Life of Saint Cecilia

Book excerpt: The Church offers, in every age, in her Saints, Apostles, and Martyrs, brilliant examples of virtue, zeal, and heroic courage. While all are holy, there are still some, whose lives present features, at once so touching and sublime, that time can detract nothing from the interest which attaches to their names in every Catholic heart. Pre-eminent among these, is St. Cecilia, the gentle queen of Sacred Song, distinguished alike for her attachment to holy Virginity, her apostolic zeal, and the unfaltering courage by which she won the martyr's crown. The author has followed with fidelity, the ancient Acts of St. Cecilia, the authenticity of which the reader will find satisfactorily defended in his pages. For less important details, he has claimed the right generally accorded to historians, of receiving probable evidence, where certain proofs cannot be ob- tained. On such authority, he has, for example, assumed with the learned Bosio and others, that the virtues of our Saint formed the crowning glory of the illustrious family of Cecilia Metella. The recital does not terminate with the death of Cecilia. The discoveries of her tomb, in the ninth and sixteenth centuries, form not the least interesting portion of the work. The description of the church which was once her dwelling, and the witness of her sufferings and triumphs, brings those scenes so vividly before us, that Cecilia seems to belong, as all the Saints of God most truly do, as much to our own day, as to the period when she still combated on earth. We will not speak of the pleasure and instruction the author has afforded by his faithful pictures of the celebrated Ways of Ancient Rome, and the sacred cities of the dead, concealed in the holy shades beneath. For this, and much other interesting information, we refer the reader to the following pages, content, if, by our own humble labors, we have contributed to the edification of our Catholic brethren, and to the glory of Him who is admirable in His Saints.