St. Lucy's Day

Saint Lucia
Domenico Beccafumi

Yesterday, December 13th, was Saint Lucy Day. The legend of St. Lucia (283-304) is complicated and grim. You don't become a saint by having an easy life, and there's a reason she's holding those eyeballs in a dish. But the St. Lucy festival celebrated on this dark day has pretty Scandinavian girls, candles and sweet saffron buns. St. Lucy is one of the few saints recognized by the Lutheran Scandinavian people, although the celebrations still have pagan elements-- mainly the struggle between dark and light in a region where the seasonal change in daylight hours is extreme.

In Europe, mid-winter seemed to be a time for running wild and going a bit crazy from the dark and cold. The pagan holiday of Yule was the most important holiday in Scandinavia before Christian times. Originally it was a celebration of the rebirth of the sun at the winter solstice. It was a time for feasting, drinking, gift-giving, and gatherings, but also the season of awareness and fear of the forces of the dark. The season transitioned into Christmas after the Christian church placed the birth of Christ on December 25th in the 4th century.

In traditional celebrations Saint Lucy comes dressed in white as a young woman with lights and golden buns. In some forms, a procession is headed by one girl wearing a crown of candles (or lights), while others in the procession hold only a single candle each.

St. Lucia saffron bun

This timing of the solstice this week, and the fact that Lucia means "light" in Latin explains the devotion to St. Lucy in Scandinavian countries. The Catholic story goes that Lucy's eyes were put out by Emperor Diocletian as part of his torture. The legend concludes with God restoring Lucy's eyes, making her the patron saint of eyesight:

Saint Lucy,
Whose beautiful name
Signifies light,
By the light of Faith
Which God bestowed upon you,
Increase and preserve
His light in my soul,
So that I may avoid evil,
Be zealous in the performance
Of good works,
And abhor nothing
So much as the blindness
And the darkness
Of evil and sin.