Saint Cecilia (2nd-3rd century)
Filed under the name Cecilia · April 5, 2026
Saint Cecilia's been venerated as the patron saint of musicians for something like eighteen centuries now, remembered in art and poetry and music composed specifically in her name, which is its own kind of staying power that outlasts just about anything I can think of. I'm not a particularly religious man myself, more of a Sunday-football-and-Sinatra type, but there's something about a legacy that long, still meaning something to actual musicians today, that commands respect regardless of what you believe. It's the kind of institution-level durability that reminds me a little of the union, honestly — something built generations ago that people still lean on and honor without ever having met the person who started it. Whatever the historical details, something about her example clearly mattered enough to people, across century after century, that they kept the memory working. That's a longer track record than any plant, any pension, any record I ever helped negotiate, and I can respect that kind of endurance on its own terms.