In the Beauty of Christ

 

Tuesday, November 22nd 

6:45 PM, Benediction,

7:00 pm, Mass and Homily

Saint Cecilia, Virgin and Martyr

Rv 14:14-19

Lk 21:5-11

 

Praised be Jesus Christ in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar!

        Our 40 Hours has drawn to a close on the Feast of Saint Cecilia, Virgin and Martyr, patroness of organists, organ and church music. She gets that title for having joyfully sung the praises of God in her daily life.

        Cecilia is another example of the power for good of the Christian home. Thanks to her parents, to a good Catholic home life and upbringing, Cecilia lived her faith to perfection and received her hoped for reward of being able to she her blood for Christ, the love, the only love of her life.

        Mary, the Mother of God, represents to pinnacle of holiness for us. We know and profess that because of her sinlessness from the moment of conception, that the body of the Blessed Virgin Mary did not suffer corruption, but that at the moment of death she was assumed body and soul into heaven. That’s why the Oriental Church speaks rather of her Dormition, her sleeping, and avoids the term death altogether with its connotations of sin and physical corruption.

        We know the example over the centuries of other saints who because of their sanctity did not know corruption in the grave. There is the example also of St. Catherine of Siena, whose body in life was marred by the effects of illness and disease, but who upon death was restored to an extraordinary beauty. The open wound on the forehead of St. Rita of Cascia healed just as soon as she died.

        St. Cecilia was one of the first of those kind of saints. She was a lovely woman, whose heart belonged solely to God. All the attempts by pagans to kill her outright failed and she managed to convert many of the soldiers who guarded her in her captivity. They could not even chop off her head. She lived on for three days with her head partially severed and then freely gave up her spirit to the Lord of her life.

        Centuries later, they opened her tomb and found her body as fresh and supple as on the day of her burial. There is a beautiful baroque sculpture in white marble by Stefano Maderno from the year 1600 which depicts her body just as it was found.

        The point of this is that sanctity, holiness, as witnessed by the saints and in our case today by St. Cecilia on her feast day, holiness is beautiful and attractive. It is not that we seek physical beauty, but rather that we seek the fullness of life in God which beauty suggests.

Whether believing people are necessarily more attractive and healthier is not our motivation for striving for holiness, but rather it is the indication of what life is supposed to be about.

Let us seek the Face of the Lord always and set our hearts on His Kingdom of light, happiness, and peace.

Saint Cecilia, pray for us!

Lord, lead us into the joys of Your Kingdom!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI