Fr Paul reads from the Gospel of Luke (21: 5-11) in which Jesus foretells of the destruction of the Temple. Afterwards, Fr Paul shares a little bit about the life of St Cecilia, whose memorial we celebrate today.
As with a lot of the early martyrs, Fr Paul says, nothing much is known about Cecilia except her existence and her name. We also have the additional complication that so many stories have grown up around her that any remaining historical facts are obscured. No-one knows quite why she suddenly became popular in the middle of the sixth century, some 200 years after her death, and her association with music is also a mystery. But devotion to St Cecilia, in whose honour a basilica was constructed in Rome in the fifth century, has spread far and wide because of the Passion of Saint Cecilia, which holds her up as a perfect example of a Christian woman, who embraced virginity and suffered martyrdom for her love of Christ. Fr Paul invites us on St Cecilia’s special day to pray, ‘St Cecilia, Pray for us!’
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