From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Saint Lucy's Day (Sankta Lucia, also known as Saint Lucia's Day etc) is the Church feast day holiday dedicated to St. Lucy and is observed on December 13. It marks, together with Advent, the beginning of the Christmas season. Traditionally an important feast day in all of Western Christendom, it now retains traditional forms of celebration mainly in Scandinavia and southern Europe. It is celebrated in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Italy, Bosnia, Iceland, and Croatia. Before the reform of the Gregorian calendar in the 16th century, St. Lucy's Day fell on the winter solstice.

Contents [hide] 1 Celebration 1.1 In Scandinavia 1.1.1 Sweden 1.1.2 Denmark 1.2 In Italy 1.3 United States 2 References 3 External links 4 See also

[edit] Celebration

 

[edit] In Scandinavia

In Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland, Lucy (called Lucia) is venerated on December 13 in a ceremony where the eldest girl in a family, portraying Lucia, walks, with a crown of candles, ahead of a procession of other women holding a candle each. The candles symbolize the fire that refused to take her life. The women sing a Lucia song while entering the room, to the melody of the traditional Neapolitan song Santa Lucia, still well-known through the recording by Enrico Caruso but, whereas the Italian lyrics describe the beautiful view from the harbour area Santa Lucia in Naples, the various Scandinavian lyrics are fashioned for the occasion, describing the light with which Lucia overcomes the darkness. Each Scandinavian country has their own lyrics in their native tongues. After finishing this song, the procession usually continue by singing Christmas carols or more songs about Lucia.

When the Scandinavian countries were Catholic, the night of Lucia was celebrated just as many other saints' days were. However, the tradition would continue to live on even after the reformation in the 1530s. According to the Julian calendar the night of Lucia was the longest night of the year. This is likely to be the reason why the tradition has lived on in the Nordic countries in particular, as the nights in November and December are very dark and long before the snow has fallen, and the idea of light overcoming darkness is thus appealing.

 

[edit] Sweden

Some trace the “re-birth” of the Lucia celebrations in Sweden to the tradition in German Protestant families of having girls dressed as angelic Christ children, handing out Christmas presents. The Swedish variant of this white-dressed “Kindchen Jesus”, or Christkind, was called “Kinken Jes”, and started to appear in upper-class families in the 1700s on Christmas Eve with a candle-wreath in her hair, handing out candy and cakes to the children. Another theory claims that the Lucia celebration evolved from old Swedish traditions of “star boys” and white-dressed angels singing Christmas carols at different events during Advent and Christmas. In either case, the current tradition of having a white-dressed lady with candles in her hair appearing on the morning of the Lucia day started in the area around Lake Vänern in the late 1700s and spread slowly to other parts of the country during the 1800s.

In the Lucia procession in the home depicted by Carl Larsson in 1908 (illustration, above), the oldest daughter brings coffee and St. Lucia buns to her parents, while wearing a candle-wreath and singing a Lucia song. Other daughters may help, dressed in the same kind of white robe and carrying a candle in one hand, but only the oldest daughter wears the candle-wreath.

The modern tradition of having public processions in the Swedish cities started in 1927 when a newspaper in Stockholm elected an official Lucia for Stockholm that year. The initiative was then followed around the country through the local press. Today most cities in Sweden appoint a Lucia every year; schools elect a Lucia and her maids among the students; and a national Lucia is elected on national television from regional winners. The regional Lucias will usually visit local shopping malls, old people's homes and churches, singing and handing out ginger snaps. Recently there was some discussion whether it was suitable if the national Lucia was not a blonde Caucasian, but it was decided that ethnicity should not be a problem, and in the year 2000 an adopted non-white girl was crowned the national Lucia.

There are now also boys in the procession, playing different roles associated with Christmas. Some may be dressed in the same kind of white robe, but with a coneshaped hat decorated with golden stars, called "stjärngossar" (star boys); some may be dressed up as "tomtenissar", carrying lanterns; and some may be dressed up as gingerbread men. They participate in the singing and also have a song or two of their own, usually Staffan Stalledräng, which tells the story about Saint Stephen, the first Christian martyr, caring for his five horses.

A traditional kind of bun, Lussekatt (St. Lucia Bun), made with saffron, is normally eaten on this day.

Although St. Lucia's Day is not an official holiday in Sweden, it is a popular occasion in Sweden. The Lucia evening and night is a notoriously noisy time. High school students often celebrate by partying all through the night.

The Swedish lyrics to the Neapolitan song Santa Lucia have traditionally been either Natten går tunga fjät (The Night walks with heavy steps) or Sankta Lucia, ljusklara hägring (Saint Lucy, Bright Illusion). There is also a modern version with easier text for children: Ute är mörkt och kallt (Outside it's dark and cold).

 

[edit] Denmark

In Denmark, the Day of Lucia (’’Luciadag’’) was first celebrated on December 13, 1944. The tradition was directly imported from Sweden by initiative of Franz Wend, secretary of Föreningen Norden, as an attempt "to bring light in a time of darkness”. Implicitly it was meant as a passive protest against German occupation during the Second World War but it has been a tradition ever since.

Although the tradition is imported from Sweden it differs somewhat in that the celebration has always been strongly centered on Christianity and it is a yearly local event in most churches in conjunction with Christmas. Schools and kindergartens also use the occasion to mark the event as a special day for children on one of the final days before the Christmas holidays but it does not have much impact anywhere else in society.

Although not widely observed, there are a number of additional historical traditions connected with the celebration. The night before, candles are lit and all electrical lights are turned off and on the Sunday closest to December 13, Danes traditionally attend church.

The Danish versions of the Neapolitan song clearly reflect its close connection to Christianity. The best known version is Holger Lissners version from 1982, ‘’Sankta Lucia’’.

 

[edit] In Italy

St. Lucy is popular among children in some regions of North-Eastern Italy, namely Trentino, East Lombardy (Bergamo, Brescia, Cremona and Mantua), some parts of Veneto, (Verona), and some parts of Emilia Romagna, (Piacenza and Reggio Emilia), where the Saint brings gifts to good children and coal to bad ones. Children are asked to leave some food for Lucia (a sandwich, or anything else available at the moment) and for the donkey that helps her carry gifts (flour, sugar, or salt) and they must not see Santa Lucia delivering gifts otherwise she will throw ashes in their eyes, blinding them. While in Sicily and among the Sicilian diaspora, cuccia is eaten in memory of Saint Lucy's miraculous averting of famine.

 

[edit] United States

In the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), which is the successor church to hundreds of Scandinavian and German Lutheran congregations, St. Lucia is treated as a commemoration on December 13th, in which red vestments are worn. Usually, the Sunday in Advent closest to December 13th is set aside for St. Lucia, in which the traditional Scandinavian procession is observed.

 

[edit] References

• (Swedish) article Lucia in Nordisk familjebok (1912)

 

[edit] External links

• Nordisk Familjebok, article Lucia Nordisk Familjebok, 1912 (in Swedish)
• Lucia's Day in Scandinavia
• Lucia's Day in Sweden

 

[edit] See also

• Lucia Bride of Sweden

Wikipedia

Ett luciatåg, förekommer vid Luciatid, särskilt på Luciadagen den 13 december. Tåget brukar bestå av en lucia och ett antal tärnor, samtliga klädda i vitt. Lucian går främst och bär traditionellt en krona eller lingonkrans med ljus i och har rött band om midjan. Tärnorna bär ofta varsitt stearinljus (numera ibland ersatt av elektriskta ljus av säkerhetsskäl för att undvika brand eller att någon svimmar. I handen kan tärnorna också ha rött band, alternativt glitter, runt midjan. Ofta har de även glitter i håret. Ibland förekommer också stjärngossar i ett Luciatåg. De brukar ha en stjärngossestrut på huvudet och en stjärndekorerad pinne i handen. Även andra figurer kan finnas med i ett luciatåg, framför allt om deltagarna är barn, till exempel pepparkaksgubbar, pepparkaksgummor och tomtar. Dessa kommer sist i tåget.

Luciatåget brukar gå in under sång och rada upp sig på lämpligtvis beroende på lokal. Sedan brukar ett antal sånger sjungas, oftast antingen a cappella eller till ackompanjemang av ett piano, i kyrkorna alternativt orgel. Till de vanligaste sångerna hör Luciasången, (oftast med någon av de tre texterna "Natten går tunga fjät", "Sankta Lucia, ljusklara hägring", "Ute är mörkt och kallt"), Staffansvisan, Nu tändas tusen juleljus, Stilla natt, Så mörk är natten i midvintertid. Om det finns pepparkaksfigurer i tåget brukar dessa sjunga Tre pepparkaksgubbar och om tomtar är med brukar dessa sjunga Tomtarnas julnatt ("Midnatt råder"). Även verser brukar läsas. Luciatåget avslutas med att deltagarna går ut under sång, oftas samma som vid intåget.

I en del sammanghang bjuder lucian och/eller tärnorna på något ätbart, vanligtvis pepparkakor. Barn som håller luciatåg för sina föräldrar kan bjuda på frukost.

 

Se även [redigera]

• Luciasången
• Sveriges Lucia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the Catholic saint. For other meanings, see Saint Lucia (disambiguation)

Saint Lucy
Saint Lucy, by Domenico Beccafumi, 1521, is a High Renaissance recasting of a Gothic iconic image (Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena)
Born	283, Syracuse
Died	304, Syracuse
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Lutheran Church, Anglican Churches
Major shrine	Various
Feast	December 13, St. Lucia Day
Attributes	cord; eyes; eyes on a dish; lamp; swords; woman hitched to a yoke of oxen; woman in the company of Saint Agatha, Saint Agnes of Rome, Barbara, Catherine of Alexandria, and Saint Thecla; woman kneeling before the tomb of Saint Agatha
Saints Portal

Saint Lucy of Syracuse, also known as Saint Lucia, Santa Lucia, or Saint Lukia, (traditional dates 283-304) was a rich young Christian martyr who is venerated as a Saint by Catholic and Orthodox Christians. Her feast day in the West is December 13, by the unreformed Julian calendar the longest night of the year; she is the patron saint of blindness. Lucy is one of the very few saints celebrated by the Lutheran Swedes, Finland-Swedes, Danes, and Norwegians, in celebrations that retain many pre-Christian elements of a midwinter light festival (The other, most notable saints still venerated by Scandinavian Lutherans are St. John the Baptist at midsummer, and St. Olaf, the patron Saint of Norway, at Olsok). She is one of seven women, excluding the Blessed Virgin Mary, commemorated by name in the Canon of the Mass.

Contents [hide] 1 Life 2 Legend 3 See also 4 References 5 External links

 

[edit] Life

Lucy means "light", with the same Latin root, lux, as "lucid," which means "clear, radiant, understandable." "In 'Lucy' is said, the way of light" Jacobus de Voragine stated at the beginning of his vita of the Blessed Virgin Lucy, in Legenda Aurea, the most widely-read version of the Lucy legend in the Middle Ages. Ironically, St Lucy's history is shrouded in darkness: all that is really known for certain is that she was a martyr in Syracuse in Diocletian's persecutions of A.D. 304. Her veneration spread to Rome, so that by the 6th century the whole Church recognized her courage in defense of the faith.

Because people wanted to shed light on Lucy's bravery, legends grew up, reported in the Acta that are associated with her name. All the details are conventional ones also associated with other female martyrs of the early 4th century. Her Roman father died when she was young, leaving her and her mother without a protecting guardian. Her mother, Eutychia, had suffered four years with a "bloody flux" but Lucy having heard the renown of Saint Agatha the patroness of Catania, "and when they were at a Mass, one read a gospel which made mention of a woman which was healed of the bloody flux by touching of the hem of the coat of Jesus Christ," which, according to Legenda Aurea, convinced her mother to pray together at Saint Agatha's tomb. They stayed up all night praying, until they fell asleep, exhausted. Saint Agatha appeared in a vision to Lucy and said, "Soon you shall be the glory of Syracuse, as I am of Catania." At that instant Eutychia was cured.

Eutychia had arranged a marriage for Lucy with a pagan bridegroom, but Lucy urged that the dowry be spent on alms so that she might retain her virginity. Euthychia suggested that the sums would make a good bequest, but Lucy countered, "...whatever you give away at death for the Lord's sake you give because you cannot take it with you. Give now to the true Savior, while you are healthy, whatever you intended to give away at your death."^[1] News that the patrimony and jewels were being distributed came to the ears of Lucy's betrothed, who heard from a chattering nurse that Lucy had found a nobler Bridegroom.

Her rejected pagan bridegroom denounced Lucy as a Christian to the magistrate Paschasius, who ordered her to burn a sacrifice to the Emperor's image. Lucy replied that she had given all that she had: "I offer to him myself, let him do with his offering as it pleaseth him." Sentenced to be defiled in a brothel, Lucy asserted:

No one's body is polluted so as to endanger the soul if it has not pleased the mind. If you were to lift my hand to your idol and so make me offer against my will, I would still be guiltless in the sight of the true God, who judges according to the will and knows all things. If now, against my will, you cause me to be polluted, a twofold purity will be gloriously imputed to me. You cannot bend my will to your purpose; whatever you do to my body, that cannot happen to me.^[1]

The Christian tradition states that when the guards came to take her away they found her so filled with the Holy Spirit that she was stiff and heavy as a mountain; they could not move her even when they hitched her to a team of oxen. Even with a dagger through her throat she prophesied against her persecutor. As final torture, her eyes were gouged out. She was miraculously still able to see without her eyes. In paintings and statues, St. Lucy is frequently shown holding her eyes on a golden plate.

 

[edit] Legend

Jacobus de Voragine did not include the episode of Lucy's passion that has been most vivid to her devotés ever since the Middle Ages: having her eyes torn out. It should be noted that another account refers this loss of eyes to before her martyrdom, claiming that in response to a suitor who admired her beautiful eyes, "she cut them out and sent them to him, asking to be left in peace thereafter."^[2] Lucy was represented in Gothic art holding a dish with two eyes on it (illustration above). The legend concludes with God restoring Lucy's eyes.

Dante also mentions Lucia in Inferno Canto II as the messenger "of all cruelty the foe" sent to Beatrice from "The blessed Dame" (Divine Mercy), to rouse Beatrice to send Virgil to Dante's aid. She has instructed Virgil to guide Dante through Hell and Purgatory. Lucia is only referenced indirectly in Virgil's discourse within the narrative and doesn't appear; the reasons for her appearing in this intermediary role are still somewhat unclear to scholars, although doubtless Dante had some allegorical end in mind, perhaps having Lucy as a figure of Illuminating Grace or Mercy or even Justice.^[3] Nonetheless Dante obviously regarded Lucia with great reverence, placing her opposite Adam within the Mystic Rose in Canto XXXII of the Paradiso.

In Mark Musa's translation of Dante's Purgatorio, a note is made stating that Lucy was admired by an undesirable suitor for her beautiful eyes. To stay chaste she plucked out her own eyes, a great sacrifice for which God gave her a pair of even more beautiful eyes.

Lucy's name also played a large part in naming Lucy as a patron saint of the blind and those with eye-trouble. She was the patroness of Syracuse.

As her brief day brings the longest night of the year by the old reckoning, John Donne's poem, "A Nocturnal upon St. Lucie's Day, being the shortest day," begins "'Tis the year's midnight, and it is the day's," and expresses, in a mourning piece, the withdrawal of the world-spirit into sterility and darkness, where "The world's whole sap is sunk." [1].

This timing, and her name meaning light, is a factor in the particular devotion in Scandinavian countries to St. Lucy, where young girls dress as the saint in honor of the feast.

 

[edit] See also

• Saint Lucy's Day
• St. Lucie County, Florida, named after the saint

 

[edit] References

1. ^ ^{a b} Ælfric's Lives of Saints. (Walter W. Skeat, ed., Early English Text Society, original series, vols. 76, 82, 94, 114 [London, 1881-1900], revised; as found at the University of Virginia's Old English resource pages). Retrieved on 20 June 2007.
2. ^ "St. Lucy's Day" article. At the "School of the Seasons" website. Retrieved on 20 June 2007.
3. ^ See David H. Higgins' commentary in Dante, The Divine Comedy, trans. C.H. Sisson. NY: Oxford University Press, 1993. ISBN 019920960X. P. 506.

 

[edit] External links

• Jacobus de Voragine, Legenda Aurea: St. Lucy (e-text, in English)
• "Cara Santa Lucia..." (in Italian)
• "St. Lucy" from New Advent's Catholic Encyclopedia.