The Reason for the Season: Lucy and the Lady

We missed two feasts over the weekend, their being pre-empted by other things, but they deserve mention here, inasmuch as their devotion touches upon the liturgical season in which they are found.

The Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe falls on the 12th of December. We did a piece on her last year entitled "Guadalupe." A correspondent in Mexico told me that she is wearing a traditional maternity dress, which is something we missed in our explanation of why she is not at all an Earth-Mother-Eco-Spiritual-Goddess figure. Or something.

Yesterday was also the Feast of Saint Lucy, although pre-empted by the Third Sunday of Advent. In the old Julian calendar, her feast would have fallen on the longest night of the year, which is fitting inasmuch as her name comes from the Latin lux or lucis, meaning "light." She lived in the late third-early fourth century, and was martyred under the Diocletian persecution. She is the patron of the blind, and also of the Scandinavian countries. To wit, this video clip is of a 2007 celebration in the town of Mora, Sweden.

The darkness shall soon fly away
From the valleys of Earth
Thus she speaks to us in wonderful words
The day shall rise again soon
From a roselike sky
Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia

The tune sounds familiar to many Americans, who may be accustomed to hearing it in Italian. Indeed, Saint Lucy is also an object of veneration in northeastern Italy, as well as the city of Syracusa in Sicily (not to mention the inclusion of her name in the Roman Canon).

Note also that the festivities in Sweden are one occasion where "altar boys" could be said to way to "altar girls," with a special young lady chosen to take her chances wearing the wreath of candles as “Queen of Light.”

Never send a boy to do a girl's job.
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