Saint Cecilia - patron saint of musicians and Church music

Saint Cecilia (Latin: Sancta Caecilia) is the patron saint of musicians and Church music because as she was dying she sang to God. It is also written that as the musicians played at her wedding she "sang in her heart to the Lord". St. Cecilia was an only child. Her feast day is celebrated in the Roman Catholic, the Anglican Church, Eastern Orthodox, and Eastern Catholic Churches on November 22. She is one of seven women, excluding the Blessed Virgin, commemorated by name in the Canon of the Mass. It was long supposed that she was a noble lady of Rome who, with her husband Valerian, his brother Tiburtius, and a Roman soldier Maximus, suffered martyrdom, c. 230, under the Emperor Alexander Severus. Cecilia Also known as Cecily; Cicilia Memorial 22 November (c.117 Rome)
	A cultivated young patrician woman whose ancestors loomed large in Rome's history. Married to Valerian of Trastevere. Patron saint of musicians. Her feast day, celebrated both in the Catholic and Orthodox Church, is November 22. She is one of seven women, excluding the Blessed Virgin, commemorated by name in the Canon of the Mass. It was long supposed that she was a noble lady of Rome who, with her husband Valerian(us), his brother Tiburtius, and other friends whom she had converted, suffered martyrdom, C. 230, under the emperor Alexander Severus.
The researches of Giovanni Battista de Rossi, however, go to confirm the statement of Venantius Fortunatus, bishop of Poitiers (d. 600), that she perished in Sicily under Marcus Aurelius between 176 and 180. A church in her honor exists in Rome from about the 5th century, and was rebuilt with much splendour by Pope Paschal I around the year 820, and again by Cardinal Sfondrati in 1599. It is situated in Trastevere, near the Ripa Grande quay, where in earlier days the Ghetto was located, and is the titulus of a Cardinal Priest, currently Carlo Maria Martini. The martyrdom of Cecilia is said to have followed that of her husband and brother by the prefect Turcius Almachius. The officers of the prefect then sought to have Cecilia killed as well. She arranged to have her home preserved as church before she was arrested. At that time, the officials attempted to kill her by locking her in an overheated bathhouse. However, the attempt failed, and she was to be beheaded. The executioner attempted to decapitate her three times unsuccessfully, at which time he fled. Cecilia survived another three days before succumbing. The source of the connection between Cecilia martyred in Sicily around 176 AD and the art of which she has become the patron saint is obscure almost to the point of extinction, and does not seem to date back much before the 15th century. Innumerable paintings and stained glass windows depict her gravely installed at the organ (inevitably one several centuries more advanced than any she could possibly have known), and yet no specific events during her life have ever come light that satisfactorily explain the association. But wheresoever it arose, it soon became impregnably lodged in folklore, and by the second half of the 16th century substantial festivals and celebrations in her honor (and that of music in general) begin to be recorded, the earliest of them in Normandy. It was just over 100 years before the fashion crossed the channel [to England] with the festivities of 1683 which attracted three celebratory Odes, all set to music by Purcell. Patronage Academy of Music, Rome; Albi France; composers; martyrs; music; musicians; musical instrument makers; poets; singers Representation Musical instruments, especially a lute or organ; roses Read More.. PRAISE GOD BLESSED BE THE ONE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD