Saint Cecilia

Cecilia was a Christian virgin in third-century Rome who vowed her life to God. At her wedding — an arrangement she could not refuse — musicians played while she sang inwardly to the Lord, a detail preserved in her legend. She was martyred for her faith and became one of the few virgin martyrs named in the Canon of the Mass. Pope Urban I founded the church of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere in the third century, believed to stand where her house once did. Her feast day on November 22 became the date for concerts and musical festivals across traditions, her silent prayer at that wedding now the fou…