Saint Cecilia


Saint Cecilia is a saint venerated in the Latin Catholic, Eastern Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, as well as some churches of the Anglican Communion. She is one of seven women, in addition to the Blessed Virgin, commemorated by name in the Canon of the Mass in the Roman Catholic Church. She is regarded as the patron saint of musicians. It is written that as the musicians played at her wedding she "sang in her heart to the Lord". Her feast day is on November 22.
An early church, Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, was founded in the 3rd century by Pope Urban I in the Trastevere section of Rome, reputedly on the site of the house in which she lived. A number of musical compositions are dedicated to her, and her feast day has become the occasion for concerts and musical festivals.

Life

It is popularly supposed that Cecilia was a noble lady of Rome who, with her husband Valerian, his brother Tiburtius, and a Roman soldier named Maximus, suffered martyrdom in about 230, under the Emperor Alexander Severus. Giovanni Battista de Rossi, however, argues that instead she perished in Sicily under the Emperor Marcus Aurelius between 176 and 180, citing the report of Venantius Fortunatus, Bishop of Poitiers.
According to the story, despite her vow of virginity, she was forced by her parents to marry a pagan nobleman named Valerian. During the wedding, Cecilia sat apart singing to God in her heart, and for that she was later declared the saint of musicians. When the time came for her marriage to be consummated, Cecilia told Valerian that watching over her was an angel of the Lord, who would punish him if he sexually violated her but would love him if he respected her virginity. When Valerian asked to see the angel, Cecilia replied that he could if he would go to the third milestone on the Via Appia and be baptized by Pope Urban I. After following Cecilia's advice, he saw the angel standing beside her, crowning her with a chaplet of roses and lilies.
The martyrdom of Cecilia is said to have followed that of her husband Valerian and his brother at the hands of the prefect Turcius Almachius. The legend about Cecilia's death says that after being struck three times on the neck with a sword, she lived for three days, and asked the pope to convert her home into a church.
Cecilia was buried in the Catacomb of Callixtus, and later transferred to the Church of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere. In 1599, her body was found still incorrupt, seeming to be asleep.
Cecilia is one of the most famous of the Roman martyrs, although some elements of the stories recounted about her do not appear in the source material. According to Johann Peter Kirsch, the existence of the martyr is a historical fact, while some details bear the mark of a pious romance, like many other similar accounts compiled in the fifth and sixth century. The relation between Cecilia and Valerian, Tiburtius, and Maximus, mentioned in the Acts of the Martyrs, has some historical foundation. Her feast day has been celebrated since about the fourth century. There is no mention of Cecilia in the Depositio Martyrum, but there is a record of an early Roman church founded by a lady of this name, Santa Cecilia in Trastevere.

Santa Cecilia in Trastevere

The church of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere is reputedly built on the site of the house in which she lived. The original church was constructed in the fourth century; during the ninth century, Pope Paschal I had remains which were supposedly hers buried there. In 1599, while leading a renovation of the church, Cardinal Paolo Emilio Sfondrati had the remains, which he reported to be incorrupt, excavated and reburied.

Meaning of the name 'Cecilia'

The name "Cecilia" applied generally to Roman women who belonged to the plebeian clan of the Caecilii. Legends and hagiographies, mistaking it for a personal name, suggest fanciful etymologies. Among those cited by Chaucer in "The Second Nun's Tale" are: lily of heaven, the way for the blind, contemplation of heaven and the active life, as if lacking in blindness, and a heaven for people to gaze upon.

Patroness of musicians

The first record of a music festival in her honor was held at Évreux in Normandy in 1570.
The Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome is one of the oldest musical institutions in the world. It was founded by the papal bull, Ratione congruit, issued by Sixtus V in 1585, which invoked two saints prominent in Western musical history: Gregory the Great, after whom Gregorian chant is named, and Saint Cecilia, the patron saint of music.
Her feast day became an occasion for musical concerts and festivals that occasioned well-known poems by John Dryden and Alexander Pope and music by Henry Purcell ; several oratorios by Marc-Antoine Charpentier ; George Frideric Handel ; Charles Gounod ; as well as Benjamin Britten, who was born on her feast day. Herbert Howells' A Hymn to Saint Cecilia has words by Ursula Vaughan Williams; Gerald Finzi's "For Saint Cecilia", Op. 30, was set to verses written by Edmund Blunden; Michael Hurd's 1966 composition "A Hymn to Saint Cecilia" sets John Dryden's poem; and Frederik Magle's Cantata to Saint Cecilia is based on the history of Cecilia. The Heavenly Life, a poem from Des Knaben Wunderhorn mentions that "Cecilia and all her relations make excellent court musicians."
From the name of Cecilia comes Cecyliada, the name of festival of sacred, choral and contemporary music, held from 1994 in Police, Poland.

Legacy

Cecilia symbolizes the central role of music in the liturgy.
The Sisters of Saint Cecilia, religious sisters, shear the lambs' wool used to make the palliums of new metropolitan archbishops. The lambs are raised by the Cistercian Trappist Fathers of the Tre Fontane Abbey in Rome. The lambs are blessed by the Pope every January 21, the Feast of the martyr Saint Agnes. The pallia are given by the Pope to the new metropolitan archbishops on the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, June 29.
Located on the Isle of Wight, St. Cecilia's Abbey, Ryde was founded in 1882. The nuns live a traditional monastic life of prayer and work, and study in accordance with the ancient Rule of St. Benedict.
The famous luthier Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume produces a line of violin and viola under the name St. Cécile with a decal stamped on the upper back.

Iconography

Cecilia is frequently depicted playing a viola, a small organ, or other musical instrument, evidently to express what was often attributed to her, namely that while the musicians played at her nuptials, she sang in her heart to God, though the organ may be attributed to her erroneously, as the result of a mistranslation.
A miniature Saint Cecilia beneath Worcester Cathedral was featured on the reverse side of the Sir Edward Elgar £20 banknote, which was withdrawn by the Bank of England in 2010.

In music

Renaissance, baroque and classical music

Domenichino's Fresco Cycle in San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome
The apse mosaic in the Church of St. Cecilia in Trastevere