SAINT CECILIA : “Live in harmony and peace, and the God of Love and peace will be with you.” Saint Cecilia was the first martyr whose body remains incorruptible. She has been regarded as patroness of church music. According to church history, Cecilia was a maiden of noble birth. At an early age, she dedicated her life to God with a vow of chastity. But her family made her marry a young noble named Valerian. Portrait of St. Cecilia On her wedding day, she prayed to the Lord and asked Him to protect her virginity. History records, The day on which the wedding was to be held arrived and while musical instruments were playing she was singing in her heart to God alone saying: Make my heart and my body pure that I may not be confounded . St. Cecilias prayers were answered, and Valerian was willing to take her as his wife without forcing her to break her vow. Not only did he accept her vow of chastity, he and his brother Tiburtius both converted to Christianity and were baptized by Pope Urban I. Both Valerian and his brother Tiburtius were soon discovered to be Christians and were martyred. Cecilia was discovered soon after that and met a similar fate. It required two attempts before her executioners could kill her. They first locked her inside the bathroom of her own home and tried to suffocate her by steam. When she emerged from the bath unharmed, she was then beheaded. The stroke of the axe failed to sever her head completely from her body, however, and she lingered on for three excruciating days. During that time, she saw to the disbursement of her assets to help the poor, and she donated her home to the ecclesiastical authorities to be used as a church. It was believed that St. Cecilia was buried in the Catacomb of Callistus after she was martyred in 177 A.D. Seven centuries later, Pope Pascal I (817-824) built the Church of St. Cecilia in the Trastevere quarter of Rome and wished to transfer her relics there. At first, however, he could not find them and believed that they had been stolen. In a vision he saw St. Cecilia, who exhorted him to continue his search, as he had already been very near to her grave. He therefore renewed his quest; and soon the body of the martyr, draped in expensive gold brocade and with the cloths soaked in her blood at her feet, was actually found in the Catacomb of Prætextatus instead. Her relics, with those of Valerian (her husband), Tiburtius, and Maximus (a Rome officer), and Popes Urbanus and Lucius, were taken up by Pope Paschal I, and reburied under the high altar of St. Cecilia in Trastevere.
Posted on: Sat, 22 Nov 2014 09:06:35 +0000
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