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.