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Saint Cecilia looking up to heaven with a violin and bow, painted by Guido Reni in 1606

Saint Cecilia

Roman martyr remembered as singing in her heart to the Lord while the organs played

Patron of
musicians, singers, church music
Western calendar
22 November
Orthodox calendar
22 November (5 December on the old calendar)

Cecilia was a Roman martyr buried in the Catacomb of Callistus beside the crypt of the popes, and Rome kept her feast by the fourth century, though no one knows when she died. A story written a century later, more legend than history, tells how she won her husband Valerian and his brother Tiburtius to Christ, and lived three days after the executioner's three blows, giving all she had to the poor. Since the late Middle Ages she has been linked with music, perhaps through the antiphon of her feast, "while the organs played, she sang in her heart only to the Lord", and musicians and singers call on her as their patron.

Sources

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It is the day each year when the Church remembers a saint in its prayers, and for most saints it is the day they died and went home to God. Many saints here have two dates, because the Western and Orthodox Churches keep their own calendars, and some Orthodox churches still count by the old Julian calendar, which runs thirteen days behind ours.

What is a patron saint?

A patron saint is one we ask to pray for us in a particular place, work or need, as many ask Anthony of Padua for help when something is lost, and as Ireland looks to Patrick. A few patronages were declared by a pope, and most grew from long custom. A card says “Patron of” only where a source we checked names one.

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