Patron Saint of Music

Why St. Cecilia?

Cecilia was a Roman noblewoman and martyr of the early Church, and her patronage of music has one of the more interesting origins in the calendar. The account of her life says that as the musicians played at her wedding, she sang in her heart to God alone. That line, in later readings, was taken to mean that she sang or played, and by the medieval period she was firmly established as the patron of music. Some scholars think the patronage rests on a misreading of a phrase about instruments in the original account. Nobody is certain. What is striking is that the mistake, if it was one, produced something true. The detail everyone remembers is that while the world around her was making noise, she was singing to God where no one could hear it. That is a better description of what sacred music is for than most deliberate ones, and it is why the patronage has never felt arbitrary despite its shaky foundation. Her feast on November 22 is marked by musical societies, choirs, and conservatories across the world, many of them entirely secular. She is one of the few saints whose patronage crossed fully out of the Church and kept going.

Who was St. Cecilia?

Cecilia was a Roman martyr, probably of the second or third century, and the earliest reliable trace of her is a church in Trastevere and a place in the Roman canon of the Mass, where her name is still said. The detailed account of her life comes from a fifth-century passion narrative, which is literature before it is history.

That account has her a Christian of noble family, married against her will to a pagan named Valerian, whom she converted along with his brother. All three were executed. The story includes a detail that produced everything since: that during the wedding music, she sang in her heart to God alone.

That single line is where the patronage of music comes from. It was not that she was a musician. It was that she was not listening to the music being played, which is almost the opposite, and the tradition turned it around over the centuries until she is shown seated at an organ.

The feast: November 22

November 22. It is kept in music schools, choirs and cathedral music departments across the world, often with a sung Mass and a concert, and in England the Festival of St Cecilia rotates between the major cathedrals. Composers from Purcell to Britten have written for the day.

How to ask their intercession

Musicians traditionally ask her intercession before performing, and choirs often keep her feast. There is nothing complicated required. If you make music at all, whether professionally or badly in a kitchen, the request is the same one: that it be offered rather than merely performed.