Happy Santa Lucia Day

Today is the feast of Santa Lucia, also known as Saint Lucy, an Italian saint from the early Church. I have always loved this festival, with its candles and wreathes of green on the young maidens, along with all the other festivals celebrating the return of light in the season of cold and darkness. When the kids were very young we even had a tradition for a while where the daughter would bring the rest of the family raisin buns and coffee while decked out in white with a headdress of candles ablaze (very nerve-wracking for parents, but beautiful and fun.)



From Wikipedia: QUOTE Saint Lucy of Syracuse, also known as Saint Lucia or Saint Lukia, (Spanish: Santa Lucia) (traditional dates 283 – 304) was a rich young Christian Martyr who is venerated as a saint by both Catholic and Orthodox Christians. Her feast day in the West is December 13, by the unreformed Julian calendar the longest night of the year; with a name derived from lux, lucis "light", she is the patron saint of those who are blind. St. Lucy is one of the very few saints celebrated by members of the Lutheran Church among the Scandinavian peoples (Danes, Swedes, Finns and Norwegians) who take part in Saint Lucy's Day celebrations that retain many indigenous Germanic pagan pre-Christian midwinter elements.[1][2] [3][4] Other notable saints still venerated by Scandinavian Lutherans are St. John the Baptist at midsummer, and St. Olaf, the patron Saint of Norway, at Olsok. St Lucy is one of seven women, excluding the Blessed Virgin Mary, commemorated by name in the Roman Canon. UNQUOTE