Saint Cecelia, Virgin & Martyr

| | Comments (3)
On this feast of an early woman martyr, Saint Cecelia, it is good to reflect on music and its impact on the heart. As she lay dying for three days, Cecelia sang of the Lord's glory and extolled the singular devotion of one dedicated to the Lord as a virgin. Saint Cecelia is the patron saint of musicians. Benedict XVI writes about beauty and contemplative nature of music:

St Cecilia.jpgThe encounter with the beautiful can become the wound of the arrow that strikes the heart and in this way opens our eyes, so that later, from this experience, we take the criteria for judgment and can correctly evaluate the arguments. For me an unforgettable experience was the Bach concert that Leonard Bernstein conducted in Munich after the sudden death of Karl Richter. I was sitting next to the Lutheran Bishop Hanselmann. When the last note of one of the great Thomas-Kantor-Cantatas triumphantly faded away, we looked at each other spontaneously and right then we said: "Anyone who has heard this, knows that the faith is true." The music had such an extraordinary force of reality that we realized, no longer by deduction, but by the impact on our hearts, that it could not have originated from nothingness, but could only have come to be through the power of the Truth that became real in the composer's inspiration. (Message to Communion and Liberation, August 2002, Rimini, Italy; text available May 2, 2005, Zenit.org)

3 Comments

Please tell me the name of the instrument St. Cecilia is playing in the picture above.

thanks

delphiad@verizon.net

The iconography for Saint Cecilia varies. She can be pictured with viola da gamba, harp or an organ. From the image it looks like Cecilia is playing an organ, miniature, of course.

Dear Paul,
Thx for bringing us the words of deep meaning of our Pope Benedict.
Who is the painter of st.Cecily ?
Kind regards from st.Ciril&Metod church choir, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Pija Jober

Leave a comment

About the author

Paul A. Zalonski is from New Haven, CT. He is a member of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, a Catholic ecclesial movement and an Oblate of Saint Benedict. Contact Paul at paulzalonski[at]yahoo.com.

Categories

Archives

Humanities Blog Directory

About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by Paul Zalonski published on November 22, 2010 6:25 AM.

Blessed Mary of Jesus the Good Shepherd (Frances Siedliska) was the previous entry in this blog.

Urbano Cardinal Navarrete Cortés, SJ, RIP is the next entry in this blog.

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.