Thursday, December 13, 2007

Saint Lucia - The Queen Of Lights

Today is the feast day of St. Lucy. I love the saints and their stories. Over the course of my life I have had a few different copies of books containing stories of the lives of saints. I remember being intrigued by the things that were depicted in the pictures with each saint - St. Francis always had animals around him, St. Christopher (and I don't think he is a saint anymore) had the baby Jesus perched on his shoulder, and St. Lucy had her eyeballs gouged out and displayed them on a dinner plate. Wow. Gorey stuff.

A year ago I posted the story of how St. Lucy came to be and why she is so special. If I actually spent time learning how to work blogger I could put a link back to that old post. I have had that on my "stuff that needs to get done" list forever but that list is always disregarded in favor of the "DO THIS NOW, FOOL" list.

The short story is that the feast of St. Lucy is celebrated as a festival of lights. Her name means "light" and so she became the patron saint for the eyes - the light of the body. In the olden days girls wore crowns made of lingonberry twigs and blazing candles - sounds incredibly dangerous. In Sweeden the youngest daughter wears the crown and wakes the family with a tray of steaming coffee and saffron buns. I don't know what saffron buns are but I bet I would like them. At this point, La Luz is barely capable of retrieving a handful of dry cereal from the box so I wasn't altogether surprised when she didn't bring me steaming coffee and saffron buns. Maybe next year.

Here's my Lucy:





always keeping it very light indeed.

4 comments:

TOITA said...

Have a nice day MY LUCY GIRL!! She definitively is the light of many of us, and hope she keeps it that way....
Enjoy her and give her an extra hug today from here (thatof course if she lets you do it!! hahah)
Love and miss you all!


Toi

Anonymous said...

I also read that Lucy's feast used to coincide with Yuletide and the Solstice before the current calendar. Lucy was important because of the idea of Light. From this day on we gain more light everyday. I love the image of young girls walking with candles surrounding their head. I wonder how many girls had to explain their hairdo to friends. "She is really cute and nice but..."

NOLAcathie said...

We are all blessed indeed to have the
beauty of Lucy's bright light illuminating our lives!

Anonymous said...

Cathie, you took the words right out of my mouth and soul.
We are so blessed to have our Lucy girl in our life.
Love
Nana