St. Cecilia

Today, Nov. 22, in addition to being the anniversary of the deaths of both C.S. Lewis and President John F. Kennedy 47 years ago, is the Feast of St. Cecilia.

She is best known as the patron saint of music. For this reason, the internet reports that the 1970 Simon and Garfunkel song "Cecilia" is really a metaphor about the frustrations of a composer deserted by his Muse, personified by the saint. Whether that's true or not, it is true that Paul Simon's later song "The Coast" makes reference to "the little harbor church of St. Cecilia."

Wherever that church might be, it is certainly not the Roman basilica St. Cecilia in Trastevere that we visited a few weeks ago. We took part in the Sunday vigil Mass there, happily noting that this was a not a museum but an active parish -- there were flowers in the church left over from a wedding.

In my travel diary I noted that the two outstanding features of the church were a magnificent marble altarpiece with a statue of the saint in death (above) and a crypt that had been an early Christian burial vault.

We spent quite a bit of time in the vault after Mass. It was clear that we were amid the ruins of what had once been the home of a wealthy Roman. Only later did we learn that Roman was St. Cecilia herself, beheaded in her home in 230 A.D. A church was erected over the home in the 4th or 5th Century, and rebuilt in the 9th Century.

A Blessed Emperor

On this All Saints Day, I find myself thinking about a blessed that I never of until last month.

In the back of a church in Vienna, I found a little pamphlet -- available in a multitude of languages -- telling the story of Blessed Emperor Charles, described as "Prince of Peace for a United Europe."

A member of the famous Habsburg family, Charles (Karl in German) was the last emperor of the Austro-Hungarian empire (Charles I) and the last king of Hungary (Charles IV), as well as the last king of Bohemia and of Croatia.

He succeed to the throne in 1916, the middle of World War I, upon the death of his great uncle, the much better known Emperor Franz-Joseph. The was made possible by the assassination two years earlier of Archduke Franz Ferdinand at Sarajevo, which touched off the world war.

A soldier by training, he pursued peace and banned his army's use of poison gas. As a ruler, he was guided by Catholic social justice teaching. But he was not a ruler long. He withdrew from the administration of the state -- not using the word "abdicate" -- on Armistice Day, November 11, 1918.

Weakened by pneumonia and two heart attacks, he died of respiratory failure on April 1, 1922 in exile on the Portuguese island of Madeira with his wife and eight children (the last of them in utero). He was 34 years old.

According to the pamphlet I picked up in Austria, the moto of his life was as he is said to have repeated on his death-bed: "My entire efforts are always in all things to recognize and follow as clearly as possible the will of God even in all its completeness." He died in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament.

Long viewed as a model Christian ruler, Charles I was beatified by Pope John Paul II on Oct. 3, 2004. Two miracles have been recognized through his intercession, one of them involving a Baptist woman from Florida. His feast day is Oct. 21, the date of his marriage to the Empress Zita in 1911.

Jesus said it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter heaven. How encouraging that some saints can work even that miracle!

St. Michael, Defend Us in Battle

Maybe we shouldn't have named our second son Michael.

But, then again, maybe we were prescient.

The greatest of all Michaels, as far as I'm concerned, is St. Michael the Archangel, leader of the heavenly legions that vanquish Satan in the Book of Revelations. Is this why our Michael joined the military 13 years ago and has spent more time in war zones than I care to think about?

A couple of weeks ago, in the Italian town of Lucca in Tuscany, we saw a huge winged statue (photo above) of my favorite archangel perched on the pediment of a church called San Michele in Foro. He is shown in triumph over the great dragon, a spear in one hand and a globe with a cross on top in the other.

The church was built over a Roman forum between the 11th and 14th centuries. We bought there a small icon of the archangel.

St. Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians, calls us to "put on the armor of God" (6:10-18). Traditionally, at confirmation we become soldiers of Christ. Some people today are uncomfortable with these military metaphors but they seem to me appropriate.

The fight against evil in the world is a battle worth waging. How good to know that our commander in the field is a real angel.