Page 7 - StCecilia

Onsite visit

ly heated, until the suffocating atmosphere had deprived her of
life. This cowardly expedient, however, failed. Cecilia joyfully
entered the place of her martyrdom, and remained there the rest
of the day, and the ensuing night, without the fiery atmosphere
she breathed, producing even the slightest moisture upon her
skin. A celestial dew, like that which refreshed the three children
in the Babylonian furnace, delightfully tempered the air of the
heated apartment, so that the remark made in later years of the
intrepid Archdeacon Lawrence, could well have been applied to
the virgin, namely that the fire of divine love which consumed him
interiorly, destroyed the strength of the material fire which sur-
rounded him exteriorly. 2 Vainly did the ministers of Almachius
increase the fire by heaping wood upon the furnace; vainly did the
heated apertures send forth volumes of boiling vapor into the
apartment. The power of God protected His servant, who calmly
waited until it should please her Divine Spouse to admit her, by
some other kind of death, into His eternal kingdom.
Almachius, on hearing of this prodigy, was much disconcerted.
He had hoped to avoid shedding the blood of a Roman lady ; but
he had gone too far to recede, and there was no alternative but to
send a lictor to behead the saintly virgin. The officer presented
himself before her, armed with a sword. Cecilia hailed him with
joy as the bearer of her nuptial crown. She offered her neck to the
executioner with an eagerness that might be expected from one
who had already triumphed over all that could terrify or seduce
human nature. The lictor vigorously brandished his sword, but his
arm was so unsteady, that although he struck her three times, he
could not succeed in severing the head from the body. Terrified,
he withdrew from the room, leaving the virgin stretched upon the
ground, bathed in her blood. The law forbade the executioner,
who, after three attempts, had not dispatched his victim, to ven-
ture upon a fourth trial. 3

who afterwards buried them.
2 Superari charitas Christi flamma non potuit, et segnior fuit ignis qui foris
ussit quam qui intus accendit. Sermo in Natali S. Laurentii.

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