Saint Lucy

Collage representing Saint Lucia.

Saint Lucy was a young Roman martyr, living a short life at the end of the 3rd century to about the age of 21. After the death of her father in childhood, Lucy’s terminally ill mother betrothed her to a suitor from a wealthy pagan family. Lucy refused this marriage, pledging her virginity to God, and received visions that her devotion would cure her mother’s illness. When her vision came to pass, Lucy’s mother converted to Christianity and, at her daughter’s behest, began distributing the remains of the family’s meager fortune to the poor.

When her promised husband heard that she had given away her dowry, he was enraged, and ordered her to be defiled in a brothel as punishment. In one narrative, Lucy was brought to the brothel and converted its inhabitants to devout Christianity. In another, she refused to go, and when soldiers came to carry her off, they were unable to move her even with a team of oxen. The soldiers then heaped wood around the young girl and attempted to burn her alive, but the wood would not catch. Finally, in desperation, she was stabbed through the throat with a dagger, ending her life. A more famous narrative emerged much later in the 15th century which tells of her eyes being removed before death. In the popular mythology, Lucy gouged them out herself for the purpose of rejecting her suitor, who had found her eyes beautiful. Upon her death, the eyes were said to have been miraculously restored to her corpse.

Saint biography by: Melissa Madara