This morning I attended a mass for the feast of St Cecilia, patroness of musicians, organised by the local liturgical music committee. I was surprised, I think given that the reason we were all there was because we were musicians, to find that the texts in the lectionary were not about music at all. Instead, there was one reading from the book of Isaiah, about how the LORD would bring Israel back to himself, and one from the Gospel of Matthew, the parable of the foolish virgins. I realised, then, that while all this patron saint business is lovely and good–and I’d be the last to dismiss it–St Cecilia is a saint and a model in the Christian life not because she was a musician (because… she probably wasn’t) but because she lived a life of heroic virtue and faith. Today, then, we who look to her for intercession particularly as our patroness, must remember that we are first Christians, and thus strive to live lives worthy of our universal vocation to holiness, before we think of ourselves as musicians.
Saints
Crisis Magazine: ‘A Model of Spiritual Courage for Our Time’
Quanto plus afflictionis pro Christo in hoc saeculo, tanto plus gloriae cum Christo in futuro. (The more affliction we endure for Christ in this world, the more glory we shall obtain with Christ in the next.)
inscribed by Saint Philip Howard on the wall of his cell in the Tower of London
Regis Martin’s latest for Crisis Magazine is about Saint Philip Howard, English martyr for the faith.
the lexical form 