These notes come from two websites: American Catholic and The Catholic Company:
“Lucia means “light” and so her feast day is
celebrated with candles, torch lights, and even bonfires. Falling during
the Advent season—and thus a long, dark
winter—there are many beautiful traditions associating this saint with the
meaning of her name, the story of her life, and her glorious position in
heaven.” The Catholic Company
In some
Catholic cultures it’s common to have a Mass procession on St. Lucy’s feast day
with young girls carrying candles, with the lead girl wearing a wreath of lights
. Tradition holds that St. Lucy would wear a wreath of candles on her head so
she could see better as she served the poor Christians hiding from persecution
in the dark underground catacombs of Rome.
Many
countries have special St. Lucy’s day traditions, but perhaps the most
well-known are the ones of Italian and Scandinavian origin. According to this resource, in
Sweden,
“the
oldest daughter of a family will wake up before dawn on St. Lucy’s Day and
dress in a white gown for purity, often with a red sash as a sign of martyrdom.
On her head she will wear a wreath of greenery and lit candles, and she is
often accompanied by ‘Star Boys,’ her small brothers who are dressed in white
gowns and cone-shaped hats that are decorated with gold stars, and carrying
star-tipped wands. ‘St. Lucy’ will go around her house and wake up her family
to serve them special St. Lucy Day foods” which were usually baked sweets.
portrait of a lady as St. Lucy, by Giovanni Boltraffio
Painters over the years have let their imaginations run wild over this grisly martyrdom, usually including her extracted eyeballs in paintings of Saint Lucy:
Incres' version:
and one by Domenico Beccafumi:
As a poet, I am awed by John Donne's long and mysterious poem:
A
Nocturnal upon St. Lucy's Day
By John Donne
'Tis
the year's midnight, and it is the day's,
Lucy's,
who scarce seven hours herself unmasks;
The sun is spent, and now his flasks
Send forth light squibs, no constant
rays;
The world's whole sap is sunk;
The
general balm th' hydroptic earth hath drunk,
Whither,
as to the bed's feet, life is shrunk,
Dead
and interr'd; yet all these seem to laugh,
Compar'd
with me, who am their epitaph.
Study
me then, you who shall lovers be
At
the next world, that is, at the next spring;
For I am every dead thing,
In whom Love wrought new alchemy.
For his art did express
A
quintessence even from nothingness,
From
dull privations, and lean emptiness;
He
ruin'd me, and I am re-begot
Of
absence, darkness, death: things which are not.
All
others, from all things, draw all that's good,
Life,
soul, form, spirit, whence they being have;
I, by Love's limbec, am the grave
Of all that's nothing. Oft a flood
Have we two wept, and so
Drown'd
the whole world, us two; oft did we grow
To
be two chaoses, when we did show
Care
to aught else; and often absences
Withdrew
our souls, and made us carcasses.
But
I am by her death (which word wrongs her)
Of
the first nothing the elixir grown;
Were I a man, that I were one
I needs must know; I should prefer,
If I were any beast,
Some
ends, some means; yea plants, yea stones detest,
And
love; all, all some properties invest;
If
I an ordinary nothing were,
As
shadow, a light and body must be here.
But
I am none; nor will my sun renew.
You
lovers, for whose sake the lesser sun
At this time to the Goat is run
To fetch new lust, and give it you,
Enjoy your summer all;
Since
she enjoys her long night's festival,
Let
me prepare towards her, and let me call
This
hour her vigil, and her eve, since this
Both
the year's, and the day's deep midnight is.
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