Daily Martyrology for November 25

This is the traditional day to celebrate St. Catherine of Alexandria. Legend has it that she was a brilliant philosopher who was killed about 310. At first the Emperor Maxentius tried to have her killed by placing her on a spiked wheel to be torn apart, but the wheel was struck by lightning. She was then beheaded, and milk flowed out instead of blood. She is the patron of St. Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai and of numerous churches. The story of her life was very popular in the Middle Ages. She is the patron of scholars, nursing infants and those suffering with migraine. She was one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers.

In 251, in Rome, St. Moses, martyr. He was a priest in Rome, and leader of a group of priests who were the first to suffer death for their faith during the persecution of Decius. Moses died after spending almost a year in prison.

In 1951 and 1965, respectively, Blesseds Luigi and Mary Beltrame Quatorcchi. They were married in the cathedral of Mary Major on this day in 1905. They had four children: one became a Benedictine nun, one a Trappist, and one a diocesan priest. Luigi was a successful lawyer and civil servant. In 2001, their three surviving children were in attendance as they became the first couple to be beatified together.

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Our daily martyrology was written by Fr. Hugh Feiss, OSB. Copyright © 2008 by the Monastery of the Ascension, Jerome, ID 83338.