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On a ranked list of my
favorite Catholic saints,

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this is one of them.

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St. Catherine of
Alexandria, patron saint

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of teachers, lawyers,
and archivists,

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also patron saint of
spinners and potters.

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Additionally, patron saint
of mechanics, scribes, girls,

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and unmarried girls,
which seems redundant.

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One would think unmarried girls
could be eligible for coverage

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under the previously mentioned
classification of girls.

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But this is Catholicism
where one can never

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be sure of anything except maybe
patriarchy, which has no patron

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saint, but if it did, St.
Catherine would likely

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be called upon, as her case
list is weirdly extensive

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and also includes grease,
apologists, millers,

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and all of the Philippines,
which then includes exactly

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half my family tree, my mother's
cheekbones, my Lola's recipes,

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most of the collected prayers
I know but can't remember why.

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I feel I've lived a
life worth remembering

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if I'm able to pay the electric
bill or empty the dishwasher.

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This would be laughable
to St. Catherine, who

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by mid-morning has already
intervened before God on behalf

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of tanners, students, nurses,
scholars, philosophers,

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and preachers.

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Furthermore, both knife
sharpeners and knife grinders

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fall under her jurisdiction,
as do dying people, which

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feels like a conflict of
interest, as in her time,

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there was a correlation between
knives and dying people.

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This was not her only paradox.

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She converted
hundreds to her faith;

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then these new believers
could be promptly executed

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by the empire.

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Did she know that would
be the fruit of her labor?

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Was this the will of the saint
or the will of the emperor?

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Is there a difference?

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I, too, have knelt
before a god that knelt

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before an ordinary Caesar.

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I, too, have felt the
outcome was unjust.

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Though Providence holds
little interest in how I feel,

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it's as arbitrary as human
memory, and memory was not then,

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and is not now the
responsibility of St. Catherine.

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Her responsibilities are the
well documented above categories

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of patronage, as well as
secretaries, the University

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of Paris, haberdashers,
theologians, librarians,

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and libraries, which
I assume includes

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all the pristine collections
presently in existence,

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but also those history has
forgotten or set ablaze.

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Historians are not included
on her oddly inclusive list,

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a shadowy group of
untrustworthy thinkers.

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Modern historians
currently argue

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St. Catherine did not
exist, or perhaps was

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a different figure
with a different name,

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or maybe an amalgamation
of several people who

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can't be identified, thus must
also be expunged or excluded

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from history's
most grand records,

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though it's possible these
anonymous beings, banished

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from history, standing
beyond the margins

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of collective recollection,
might have been recognized

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and loved by their neighbors
as stenographers, wheelwrights,

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spinsters, hatmakers.

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[APPLAUSE]

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