher herself - there is a real call to humility there for our friends engaged in that discipline.

Another reason we can celebrate today is because this feast was restored by the Venerable Pope John Paul II after some hasty changes following Vatican II suppressed it with the excuse that she probably never existed.  Now I know there are problems with the Acts of her martyrdom, but that is no reason to turf out a saint who has inspired devotion for centuries and where there is a strong tradition of her existence.   I do believe that during the 1960's, 70's and 80's a certain brand of scholarship got the upper hand and a number of Saints were cast aside. 

We all know of poor St Philomena and St Christopher. Interestingly there has been a reversal of sorts with these two also.  A few years after St Philomena was toppled (even though her sanctuary was never dismantled nor devotion there suppressed) an Indian bishop, whose cathedral was dedicated to Philomena and whose cult was strong among his flock, wrote to Pope Paul VI and asked him what the official word was. Pope Paul wrote back and told him to be at peace and to continue the devotions as before.  So what was going on there? Was it a case that on the one hand the Church suppresses the feast and says she never existed, but on the other the Pope encourages the faithful to continue their devotion to her?  Regarding St Christopher, recent historical research has revealed that he did exist - again the legends may not be true, but there was a martyr called Christopher whom the Church honours as a saint in heaven.

A most interesting case is that of St Simon Stock - as a Carmelite this caught my attention.  Doubts were expressed as to whether Simon existed or not.  It was decided that he did not, and so the feast was suppressed.  Once he was gone, there was now a problem with the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel - she did not appear, it was concluded.  When bishops in South America got wind of a possible assault on the feast, they raised the matter with the Pope.  Again he assured them that they could continue to celebrate the feast.  Meanwhile some researchers got to work and eventually compiled enough information to prove that St Simon did indeed exist: this evidence was submitted and the feast was restored.  I wonder if they apologised to St Simon.

Historical research is important, and the Church needs to keep an eye on what is going on.  But she must also be prudent.  A lot of mistakes were made in the crazy years that followed the Second Vatican Council, some have been rectified, and Pope Benedict XVI seems determined to deal with others.  Vatican II was a gift to the Church - it will prepare us for the New Evangelisation, but too many have tried to hijack it and use it to promote their own ends - people inside and outside the Church.  More prudence is needed.

The restoration of St Catherine's feast is a sign that things are changing, that the devotions and traditions of our faith are still relevant in an age when we do embrace new challenges and new expressions of the faith.  We are Catholic, we should never reject what is true and beautiful about our faith be it old or new.  Blessed John Henry Newman is a great model of this.  He was deeply planted in the rich soil of the Church's tradition, and because of that he could veer out on the great adventure of faith, discovering the hidden treasures and the deeper meanings.  His teaching on development of doctrine is based on this.  I'm sure St Catherine would heartily agree.  I wonder - do St Catherine and Blessed John Henry engage in philosophical and theological debates in heaven (with Aquinas as ref)?  If so, who would win - the gentle, sensitive priest and scholar, or the Virgin Martyr?  No contest there - the Virgin Martyrs win hands down every time!