by Blake N. Behrens
AI & PS
I was initally drawn to St. Lucia because it also happens to be the name of the island that my wife and I spent our honeymoon on. When reading about St. Lucia the person, I learned that she was a Christian saint venerated as a saint by several denominations as well as Lutheran's in Scandinavia. It's rare that you run across a Lutheran saint, so I figured she was it.
St. Lucia is also known as St. Lucy and her name is derived from the latin lux or 'light.' She is the Patron Saint of the Blind.
In order to achieve her martyrdom, Lucia refused to marry a pagan. She was then persecuted for her Christian beliefs and held prisoner, given over to be defiled in a brothel, tortured, became so filled with the holy spirit that the guards could not move her so they gauged out her eyes with a fork (which grew back), stabbed in the throat and yet continued to speak out against her persecutors. Needless to say, the story of St. Lucia is quite interesting.
St. Lucia is often depicted with a crown of candles, and often times holding a golden platter presenting eyes to the viewer.
Very nice!! St. Lucia is a huge scandinavian tradition, I just never put the two together. Usually around Christmas the norsk folk make a crown of candles for a little girl to wear and she walks around the town. I grew up seeing that image around the holidays...just never really knew what it was! Thanks for shedding some light on it.
ReplyDelete'Shedding light' Ha! Touché, Carl. Touch´.
ReplyDelete