I was engaged to Valerian, a young pagan; on my wedding night I told my husband that an angel of God was protecting my virginity and urged him to convert; then he would be able to see the angel.
I urged him to go out on the Appian Way, to the third milestone, where the poor would point out the holy Pope Urbin to him. The Pope instructed Valerian and baptized him; he then returned to me, and the angel crowned us both. Valerian asked the angel for the favor of the conversion of his brother, Tiburtius; when this took place the two brothers devoted themselves to burying the victims of persecution. For this they were denounced and were executed by beheading. I placed their bodies in a sarcophagus and was in my turn condemned; I avoided the flames, however, and was to be beheaded, but, despite being struck three times, I survived for three days, during which I distributed my possessions to the poor and urged the Pope to turn my home into a Church. The Pope saw to my burial.
I have been regarded as the patron saint of singers and musicians, because in my account of my sufferings, that while I was preparing to celebrate my marriage, as the musical instruments were being played, I sang in my heart to God alone. In the first antiphon for Matins on my feast day we read. “While the musical instruments were playing, the Virgin Cecilia sang in her heart to her only Lord, may my heart, O Lord, and my body be immaculate, that I may not be put to shame.”
I am..... St. Cecilia
