Today we celebrate the ancient feast of Saint Lucy. Like many of the virgin martyrs of the early Church, we know very little of her beyond legend. Notwithstanding the value of legend, some see that paucity as a kind of poverty, if not an embarrassment. Better to pass over it.
On the contrary. What's remarkable is in an age that subjugated women and did not believe in moral innocence, the early Church thought so highly of young virgin martyrs that they put them in the center of what was most valorous: the Mass! Young women who accomplished so little!
It might be my favorite part of the Roman Canon: praying the names of those perhaps otherwise unremarkable girls, who were evidently so remarkable that the Church thought it best to put their names next to the very words of the King himself. Could any higher praise be given?
Lucy, what did you see? "By what authority are you doing these things?" How strong and courageous your heart must have been, that willingness to take our Lord at his word and sacrifice all, to give your heart to him alone, long before they threatened your life! What did you see!?
"The utterance of one who hears what God says, and knows what the Most High knows, of one who sees what the Almighty sees, enraptured and with eyes unveiled." Saint Lucy, open these tired eyes of mine, shave off these calluses on my heart: help me to see by the fire you felt!
Dante too, by the prayers of his Beatrice, was aided by Saint Lucy (Purgatorio, Canto IX):
From the Office of Readings for today's Feast, from St Ambrose:
Fr Pius Parsch on how the Readings for today's feast help us to seek to share what St Lucy accomplished in Christ:
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