My mom's name is Cecilia and I recently learned that St. Cecilia is the patron saint of music. Anyone with any more details? I'd be really interested to know.

And considering how many saints there are, do you know of other Saint Cecilia's who are patrons of other things (or nothing at all)?

-- Anonymous, June 16, 1998

Answers

Story of Saint Cecilia, with only a little plagerizing...

Esther, I only know a little about St. Cecilia. She lived from we don't know when until 177AD, and historically, she is the first saint whose body experienced the phenomenon of incorruption. Cecilia was from a rich Roman family who, while she was very young, married her off to one Valerian, a pagan, even though she had already decided to remain a virgin. Apparently, she succeeded in convincing Valerian that he should go along with this, and she eventually converted him, and his brother Tiburtius to Christ. Both of these men were eventually beheaded along the Appian Way for not renouncing the faith, I don't know why they are not martyr saints, but anyway...Cecilia was arrested for buring their bodies and told to either renounce the faith or die. Guess what she did? Actually, her death was one of the more gruesome in the annals (sp?) of martyrdom. She was confined to a vapor bath to die of suffocation, but that didn't seem to affect her at all, so they called in the executioner, an experienced fellow who all the same couldn't bring himself to chop off the head of this young, beautiful noblewoman...due to his loss of courage, he failed to sever her head with the three blows prescribed by law (THREE? YIKES!) - he fled, leaving her there, alive and conscious, with her head half off. She was lying on her right side, her hands crossed in prayer. She turned her face to the floor and remained, they say praying, but I bet rather comatose, for three nights. The early Christians dressed her in robes of silk and gold and put her in a cypress coffin, in the very same position in which she'd died, She was interred in the Catacomb of St. Callistus by the future pope Urban. In 822 AD the sittingt pope wanted to transfer her remains to a place of honor in her cathedral, so Cecilia appeared to him in a vision and told him where her body was. Apparently he moved the coffin there without opening it. In 1599, in one of the most documented exhumations of a saint's body, her remains were found in the same position in which she'd died, her body intact, the wound in her neck quite visible. It was noted that Cecilia was of small stature and that her head was turned downward, but due to "holy reverence", they didn't examine further. Her body also had a flower like odor. A sculpture was executed which represents Cecilia in the exact pose of her body. The Basilica of St. Cecilia is believed to be built on the site of her family mansion,and the statue, which is pretty impressive, lying prone, wounded and face down, may be veiwed there. All of this information (some word for word) can be found in a book called "THE INCORRUPTIBLES" by Joan Carroll Cruz, published by Tan. Pretty neat to see the bodies of these long dead saints...makes you wonder if some of them will just open their eyes at the second coming...ah, but I am naive! :-)

-- Anonymous, June 16, 1998