Cecilia

The Story

Cecilia is known as the patron saint of music. She is one of the most famous martyrs of the early church.

According to a late 5th-century legend, she was a noble Roman who, as a child, had vowed her virginity to God.

She was married against her will to a pagan man named Valerian.

Cecilia told him that an angel of God wished her to remain a virgin. Valerian 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.

Cecilia converted 400 people through her preaching, and distributed her possessions to the poor. This infuriated the prefect Almachius. Cecilia was arrested, and condemned to be burned and suffocated in the baths.

She was shut in for a night and a day, and the fires were heaped up, and made to glow and roar their utmost, but Cecilia did not even break out into perspiration through the heat.

When Almachius heard this he sent an executioner to cut off her head in the bath.

The man struck three times without being able to sever the head from the trunk. He left her bleeding, and she lived three days.

Crowds came to her, and collected her blood with napkins and sponges, whilst she preached to them or prayed. At the end of that period she died, and was buried by Pope Urban and his deacons.