Saint Cecilia

The catacombs, too, left a deep impression on me. They were exactly as I had imagined them when reading the lives of the martyrs. After having spent part of the afternoon in them, it seemed to me we were there for only a few moments, so sacred did the atmosphere appear to me. We had to carry off some souvenir from the Catacombs; having allowed the precession to pass on a little, Celine and Therese slipped down together to the bottom of the ancient tomb of Saint Cecilia and took some earth which was sanctified by her presence. Before my trip to Rome I didn't have any special devotion to this saint, but when I visited her house transformed into a church, the site of her martyrdom, when learning that she was proclaimed patroness of music not because of her beautiful voice or her talent for music, but in memory of the virginal song she sang to her heavenly Spouse hidden in the depths of her heart, I felt more than devotion for her; it was the real tenderness of a friend. She became my saint of predilection, my intimate confidant. Everything in her thrilled me, especially her abandonment, her limitless confidence that made her capable of virginizing souls who had never desired any other joys but those of the present life. Saint Cecilia is like the bride in the Canticle; in her I see "a choir in an armed camp." Her life was nothing else but a melodious song in the midst of the greatest trials, and this does not surprise me because "the Gospel rested on her heart," and in her heart reposed the Spouse of Virgins!

-Saint Therese of Lisieux

Saint Therese (1897) was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1997.