NOT UNTIL THERE WERE NO MORE NOTES TO SING

Memorial of St. Cecilia, Virgin and Martyr
Mt 25:1-13

Today is the memorial of the popular patron of music – St. Cecilia. She was a virgin and martyr.

Cecilia was Roman by birth and lived around the 3rd century. When ordered to sacrifice to the idols, she refused. Thus, she was beheaded under the reign of Marcus Aurelius.

Beheading came only after several attempts to kill her by her executioners. According to the account of her martyrdom, she was first locked up inside the Roman bath that was heated by live coals. Once padlocked inside the bath, her executioners raised the temperature of the sauna by placing more than twice the amount of coals underneath. However, instead of dying, her executioners heard her singing praises to God with an angelic choir. They therefore released her from the bath-turned-oven and proceeded to decapitate her.

According to the accounts of eye witnesses, Cecilia was beheaded with a sword that was not sharp enough to severe her head from her body with one blow. Cecilia, therefore, with her head dangling from her neck, was left in the street, and died after a few days only. Her suffering was slow and unimaginable, but she continued singing songs to God as she laid there on the road waiting for death to come. Her voice could be heard all day and in the night, it was even clearer. No one dared to come to her aid for fear of execution.

When she finally died, her fingers were found to be arranged thus: the index of her left hand pointing outward signifying that there is only one God while the ring, middle, and index fingers of her right stretched out representing the three persons in one God. Thus, she is popularly claimed to be the patron of musicians because she literally sang her way through death for the greater glory of the one and true God.

In the light of the Gospel today, Cecilia certainly falls under the category of the wise virgins. She was ready when the time came and went with the bridegroom inside the wedding banquet. Her witness to the Faith was a shining lamp that kept not only burning but truly kept burning brightly until finally the exact time when her Bridegroom, Jesus, took her by the hand and led her to the eternal wedding feast in heaven. The songs she sang in praise of God while she heroically waited for death as a Christian witness kept the people around her awake in the Faith.

If Cecilia were a professional singer, she indeed gave the greatest performance of her life. Her stage was the world. Her song was her faithfulness to God. Her voice was her life. And she sang her song not until there were no more notes to sing but until there was life to give.