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ST. CECILIA 169 had they known before they took tbe veil, would have deterred them from monastic life. Hearing all this from their natural advisers, the nnns thought their independence too precious to be renounced, so they determined not to submit. St. Dominic left them alone for a few days, during which he fasted and prayed and commended the cause to God. He then went back to St. Mary*s, said Mass there, and afterwards addressed the nuns with that wonderful gentleness which no one could resist, asking them if they could repent of an offer they had made to God, or refuse to give them- selves up to Him with their whole heart and without reserve. The abbess and all the nuns renewed their former promise to him, and vowed to submit in all things to the Pope's wishes. They begged that Dominic himself would be their director, and give them his own rule. He agreed, and while the prepara- tions for their transfer to St. Siztus were in progress, he shut the gates, and forbade their friends and relations to come, with their worldly counsels, to shake the pious resolution of the nuns. Early in Lent, 1218, the abbess and some of the nuns — amongst them the novice Cecilia — settled down in the convent of St. Sixtus. St. Dominic gave them his rule and his habit. They were in the chapter house, discussing the temporal arrangements of the community with St. Dominic and the three cardinals, one of whom was Stephen of Fossa Nuova, cardinal-priest of the twelve apostles, when a man came running, in great distress, to Cardinal Stephen, to tell him that his nephew Napoleon had been thrown from his horse and killed on the spot. Stephen fell on Dominic's breast, unable to speak or shed a tear. Dominic ordered the young man's body to be brought in, and prepared to say Mass. An inmiense concourse filled the church. Dominic, while he held up the host, was himself raised in ecstasy a whole cubit from the ground, to the wonder and edi- fication of all present. Mass being over, he went and stood by the dead body, laid the injured limbs straight, shed some tears over the young man, and then, after kneeling some time in prayer, rose and made the sign of the cross over the corpse ; then, raising his hands to heaven, and being at the same time miraculously raised from the ground and suspended in the air, he cried aloud, "Napoleon, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, I say unto thee, Arise I " That instant the young man arose, healed of his bruises and perfectly well. Cecilia loved St. Dominic with great devotion ; he regarded her With fatherly affection, calling her his eldest daughter. At the age of seventeen, she was the first nun who received the veil from his hands. She is therefore regarded as the first Dominican nun. She was an eye-witness of several of his great works. The Nar^ ratine of B, Cecilia is one of the most important sources for the history of St. Dominic (Mamachi, Annah O.P.), The Dominican nuns of San Sisto were removed by St. Pius V. to the stately monastery of Magnanapoli : it became a very favourite convent for ladies of the highest rank. When the convent of St. Agneso at Bologna had been built by B. Diana deoli Akdalo, Pope Honorius went himself to the convent of San Sisto, and, having ex- plained to the nuns how much it grieved him to send any of them out of Rome, said that nevertheless he wished that four of them should go to Bologna to instruct the new community there in the rule of their blessed founder. He desired them, in the name of the Holy Spirit and of holy obedience, to hold a council among themselves and choose the best among them for this pious work. They obeyed, and chose four who had received the habit from the hands of St. Dominic. Two of these were B. Cecilia and B. Amata. They went to the new convent in Bologna in 1223, two years after the death of their founder. Cecilia did her duty there with great fervour and energy for many years, and at last became infirm and decrepit and died, being nearly ninety years of age. Michele Pio, Predicatori, AA,SS, Butler, Lives of the Fathers, " St. Dominic," Aug. 4. B. Cecilia (13) of Gubbio. (See Gennaia.) St. Cecilia (14) of Sweden, Aug.