Saturday, December 12, 2009

A Beautiful Story

St. Cecilia

St. Cecilia is the classical and even archetypal patron saint of musicians, especially lute players, organists, and singers, and also of poets. Dozens of churches are named after her around the world, as well as one of the largest and most successful independent chorales in New York City, which happens not to be associated with any church.

St. Cecilia was born into a wealthy Christian family in the persecuted church of the city of Rome in the third century. She was married and lived in her family’s villa across the Tiber from the center of old Rome, in the district of Trastevere. She was visibly active, burying the bodies of martyrs and supporting the community there who made use of the church and secret catacombs on her property. The warmth and intensity of her love of Christ was instrumental in converting her husband at the very beginning of their marriage, and she continued her work even when he and his brother and a close soldier friend were arrested for being Christian. Eventually the local government prefect placed her under house arrest, and then in the face of her outspokenness and continual—and maybe defiant—singing of Christian hymns a soldier was ordered to execute her. He botched his attempts at suffocation and beheading and finally fled the scene in a panic. She was left bleeding to death, and as she lingered on, the story is that even then she heroically continued with her well-known singing along with those who came to her assistance. She was buried with the other martyrs in the catacombs along the famous Appian Way leading out of Rome.

-Taken from the blog of The Monks of New Skete

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