Spotlight on St. Cecilia

Above: St. Cecilia is flanked by instrument-playing angels in this three-paneled stained-glass window that overlooks the choir loft at the former St. Cecilia Church in Bywater. The retrofitted church building now serves as the Shirley Landry Benson PACE (Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly) Center. (Photo by Beth Donze, Clarion Herald)

St. Cecilia
Feast Day: Nov. 22

Next time you find yourself in the choir loft of an older church, check out the stained-glass windows nearby: You might just see a depiction of St. Cecilia, the patron saint of musicians and one of the most famous martyrs of the early church.

St. Cecilia told her fiance, Valerian, that one of God’s angels wished her to remain a virgin. While musicians played at their wedding, St. Cecilia sang this prayer to God in her heart. Valerian told Cecilia that he would honor her wishes if he saw her with God’s angel. Valerian saw the angel. converted to Christianity and ultimately became a martyr himself.

A Roman official who resented St. Cecilia’s acts of Christian charity ordered her execution, but when officials attempted to suffocate her by setting fire to her house,  the flames did not harm her – so she was beheaded.

St. Cecilia is usually shown wearing the crown of a martyr and playing a viola or a hand-held pipe organ (called a portative organ).