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Virgin, Martyr, Patroness of Church Music
A.D. 230
Feast: November 22
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The name of St. Cecilia has always been most illustrious in the church, and ever
since the primitive ages is mentioned with distinction in the canon of the mass,
and in the sacramentaries and calendars of the church. Her spouse Valerian,
Tiburtius, and Maximus, an officer, who were her companions in martyrdom, are
also mentioned in the same authentic and venerable writings. St. Cecilia was a
native of Rome, of a good family, and educated in the principles and perfect
practice of the Christian religion. In her youth she by vow consecrated her
virginity to God, yet was compelled by her parents to marry a nobleman named
Valerian. Him she converted to the faith, and soon after gained to the same his
brother Tiburtius. The men first suffered martyrdom, being beheaded for the
faith. St. Cecilia finished her glorious triumph some days after them.Their
acts, which are of very small authority, make them contemporary with Pope Urban
I, and consequently place their martyrdom about the year 230, under Alexander
Severus; others, however, place the triumph of these martyrs under Marcus
Aurelius, between the years 176 and 180. Their sacred bodies were deposited in
part of the cemetery of Calixtus, which part, from our saint, was called St.
Cecilia's cemetery. Mention is made of an ancient Church of St. Cecilia in Rome
in the fifth century, in which Pope Symmachus held a council in the year 500.
This church being fallen to decay, Pope Paschal I began to rebuild it; but was
in some pain how he should find the body of the saint, for it was thought that
the Lombards had taken it away, as they had many others from the cemeteries of
Rome, when they besieged that city under King Astulphus in 755. One Sunday, as
this pope was assisting at matins as was his wont, at St. Peter's, he fell into
a slumber, in which he was advertised by St. Cecilia herself that the Lombards
had in vain sought for her body, and that he should find it; and he accordingly
discovered it in the cemetery called by her name, clothed in a robe of gold
tissue, with linen cloths at her feet, dipped in her blood. With her body was
found that of Valerian, her husband; and the pope caused them to be translated
to her church in the city; as also the bodies of Tiburtius and Maximus, martyrs,
and of the popes Urban and Lucius, which lay in the adjoining cemetery of
Praetextatus, on the same Appian road.[1] This translation was made in 821. Pope
Paschal founded a monastery in honour of these saints, near the Church of St.
Cecilia, that the monks might perform the office day and night. He adorned that
church with great magnificence, and gave to it silver plate to the amount of
about nine hundred pounds—among other things a ciborium, or tabernacle, of five
hundred pounds weight; and a great many pieces of rich stuffs for veils and such
kinds of ornaments; in one of which was represented the angel crowning St.
Cecilia, Valerian, and Tiburtius. This church, which gives title to a cardinal
priest, was sumptuously rebuilt in 1599 by Cardinal Paul Emilius Sfondrati,
nephew to Pope Gregory XIV, when Clement VIII caused the bodies of these saints
to be removed under the high altar, and deposited in a most sumptuous vault in
the same church called the Confession of St. Cecilia; it was enriched in such a
manner by Cardinal Paul Emilius Sfondrati as to dazzle the eye and astonish the
spectator. This church of St. Cecilia is called In Trastevere, or Beyond the
Tiber, to distinguish it from two other churches in Rome which bear the name of
this saint.
St. Cecilia, from her assiduity in singing the divine praises (in
which, according to her Acts, she often joined instrumental music with vocal),
is regarded as patroness of church music. The psalms, and many sacred canticles
in many other parts of the holy scripture, and the universal practice both of
the ancient Jewish and of the Christian church, recommend the religious custom
of sometimes employing a decent and grave music in sounding forth the divine
praises. By this homage of praise we join the heavenly spirits in their
uninterrupted songs of adoration, love, and praise. And by such music we express
the spiritual joy of our hearts in this heavenly function, and excite ourselves
therein to holy jubilation and devotion. Divine love and praise are the work of
the heart, without which all words or exterior signs are hypocrisy and mockery.
Yet as we are bound to consecrate to God our voices and all our organs and
faculties, and all creatures which we use, so we ought to employ them all in
magnifying his sanctity, greatness, and glory, and sometimes to accompany our
interior affections of devotion with the most expressive exterior signs. St.
Chrysostom elegantly extols the good effects of sacred music, and shows how
strongly the fire of divine love is kindled in the soul by devout psalmody. St.
Austin teaches that "it is useful in moving piously the mind and kindling the
affections of divine love." St. Charles Borromeo in his youth allowed himself no
other amusement but that of grave music, with a view to that of the church. As
to music as an amusement, too much time must never be given to it; and extreme
care ought to be taken, as a judicious and experienced tutor observes, that
children be not set to learn it very young, because it is a thing which
bewitches the senses, dissipates the mind exceedingly, and alienates it from
serious studies, as daily experience shows. Soft and effeminate music is to be
always shunned with abhorrence, as the corrupter of the heart and the poison of
virtue.
Endnotes
1 Anastasius in Paschali I ap. Murat. t. iii. pp. 215, 216.
(Taken from Vol. III of "The Lives or the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints" by the Rev. Alban Butler.)
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