St. Cecilia

Well today I'm performing for a band concert at my school, and so I got the idea to write about the Patron Saint of music.

St. Cecilia-Patroness of Music

St. Cecilia lived between the 2nd and 3rd centuries in Rome. She was a very holy woman, who prayed to saints and angels alike to preserve her virginity. She was to be married by a young man named Valerian. She told her husband a secret which stated that there was an angel who kept her from harm. When asked if he could see it, she replied to become baptized.

After he was baptized by Pope S. Urban, he found his wife praying in a chamber guarded by an angel with flaming wings holding two crowns of roses and lilies.The angel placed the two crowns upon them and then vanished. Tibertius, Valerian's brother, saw these flowers during that season of the year, he too became baptized.

During this time Cecilia began converting 400 people whom Pope S. Urban baptized. Later, she was arrested and sent to be suffocated in a burning bath. Even though the fires burned their hottest, she would not perspire. After that a man was tasked with beheading her. After the man failed thrice, he left her to bleed to death. While she was bleeding, she converted many people whom also soaked up the blood with sponges or cloths. After that she died and was buried by Pope Urban.

Her feast day is November 22. The reason she is the patroness of music is that when she was compelled to marry her at the time pagan spouse Valerian, she heard heavenly music within her heart. This later grew and much music, art, and several festivals were made in honor of St. Cecilia.

The Church is Apostolic

As you probably know by now, there are four marks of the church: One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic. I am going to talk about the church as Apostolic.

Pope Francis I riding bus in Buenos Aires, Argentina

The church is Apostolic in that it was founded by the apostles, led by the apostles, and taught by the apostles. Some might say that the apostles are not present today and therefore it is no longer apostolic, yet this is false. There's something called the apostolic succession. Every apostle before they died selected a successor. The apostle might have selected more than one successor. The pope is the successor of Peter the apostle. The Pope has the keys the kingdom and his infallible just asked St. Peter.  Today the successors of every apostle called bishops. Every bishop can follow his linage to one of the apostles.

There can only be a certain number of bishops under the age of 80 at any given time. Therefore they might be over 100 million bishops but there are only 200 under the age of eighty although that is highly unlikely. Bishops currently have the mission that Christ entrusted to the apostles which is to teach, baptize, sanctify, and make disciples of all nations. If a bishop is good with his duties, he might be selected to be a cardinal. A cardinal is a specific type of bishop that is in charge of selecting a new pope. In these reasons, the Church is apostolic.

The Third Mark: Catholic

There are many things that come to mind when you hear the word Catholic. Automatically the Christian denomination appears as the forefront of people's minds, but Catholic doesn't just mean a religion. It comes from the Greek katholikos which means "universal." This perfectly describes the Church (and not just because it is called the Catholic Church).

There are two different reasons the Church is called Catholic. The first is that the Church is whole and complete, because Christ's unity with the Church has given it complete holiness. The second is because the Church has the universal authority to lead the universal mission by Christ for he said to his disciples to make disciples of all nations. Throughout the world, the same doctrine and teachings are all shared.

When the Apostles first began to separate into different corners of the world, they each began local churches which would be known today as dioceses. This does not mean that the universal Church is just a collection of all these different dioceses. Christ is present fully in each Church meaning that he transcends being international and fills time and space together. The universality of the Church extends to all which includes the  members united on earth, going through Purgatory, and in Heaven; all are joined together in Christ.

Even though the Church is universal, there are slight differences in the expressions of faith. This is not to say that the doctrines are different, but that some communities put certain emphasis on different aspects of the mass and prayers based on culture. These differences in celebration are known as the Catholic rites. Each rite has specific languages used for that region. These different rites can be traced as far back as the Apostles who originally built up these communities. Each Apostle has a different way of explaining Christ's message by just looking at the differences in Matthew's and John's Gospels. In total there are twenty-one rites including the most common in the West known as the Roman rite. The official language of the Roman rite is Latin which is why until Vatican II, the Mass was celebrated in Latin. The other rites already used different languages for example the Armenian rite uses classical Armenian which was used during the days of the early Church Fathers. Although there are differences in cultural forms, the Church is unified by this diversity.

Example of the church building for the Chaldean rite

The Catholic Church  is "Catholic" because Christ unites all her members with himself and that the mission granted by Christ is universal. There is no segregation or any distinction between all members of the faithful. It is universal in that all the members (including those in Purgatory or Heaven) are all united together in the Mystical Body of Christ. The Catholic faith has different rites expressing the diversity between all members of the faith, but all profess one universal mission. Thus the Catholic Church can state with confidence that it is indeed Catholic and list it as one of her marks.

The right destination, the wrong road

The attack on the twin towers in 2001 has been the greatest attack on US soil in the history of the US. The attack was directed by a group of "terrorists," yet the reason they make these attacks is because of religious extremist.

The other day and night theology class, we were talking about this very thing. Is doing good through evil actions and essentially good? Well if a person has the right intention and yet he does it in the wrong way it is wrong. For example: if a person wants money, there's nothing wrong with money. There are two roads you can take: rob a bank or work for it. There is nothing wrong with wanting money but there is if you rob a bank for it.

These terrorists are similar, they believe that what they're doing right. Like before they can meet these acts of terror, they are promised that by doing this they will please Allah and they will go to heaven. This is only a select group of people, religious extremists. Not all Muslims are terrorists, in fact most of them are good. Islam was founded on the teachings of the profet Mohammed.

The KKK (Ku Klux Klan), are a similar group. They are religious extremist who believe that what they're doing is correct. They want to achieve ethnic cleansing. They believe that specific religions or groups of people are unhuman and must be extinct. Today there was a terrorism attack in Boston, two dead dozens wounded. You might say who would do such a thing yet if you are up for the option of going to Heaven for a small price like the life of others, would you do it? I'm not supporting terrorist attack I am just simply asking that you do not judge them, for they believe that what they're doing is correct. Essentially is not your job to judge them God's.

View of the Saints and Angels: Catholic vs. Protestant

*This is a joint post by both the writers of this blog.

In Christian circles, the term 'saint' may refer to one of two different things. The first meaning of saint is a person who is born again as a Christian. The second, the one associated to Catholics, are the canonized saints, which the Catholic Church states these as people who are in heaven. Each denomination take different stances on the saints.

Before we talk about the different stances, we need to talk about mediators. A mediator is an intermediary between two parties. In this case, the subject is about if saints are mediators before God. For example: the Virgin Mary; she was the connection between divine and human that conceived Jesus.

One of the prominent thoughts from Protestant thoughts is that there is only one mediator which is Jesus.
"For there is one God. There is also one mediator between God and the human race, Christ Jesus, himself human who gave himself as ransom for all" (1 Tim 2:5-6). It is because of this line they feel that saints cannot be the mediators that carry intercessory prayers to God, since from this quote, only Jesus can.

In the Catholic faith though, we understand that Jesus is a unique mediator; he is the mediator of the New Covenant. Saints that offer intercessory aid for us does in no matter infringe on Christ's unique role. We can be assured by this because of the greatest saint: the Blessed Virgin Mary. During the feast of Cana, even though Jesus states that the hour has not arrived for him, Mary tells the servers to listen to Jesus. When Jesus obeys his mother's words, it is assured that intercessory prayers are acceptable before God.

On the topic of Mary, the views between Catholics and Protestants vary depending on the denomination. There are many denominations of Protestants who believe in the same truth about Mary in that she is the Mother of God or theotokos. However, there are some Protestants who do not accept this fact like the early religon/heresy Nestorianism. Most if not all denominations believe that she is a holy woman who is truly special, but the title given to Mary varies between denominations.

The last intercessory source going to be talked about are the angels. Surprisingly, there is actually very little differences between Catholic and Protestant views on angels. It is just that Catholics put more emphasis on the topic. For example, Catholics believe in the role of "Guardian Angels" and that they are assigned at conception to guide us. Protestants believe in the "Guardian Angels" but they usually do not care when they were assigned. Unlike Catholics who recognize the role of angels, Protestants know about it, yet seem to just  take them for granted.

Since angels are accepted by both, we can now talk about their role as mediators. Angels are not the traditional mediators that saints are; they have a different roles including being mediators. For example, the Archangel Gabriel was a messenger to Mary during the Annunciation. The "Guardian Angels" that are assigned to us have to role to lead and protect us, yet they also pray to God personally for us. This can be seen by the intercessory prayer, "All holy angels...Pray for us." That and since the three Archangels are saints, we can ask them to intercede directly like other saints by saying, "St. Michael...Pray for us."

As can be seen, Protestants and Catholics have some differing and also quite similar views on these subject matters. We hope that these facts inform you on the various thoughts related to these religious matters.