St. Lucy’s Day is Here! Why it may be particularly welcomed this year
Orginal eassy by Ray Brimble, December 12, 2018
St Lucy’s Day is December 13th. A decade ago, I started to celebrate St. Lucy’s Day, an obscure, Scandinavian oriented celebration, recognizing an early Christian Saint who was blinded by the Romans, yet brought food the refugees living in the catacombs of Rome to escape persecution. St. Lucy is the patron Saint of Bringing Light (and insight) into situations where darkness dominates. She is also the patron Saint of “go for it... you never know!”, i.e. using your intuition. St. Lucy’s Day is exactly half way through Advent, a little-celebrated period of reflection right before Christmas. It is also just before the winter solstice which was widely celebrated by pre-Christian Nordic people. As such, it’s a classic example of grafting a Christian tradition onto the “pagan” celebration which preceded it. In this case, the story of St. Lucy, and the seasonal celebration, resonated and continues to make perfect sense to folks in the Nordic countries because its a happy celebration during the time of maximum darkness and self-reflection.
The symbol of the day is a headdress of four candles, which symbolizes the notion that St. Lucy wore this illumination around her head, so her hands would be more free to carry stuff to the needy inside the catacombs. The illumination around one’s head is a symbol of spiritual intuition, a type of faith, which can be called upon when times are darkest and there does not seem to be a path forward. I love this story, and these symbols.
Even though I do not have a Scandinavian bone in my body, I joyfully celebrate St. Lucy’s Day every year. Finally, let me suggest that some of these old stories and legends of Saints, while seemingly archaic, often contain charming and truthful nuggets of wisdom and spirit. So, if you need a break from an ever-earlier starting Christmas season, or perhaps have decided to start your Holidays a bit later this year, have a Swedish pastry and some mulled wine, put a pointy hat on your son (in this tradition called the “star boy”), and mutter vaguely Nordic sounding words to your neighbors while contemplating that something good might be about to happen irrespective of the darkness around us. The world needs a bit more of this behavior, don’t you think?