A young daughter of Roman nobility, she had worshiped Christ in secret all her life. One day she found herself married to a very eligible Pagan chap and was not entirely happy about it.

Desperately wanting to avoid bedroom antics with a Pagan, she managed to convert her bridegroom Valerian to Christianity in the nick of time. She also converted his brother Tiburtius who was there in his capacity as Official Voyeur.

This achieved, she was able to remain a virgin for the rest of her life. This did not help them much, as when the truth got out they were both summarily executed.

Cecilia herself was sentenced to be stifled to death in her bathroom. But the heating system failed and she had to be beheaded instead.

Cecilia is now celebrated as the Patron Saint of Music. The story goes that she once heard the music of Heaven in her heart. That’s it really. Not terribly convincing. Perhaps she sang in the bath. Anyway, she is now the Patron Saint of music lover, singers, musicians, organ-makers, and presumably now iTunes, punk, CDs, hip-hop, DJs, mp3 files, Spotify, SoundCloud and whatever else music is currently up to.

There is allegedly a moving statue of her in the catacombs in Rome. We don’t know the location or how and why the statue moves. Perhaps it’s just a moving statue in the emotional sense.

Share this page Cite this article

Article last revised on April 07, 2019 by the Godchecker data dwarves.
Editors: Peter J. Allen, Chas Saunders

References: Coming soon.

Permissions page

---