Saint Lucy and Her Traditional Celebrations

Happy St. Lucy’s Day! Would you like to celebrate by meditating on gouged-out eyeballs? In a tradition stemming from the Middle Ages, saints who had been martyred were frequently shown in artwork with either the instrument of death (Lucy was also stabbed — see the knife?), or the body parts in their story recieving the most violence. We don’t have much primary-source information about Lucy: there is a 5th-century account of her life during the last age of Roman persecutions of the Christians (late 200s). It is a typical story for female martyrs: the good Christian bride wants to give away all her family’s wealth (because often these are rich young maidens), but a bad pagan who wants to marry her overheats with anger when he discovers that the woman has refused his proposal. Threatened with torture and rape, the virgin eludes physical harm and defilement of her chastity for a long time. Lucy apparently became extremely heavy, and couldn’t be moved — even with cords tied to her body — into a brothel. Stories about Lucy’s eyes being plucked out do not appear in the written record until the 1400s, and accounts vary. One states that Lucy’s rebuffed non-boyfriend ordered his guards to do the deed. When her body was being prepared for burial, her eyes had been miraculously replaced. Eventually, the guards killed Lucy, but in the most beloved rendition of the tale, the 13th-century _Golden Legend_, she only dies after she elects to surrender her spirit to God. In an age when many women had little control over their bodies, Lucy’s abilities to refuse a suitor and to incur violence calmly — and to dictate her will to a powerful man — might have been appealing. Lucy is the patron saint of those suffering from blindness, and holidays associated with her emphasize her abilities to bring forth light. In Sweden on her feast day, young girls dressed as Lucy (they wear the white of virgins and have red sashes symbolizing martyrdom) wear a garland lit with candles (second photo).