What Fate Saint Cate? by Steven Wittenberg Gordon

The Entombment of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, by Francisco de Zurbaran (Spain). 1637.

​What Fate Saint Cate?
 
“What happened to this one?” the angel
on the right asked the angel in the centre.
 
“She wanted to devote her life to God rather than marry an emperor,
and for that she was tortured and then executed.”
 
“Did she know that she would be executed if she refused to marry?”
asked the angel on the left.
 
“She knew,” replied the angel in the centre. “Had she married,
she would have been an empress—powerful, influential--
but she did not want that life and chose death instead."
 
“Then I wonder,” asked the angel on the left,
“how much did she really want to serve God?” 

Steven Wittenberg Gordon

Dr. Steven Wittenberg Gordon is the editor-in-Chief of Songs of Eretz Poetry Review (www.SongsOfEretz.com) and divides his time between editing, writing, and a private addiction medicine practice in Kansas.