Saint Lucy
Feast day: December 13
Saint Lucy, virgin martyr of Syracuse, saint of light and of eyes (13/12)
Who is she?
Saint Lucy was a virgin who was martyred in the city of Syracuse, Italy, when the emperor Diocletian was persecuting the Christians. The Church honored her from very early on, and even today her name is said in Eucharistic Prayer I at Mass, together with several other women saints.
Life story
Lucy lived at the end of the third century and the beginning of the fourth. She was martyred around the year 304. Most of the details about her life come from tradition.
According to tradition, Lucy was a young woman who had decided to give her whole life to God. Her mother, Eutychia, had been sick for many years and no treatment helped. Mother and daughter went on pilgrimage together to the tomb of Saint Agatha in the nearby city of Catania to pray, and her mother was healed.
Full of joy, Lucy asked her mother for one thing: instead of keeping her dowry, the wealth set aside for her for when she married, to give it away to the poor. Her mother agreed. But the young man who had asked to marry Lucy was furious when he saw this, and reported her as a Christian.
Lucy was brought before a judge. The judge ordered her to give up her faith, but she gently and firmly declared that she belonged to Jesus. She stayed faithful to the end and gave her life for the Lord.
The name Lucy comes from the Latin word “lux,” which means “light.” That is why people often ask her to pray for those with eye problems, and in paintings she is often shown with a dish holding a pair of eyes. Her feast falls in Advent, when Christians are waiting to welcome Jesus, the Light of the world. In some countries of Northern Europe, girls wear crowns of candles on their heads to celebrate her feast.
Why is she a saint?
Saint Lucy loved Jesus more than anything in the world. She lived a pure life, was generous to the poor, and bravely bore witness to the Lord until her last breath.
A lesson for you
- Keep your eyes pure: choose to watch good things on phones, TV and in books.
- Share your things or your snacks with a classmate who is poorer than you.
- Jesus teaches: “let your light so shine before men” (Mt 5:16). Live a good life so that everyone can see God in you.
Identifying marks
- A small dish holding two eyes: the name Lucy means “light”; according to a later tradition, she is honored as the patron saint of people with eye problems and the blind.
- A martyr’s palm branch: she died for the faith and shares in the victory with God.
- A white dress and a red cloak: white speaks of a pure life, and red is the color of the martyrs.
- The city of Syracuse by the sea: her hometown, on the island of Sicily, Italy.
- An oil lamp or a crown of candles on her head (*): she is the saint of light in the darkness of winter.
(*) Only in some pictures and statues.
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