St. Lucy

A young Christian woman of Syracuse who refused a pagan marriage and gave her dowry to the poor. She was denounced and martyred under Diocletian. Her name — from the Latin lux, light — and the legend that her eyes were torn out have made her the patron of the blind. Scandinavian Christians keep her feast on December 13 with candles and a young girl crowned in light.

According to tradition, Lucy made a pilgrimage to the tomb of St. Agatha in Catania to pray for her mother's healing from a blood disorder. When the cure came, she consecrated her virginity to God and distributed her wealth to the poor, enraging the young pagan to whom she had been betrothed.

Her cult spread rapidly across the Roman world and she became one of the few female saints named in the Roman Canon of the Mass. In the old Julian calendar her feast fell near the winter solstice, deepening her association with light conquering darkness — a symbolism the Scandinavian Lucia processions preserve to this day.