St. Cecilia

For as little as we know about Saint Cecilia, as patroness of musicians and poets. she is a very popular saint. We assume that she was a musician herself, but there is no verification of that. Her association with music comes from a legend that as the muscians played at her wedding, "she sang in her heart to the Lord." She evidently was martyred in Sicily between the years 176-180, when Marcus Aurelius was emperor.
In commemorating St. Cecilia, we recognize the place music, especially Church music, has (or should have) in our lives. In some Catholic churches, everyone sings and the effect is the positive lifting up of soul and body in prayer. Many Catholic congregations, however, allow the choir to entertain them while they sit back and listen, in the hopes that the choir will not sing all the verses. Usually a hymn is cut short and the real impact of the poetry is lost. Advent and Christmas will bring out old familiar favorites. Perhaps we might be inspired by the gumption of St. Cecilia, whose martyrdom was, as the stories go, very gruesome and long-drawn-out, to make an effort to share our voices with the choir and thus "pray twice", as St. Augustine put it.

On another note, a reminder that today is the 47th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, a date forever etched in the hearts of those of us who were alive at the time. May he rest in peace.
Bro. Rene