A virgin and martyr of Syracuse in Sicily, whose feast is celebrated
by Latins and Greeks alike on 13 Dec. According to the traditional
story, she was born of rich and noble parents about the year 283. Her
father was of Roman origin, but his early death left her dependent upon
her mother, whose name, Eutychia, seems to indicate that she came of
Greek stock. Like so many of the early martyrs, Lucy had consecrated her
virginity to God, and she hoped to devote all her worldly goods to the
service of the poor. Her mother was not so single-minded, but an
occasion offered itself when Lucy could carry out her generous
resolutions. The fame of the virgin-martyr Agatha, who had been executed
fifty-two years before in the Decian persecution, was attracting
numerous visitors to her relics at Catania, not fifty miles from
Syracuse, and many miracles had been wrought through her intercession.
Eutychia was therefore persuaded to make a pilgrimage to Catania, in the
hope of being cured or a haemorrhage, from which she had been suffering
for several years. There she was in fact cured, and Lucy, availing
herself of the opportunity, persuaded her mother to allow her to
distribute a great part of her riches among the poor. The largess
stirred the greed of the unworthy youth to whom Lucy had been
unwillingly betrothed, and he denounced her to Paschasius, the Governor
of Sicily. It was in the year 303, during the fierce persecution of
Diocletian. She was first of all condemned to suffer the shame of
prostitution; but in the strength of God she stood immovable, so that
they could not drag her away to the place of shame. Bundles of wood were
then heaped about her and set on fire, and again God saved her.
Finally, she met her death by the sword. But before she died she
foretold the punishment of Paschasius and the speedy termination of the
persecution, adding that Diocletian would reign no more, and Maximian
would meet his end. So, strengthened with the Bread of Life, she won her
crown of virginity and martyrdom.
This beautiful story cannot unfortunately be accepted without
criticism. The details may be only a repetition of similar accounts of a
virgin martyr's life and death. Moreover, the prophecy was not
realized, if it required that Maximian should die immediately after the
termination of his reign. Paschasius, also, is a strange name for a
pagan to bear. However, since there is no other evidence by which the
story may be tested, it can only be suggested that the facts peculiar to
the saint's story deserve special notice. Among these, the place and
time of her death can hardly be questioned; for the rest, the most
notable are her connexion with St. Agatha and the miraculous cure of
Eutychia, and it is to be hoped that these have not been introduced by
the pious compiler of the saint's story or a popular instinct to link
together two national saints. The story, such as we have given it, is to
be traced back to the Acta, and these probably belong to the fifth
century. Though they cannot be regarded as accurate, there can be no
doubt of the great veneration that was shown to St. Lucy by the early
church. She is one of those few female saints whose names occur in the
canon of St. Gregory, and there are special prayers and antiphons for
her in his "Sacramentary" and "Antiphonary". She is also commemorated in
the ancient Roman Martyrology. St. Aldheim (d. 709) is the first writer
who uses her Acts to give a full account of her life and death. This he
does in prose in the "Tractatus de Laudibus Virginitatis" (Tract.
xliii, P. L., LXXXIX, 142) and again, in verse, in the poem "De Laudibus
Virginum" (P. L., LXXXIX, 266). Following him, the Venerable Bede
inserts the story in his Martyrology.
With regard to her relics, Sigebert (1030-1112), a monk of
Gembloux, in his "sermo de Sancta Lucia", says that he body lay
undisturbed in Sicily for 400 years, before Faroald, Duke of Spoleto,
captured the island and transferred the saint's body to Corfinium in
Italy. Thence it was removed by the Emperor Otho I, 972, to Metz and
deposited in the church of St. Vincent. And it was from this shrine that
an arm of the saint was taken to the monastery of Luitburg in the
Diocese of Spires—an incident celebrated by Sigebert himself in verse.
The subsequent history of the relics is not clear. On their capture of
Constantinople in 1204, the French found some of the relics in that
city, and the Doge of Venice secured them for the monastery of St.
George at Venice. In the year 1513 the Venetians presented to Louis XII
of France the head of the saint, which he deposited in the cathedral
church of Bourges. Another account, however, states that the head was
brought to Bourges from Rome whither it had been transferred during the
time when the relics rested in Corfinium.
James Bridge (Catholic Encyclopedia)
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