More than Stained Glass: The Holy Martyrs Sts. Agnes and Cecilia (a homily)

I love preaching on Wednesday nights when we have saints to commemorate. It's easy, I get to remind you why we're wearing the color we're wearing (red tonight, for martyrs, to remember the blood they shed), tell a little about their lives, and maybe read something about them from the tradition.

But I’m afraid thatsometimes downplay the reality of the lives and, in this case, the deaths of our Christian forebears. It becomes aquaint story time. I'm not sure we always really sit with the fact that these were real, living, breathing people with hopes, dreams, loves, hobbies, interests, just like all of us. They become one-dimensional at best, or like fairytales at worst. Or maybe it's just me.

In any case, tonight I want us to remember that these saints who lived over seventeen hundred years ago were real women. They are mothers of the church who lived lives in love. They served Christ with everything they had.

Agnes was twelve years old. Let that sink in for a moment. Twelve. This hits me because I’m about to go downstairs and hang out with some kiddos who are St. Agnes’ age. St. Ambrose of Milan writes in the 4th century that experienced: "A new kind of martyrdom! Too young to be punished, yet old enough for a martyr's crown." He says there was little room in that small body for a wound, and yet she could rise superior to the blow. Girls her age weep as for a serious wound when pricked by a needle, but Agnes showed no fear of the blood-stained hands of her executioners. She stood undaunted by heavy, clanking chains.

Why did she meet this ned? Because she had refused marriage proposals from powerful and influential men of Rome. When pressed, she answered: "To hope that any other will please me does wrong to my Spouse. I will be his who first chose me for himself." She faithfully said that Christ is her only bridegroom. And for this, for refusing to marry and to sacrifice to the Roman gods, she was condemned during the period of great Christian persecution under Diocletian, the last worst Chrsitian perspecution in history and the last before the legalization of Christianity with the Edict of Milan. Tradition tells us she was exposed naked in a brothel as punishment, and that her hair miraculously grew to cover her. She was to be burned at the stake, but the flames would not take her. So she was beheaded. At twelve years old.

St. Cecilia lived perhaps seventy years before Agnes, around the year 230. She's remembered as a musician and is the patron saint of music. Tradition tells us she sang to God in her heart. Even when she was forced into marriage with a pagan named Valerian, she sang. But she didn't keep that song to herself. She converted her husband. She converted his brother Tiburtius. Both men were martyred before her.

When the authorities came for Cecilia, the executioner struck her neck three times with a sword. Roman law forbade a fourth blow. But she didn't die—not immediately. She lived for three days. And in those three days, she gave away everything she owned to the poor and asked that her house become a church. That church still stands today, Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, in Rome. After three days, she died. She was likely in her early twenties.

These young women sacrificed and gave of themselves, just as we are called to do today. Granted our sacrifices look different, but all of us have other things we could be doing right now, but we're here, praying together, hearing the Scriptures, learning, and preparing to receive the Body and Blood of Christ. Their sacrifice was greater than I anticipate any of ours being. They gave their bodies. They gave their blood. But we are still called to give.

And many times it feels like their stories end there. They were offered up as sacrifices to the faith, their blood building on the very foundation of the Church and the faith that we inherit. They become figures in stained glass, names on a calendar, entries in a book of lesser feasts and fasts.

But that's not the end.

Because we are Christians, and we believe in a literal and very real bodily resurrection and ascension of Christ, we have hope in the afterlife. We know that death is not the final word. The Book of Revelation tells us that these saints are still alive in Christ. In the sixth chapter, when the Lamb opens the fifth seal, our patron Saint John writes:

"I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slaughtered for the word of God and for the testimony they had given; they cried out with a loud voice, 'Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long will it be before you judge and avenge our blood on the inhabitants of the earth?' They were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer."

Martyrs like Agnes and Cecilia sit beneath that altar. They wear those white robes. They cry out before the throne of Christ. They are not distant historical figures. They are the living Church. They pray. They intercede. They wait with us for the final consummation of all things.

So tonight, take a minute and really sit with Saints Agnes and Cecilia. These women who loved Christ so much they gave everything. Remember that they still live with Christ and pray for the world. And let us join our voices with the Church throughout the ages:

O God, the King of saints, we praise and glorify your holy Name for all your servants who have finished their course in your faith and fear: for the blessed Virgin Mary; for the holy patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs; and for all your other righteous servants, known to us and unknown; and we pray that, encouraged by their examples, aided by their prayers, and strengthened by their fellowship, we also may be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light; through the merits of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.