St. Cecilia

St. Cecilia (flourished 3rd century, Rome [Italy]; feast day November 22) was one of the most famous virgin martyrs of the early church and historically one of the most discussed. She is a patron saint of music and of musicians.

According to a late 5th-century legend, she was a noble Roman who, as a child, had vowed her virginity to God. When she was married against her will to the future saint Valerian, then a pagan, she told him that an angel of God wished her to remain a virgin. He promised to respect this wish if he were allowed to see the angel. She replied that he would if he were baptized. On his return from baptism he found Cecilia talking to the angel. She then converted his brother Tiburtius, who also saw the angel. Both men were martyred before she was. She distributed her possessions to the poor, which enraged the prefect Almachius, who ordered her to be burned. When the flames did not harm her, she was beheaded.

Cecilia was buried in the catacomb of St. Callistus, near Rome. At the beginning of the 9th century, Pope Paschal I discovered her incorrupt (undecayed) relics in the catacomb of St. Praetextatus and had them moved to Rome, to a basilica in Trastevere that now bears her name. According to tradition, she “sang in her heart to the Lord” as the musicians played at her wedding, and in art she is often represented playing the organ.