Who Was St. Catherine of the Wheel?

Today is the Feast Day of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, also known as Saint Catherine of the Wheel. She lived in Alexandria, Egypt during the fourth century, a period of great persecution under the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maxentius (known as Maxentius; d. 312). She was a young and devout virgin of noble lineage and strongly protested the persecution of Christians, for which she was imprisoned. Her courage and resolve both during and after her imprisonment inspired many to convert to Christianity, including the emperor’s wife. Because of her vast influence, she was brought before Maxentius and (it is said) attested, “I am Catherine, the daughter of the king, and I have abandoned all my riches in order to follow the Lord Jesus Christ.” As a result, she was ordered to be tortured and executed, as was the fate of many Christians during that era. The implement of choice was the excruciating torture of the spiked wheel, on which the victim would be tied and then swung across a bed of fire or metal spikes. Because the wheel had spikes mounted on it, the pain came from all directions. When Catherine was placed upon the wheel, the story goes, the implement broke, forcing her executioners to improvise. (She was instead beheaded.) Hence, this form of torture has been denoted as “the Catherine wheel” and she has come to be known as Saint Catherine of the Wheel. Since she was martyred in Alexandria, she became the guardian saint over the portion of the pilgrimage journey that traversed Mount Sinai.

St. Clare’s mother, Ortolana would have prayed for the protection of Saint Catherine on her arduous pilgrimage to the holy land before Clare was born. Traversing the road to Mount Sinai would surely have demanded the supernatural aid of the saints. A 14th-century chronicler who made the same pilgrimage said of it: “There is not in all the world a pilgrimage harder than the one to Mount Sinai.”

Ortolana would also have told her impressionable daughters the tales of her pilgrim’s passage and how Saint Catherine of the Wheel guarded the pilgrims. She named her second daughter (Clare’s sister) Catherine, presumably after the saint whose protection she sought during her dangerous journey.

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