The Communities of New Skete

Reflections on the Feasts of the Entry into the Temple and St. Cecilia

Sir.24:9-12; Heb. 12:11-18; Lk. 2:41-52

This weekend we celebrate the feastdays of the Theotokos Entering the Temple and of St. Cecilia. We switched the Feast of the Theotokos on the calendar for yesterday, with the feast of St. Cecilia on the calendar for today. St. Cecilia is the classical and even archetypal patron saint of musicians, especially lute players, organists, and singers, and also of poets. Dozens of churches are named after her around the world, as well as one of the largest and most successful independent chorales in New York City, which happens not to be associated with any church.

St. Cecilia was born into a wealthy Christian family in the persecuted church of the city of Rome in the third century. She was married and lived in her family’s villa across the Tiber from the center of old Rome, in the district of Trastevere. She was visibly active, burying the bodies of martyrs and supporting the community there who made use of the church and secret catacombs on her property. The warmth and intensity of her love of Christ was instrumental in converting her husband at the very beginning of their marriage, and she continued her work even when he and his brother and a close soldier friend were arrested for being Christian. Eventually the local government prefect placed her under house arrest, and then in the face of her outspokenness and continual—and maybe defiant—singing of Christian hymns a soldier was ordered to execute her. He botched his attempts at suffocation and beheading and finally fled the scene in a panic. She was left bleeding to death, and as she lingered on, the story is that even then she heroically continued with her well-known singing along with those who came to her assistance. She was buried with the other martyrs in the catacombs along the famous Appian Way leading out of Rome.

Ten years ago some of us visited the church that has been rebuilt several times over her home, and you can go down into the catacombs beneath it and even view the steam bath where she died. She is portrayed prostrate as she lay dying by a famous and stunning statue in white marble located beneath the altar in the basilica.

St. Cecilia has been painted so often as a sweet young maiden and musician, but her strength in attracting people to Christ along with the threat she posed in the face of persecution suggest that she was also someone much more formidable than this and a person to be reckoned with in the early church.
Her status as the patron and inspiration of music are evidence of her education in one of the fundamental bodies of learning in the ancient world. She portrays the energy, spontaneity, and healing powers of music. But more than this, she became a powerful and radiant icon of transformation through her devotion and her experience of the love of Christ. We can see her as they have generations for fifteen centuries as the embodiment of an ancient archetype, or a built-in pattern we each have, that of someone who initiates and guides us deeper into the mysteries of the spirit, along with the active work of love of neighbor.

It so happens a woman also named Cecilia was my godmother when I was baptized as a child. Our connection was not close after that, but as I grew up I slowly became aware of St. Cecelia’s iconic energy growing in my subconscious. Especially since I loved music, art, and poetry, she eventually emerged within me as a sort of wise mentor. In a way I began to see her as a strong invitation to go further in trying to develop an adult sense of responsibility and spiritual work.

Along that same topic we see in today’s Gospel story how Jesus had to walk the path of growing up just like anyone else, and already as a twelve-year-old how he sought out the wisdom and experience of the great Temple teachers. It seems he was probably not all afraid to speak his mind and to ask some good questions. This initiative and energy obviously pushed him through adolescence and into manhood, and we can see it dramatic demonstrated during the rest of his life. He became aware now that his life and inspiration lay with his Father in heaven. At any rate he returned home for now with his parents, and as he got older it says he continued to grow not only in the learning of the Torah but in a deeper wisdom and grace.

Today is also the 46th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, our thirty-fifth president. A lot has been written about the background and formation of his character and charismatic personality. Aside from what we may think politically, he did take up the job of his vocation and destiny in remarkable ways and was inspired by an extraordinary brilliance in spite of his human failings and some huge suffering. Recently it’s been said he became a model especially for men in this country at the time, another sort of archetype that was soon eclipsed when we really needed it, and which is still needed for both men and women in our culture of narcissism, as it is sometimes described. It’s kind of telling that some more recent book titles are, “Men Growing Up To Be Boys”, and “Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Male”.

I suspect Cecilia, too, and the other martyrs and saints, must have had their own human failings and, in her case, were thorns in the side of the Emperors. But in the case of the Theotokos, she embarked on, or and entered into, her spiritual journey at a very young age, which may say something to us about the spiritual life of children. She did not die before her time but matured through all the joys and sorrows that we commemorate in Holy Week and the Great Feasts. Sometimes it has been said that her example was misunderstood and misused, either in the name of a skewed piety or from a rigid sense of traditional social order and religious subservience. But there is no doubt throughout two millennia of her centrality in Christian devotion and the profound and magnificent effect her immense greatness has had on religion, spirituality, music, art, and poetry.

All these people leave a rich and wonderful legacy to celebrate and a spiritual model to somehow, in some little ways at least, to emulate and use of for the sake of our life in Christ.

Christ is in our midst!