Saint Cecilia

Cecilia is among the most famous of the Roman martyrs. Her name is recited in the Roman Canon of the Mass, and a church was built in her honour in Trastevere, in Rome, by the fifth century, on the site traditionally held to be her house. Her story comes to us from an account called her Passion, written in the fifth century. It is a beautiful story, though historians cannot say how much of it is exact.

According to it, Cecilia was a noble Roman girl who had consecrated herself to Christ and was nevertheless given in marriage to a young pagan named Valerian. On their wedding night she told him that an angel of God guarded her virginity. Valerian asked to see the angel, and she sent him to Pope Urban to be baptized. When he came back he saw the angel beside her. His brother Tiburtius was converted too. The two brothers buried the bodies of martyrs, were arrested for it, and were beheaded. Cecilia was condemned in turn. An attempt to suffocate her in the hot baths of her house failed. The executioner struck her neck three times with a sword without killing her, and she lived three days more, giving her goods to the poor.

The account says that during her wedding music she “sang in her heart to the Lord alone,” and from this she became the patroness of music and musicians.

In 1599 her tomb was opened and her body was found lying on its side. The sculptor Stefano Maderno carved it as he saw it, and his statue lies below the altar of her church today.