Wednesday II Week of Lent at St Cecilia

Venerated as the patron saint of musicians, St. Cecilia is one of those many Romans who held steadfast to the faith in the persecutions against the Roman Church during its early years.  She was a Roman maiden engaged to be married to a pagan named Valerian.  After their marriage, she brought him to Pope Urban I.  After meeting the pontiff, he had a vision which encouraged his subsequent conversion.  He then prayed that his brother Tibertius would turn to the faith as well, which prayer was quickly answered.  Cecilia played an important role in both conversions by the witness of her holy life and through the catechetical instruction she offered.  The two brothers took up the task of burying the remains of the martyrs, in the course of which they attracted the suspicion of the Roman authorities.  When confronted and ordered to sacrifice to a statue of Jupiter, they refused, and were beheaded for the faith.  Cecilia was arrested next and condemned to suffocation in the bath of her house.  This not harming her, she was condemned to be beheaded.  After the executioner struck her three times, she was wounded but not killed.  As Roman law forbade any more strikes of the ax, she was left to die of her wounds.  For three days she persisted, continuing to encourage her fellow Christians in the faith and others to conversion.  She finally was rewarded with the crown of martyrdom, after giving all her goods to the Church and asking Urban to turn her home into a place of worship.

 (From Prcedamous in Pacem, PNAC)

Collect

Keep your family, O Lord, 

schooled always in good works, 

and so comfort them with your protection

here as to lead them graciously to gifts on high. 

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, 

who lives and reigns with you in the unity of 

the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.