Tuesday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time

Optional Memorial of St. Catherine of Alexandria, Virgin and Martyr

Brief Background:

St. Catherine of Alexandria was a young Christian woman from the 3rd–4th century, known for her intelligence, courage, and unwavering faith. Tradition holds that she was a noblewoman or princess from Alexandria, Egypt—one of the most educated cities of the ancient world. She converted to Christianity as a teenager after receiving a vision of Mary and the Christ Child.

Catherine boldly confronted Emperor Maxentius, challenging his persecution of Christians. The emperor summoned fifty pagan philosophers to debate her, but Catherine—filled with wisdom and the Holy Spirit—confounded them all, and several even converted. Enraged, the emperor ordered her tortured on a spiked “breaking wheel,” but the instrument miraculously shattered at her touch. She was eventually martyred by beheading around the year 305.

Her story, though surrounded by legend, became a powerful symbol of faith, reason, purity, and courage throughout Christian history. St. Catherine is the patron saint of philosophers, librarians, mechanics, and archivists.

REFLECTION:

There’s a memorable scene in the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Indiana is trying to escape from a collapsing cavern while everything around him is falling apart. At one point, he accidentally kicks a small stone loose. It seems insignificant, almost laughable compared to the danger around him—but that tiny stone rolls, strikes another, and suddenly an entire section of the cave begins to crumble. What looked solid and majestic just moments before is exposed as fragile. One little stone set the collapse in motion.

That scene captures something powerful about the way God works in our lives and in human history. The greatest movements of God often begin with something small, quiet, almost unnoticed—like the stone in Daniel’s vision, “hewn from a mountain without a hand being put to it.”

In Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, the world’s empires appear impressive: gold, silver, bronze, iron. They tower over the earth like monuments of human achievement. But these kingdoms—like Indiana Jones’ cavern—stand on fragile foundations. And into this scene enters a stone not shaped by human hands. No human power crafted it. No earthly ruler forged it. It comes directly from God, strikes the statue at its weakest point, and everything collapses. What follows is even more astonishing: the stone grows into a great mountain that fills the whole earth.

This stone is the symbol of God’s kingdom—quiet, humble, and divinely initiated. And it is also the symbol of how God works in the human heart. His grace often begins in a small way: a gentle tug on the conscience, a Scripture verse that lingers, a conversation that unsettles us, or a moment in prayer that feels different. These small movements—stones carved without hands—strike the places where our lives stand on “iron and clay”: our pride, our fears, our hidden attachments, our carefully built identities. One small moment of grace can expose what is fragile and begin a deeper transformation.

We may not like when those “statues” collapse—when our plans fail, when our control slips, when our image cracks. But often the collapse is the mercy. It is God breaking what’s temporary so He can build what is eternal. It is God reminding us that His kingdom is stronger than anything we try to construct ourselves.

And when that stone grows, it changes us. A new habit of prayer forms. A forgiveness we thought impossible becomes real. Hope returns. Faith deepens. The stone becomes a mountain.

In a world that admires statues—power, success, recognition—God still chooses the stone: small beginnings, humble moments, simple grace that grows into something far beyond our imagination. The stone “hewn without hands” reminds us that it is God who initiates our transformation, God who strengthens our foundations, and God who builds in us a kingdom that will not crumble.



May we welcome that stone when it comes—whether gently or suddenly—trusting that what God begins, no power on earth can stop. And may we never underestimate how one small moment of grace can change the entire landscape of our lives.