Saint Cecilia, Virgin and Martyr

COLLECT O God, who gladden us each year with the feast day of your handmaid Saint Cecilia, grant, we pray, that what has been devoutly handed down concerning her may offer us examples to imitate and proclaim the wonders worked in his servants by Christ your Son. Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.

FIRST READING Hosea 2:16b,17b,21-22 Thus says the LORD: I will lead her into the desert and speak to her heart. She shall respond there as in the days of her youth, when she came up from the land of Egypt. I will espouse you to me forever; I will espouse you in right and in justice, in love and in mercy; I will espouse you in fidelity, and you shall know the LORD.

RESPONSORIAL PSALM 45:11-12, 14-15, 16-17 R. Listen to me daughter; see and bend your ear. Listen, my daughter, and understand; pay me careful heed. Forget your people and your father's house, that the king might desire your beauty. He is your lord. R. Listen to me daughter; see and bend your ear. All glorious is the king's daughter as she enters, her raiment threaded with gold; In embroidered apparel she is led to the king. The maids of her train are presented to the king. R. Listen to me daughter; see and bend your ear. They are led in with glad and joyous acclaim; they enter the palace of the king. The throne of your fathers your sons will have; you shall make them princes through all the land. R. Listen to me daughter; see and bend your ear.

ALLELUIA This is the wise bridesmaid, whom the Lord found waiting; at his coming, she went in with him to the wedding feast.

GOSPEL Matthew 25:1-13 Jesus told his disciples this parable: "The Kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. The foolish ones, when taking their lamps, brought no oil with them, but the wise brought flasks of oil with their lamps. Since the bridegroom was long delayed, they all became drowsy and fell asleep. At midnight, there was a cry, 'Behold, the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!' Then all those virgins got up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish ones said to the wise, 'Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.' But the wise ones replied, 'No, for there may not be enough for us and you. Go instead to the merchants and buy some for yourselves.' While they went off to buy it, the bridegroom came and those who were ready went into the wedding feast with him. Then the door was locked. Afterwards the other virgins came and said, 'Lord, Lord, open the door for us!' But he said in reply, 'Amen, I say to you, I do not know you.' Therefore, stay awake, for you know neither the day nor the hour."

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen.

Cecilia was one of the most revered martyrs of the Roman Church. In the “Sacramentarium Leoniam”, a collection of masses completed about the end of the fifth century, are found no less than five different masses in honour of St. Cecilia. The only thing we know for certain about her, however, is that at some point in the second or third century, a woman called Cecilia allowed the Church to meet in her house in Trastevere in the city of Rome and that subsequently the church erected on that site bore her name. She was remembered as a brave woman who risked giving hospitality to the Christian Church when to do so was to court censure and possibly death. According to a tradition that can be dated no earlier than the fifth century, she converted her pagan husband, Valerian, who she was compelled to marry, despite a vow of celibacy, and his brother, Tibertius, to the faith, both of whom were martyred before she also was then martyred. When her relics were discovered in the ninth century, they were moved to the church which bears her name in Trastevere in Rome. Here her body is said to have been found entire and uncorrupted when the church was being repaired in 1599. A beautiful statue was made of her sleeping body in the following year. Do google it and have a look. Mosaics of her survive from the sixth century. How amazing is that? She is frequently represented as playing on the organ, and is the patroness of church music, inspiring sonnets by both Dryden and Pope. Dryden writes: “At length divine Cecilia came, inventress of the vocal frame.” Did you know she also inspired the song “Cecilia” by Simon and Garfunkel in which she represents the mecurial inspiration of the song writer, and she is in another Paul Simon song, “The Cost, ” which begins, “A family of musicians took shelter for the night In the little harbor church of St. Cecilia.” According to tradition, an angel fell in love with her for her musical skill, and used nightly to visit her. Her husband saw the heavenly visitant, who gave to both a crown of martyrdom which he brought from Paradise.

One of the aspects of the worship here at St Nic’s that we all enjoy is the music. The way in which the heavenly music works with time, both to show just how beautiful our use of time can be and to show a glimpse of how time will be fulfilled and transcended. Painters work with space — the painting of the croquet players on the lawn, behind them the dark foliage of the hedge, above them the sky — whereas musicians work with time, as one note follows another note the way tock follows tick.

Music shows us how beautiful our use of time can be by enabling us to listen to certain qualities of time — to the grandeur of time, says Bach, to the poignance of time, says Mozart, to the swing and shimmer of time, says Debussy. We learn from music how to listen to the music of our own time — one moment of our lives following another, the way the sound of foot-steps on the gravel follows the rustle of leaves in the wind, which follows the barking of a dog almost too far away to hear.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whilst in prison and awaiting his end at the hand of the Nazi regime, uses music to reflect on the catastrophic state of the world. In recent weeks, he writes, this a line from a hymn has been running through my head over and over: “Calm your hearts, dear friends; / whatever plagues you, / whatever fails you, / I will restore it all.” What does that mean, “I will restore it all?” asks Bonhoeffer. It means, he writes, that nothing is lost; in Christ all things are taken up, preserved, albeit in transfigured form, transparent, clear, liberated from the torment of self-serving demands. Christ brings all this back, indeed, as God intended, without being distorted by sin.

Heavenly music helps us catch a glimpse of the restoration of all things; how all of time will be taken up, transfigured, liberated, and free from distortion. Today we ask Saint Cecilia for her prayers to help us see, through heavenly music, how beautiful our time can be and how we might use our time well.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen.