Lucy, St.
LUCY, ST.
Martyr in Syracuse, Sicily, 304. A fifth-century Greek inscription attests to her cult in Syracuse; she was later introduced into the Gelasian and Gregorian sacramentaries and in the martyrology of st. jerome. Her cult spread to Rome, Milan, and Ravenna in the sixth and seventh centuries; gregory i (the great) probably introduced her name and Agatha's, into the Canon of the Mass. A legendary fifthor sixth-century passio in Greek and Latin tells how in a vision St. agatha encouraged her to remain constant to her death in her virginity. Her relics, according to one account, were taken from Syracuse to Abruzzo in the eighth century and from there to Metz in 969, an arm given to Henry III in 1042 going to the monastery of Luitburg. According to the other version, the relics went to Constantinople in 1038 and were brought to Venice in 1204. Lucy, patroness of the eyes, is frequently portrayed with two eyes in a dish. She appears also with a palm of martyrdom, a lamp (or a book), and a sword (or a knife) in her neck. She has frequently been a subject for art. Before the Gregorian calendar reform her feast was the shortest day of the year, and predictions were made for the coming 12 months on the basis of events of the 12 days between her feast and Christmas.
Feast: Dec. 13.
Bibliography: guerdal, Santa Lucia, attualità di un messaggio: storia, culto, leggenda (Milan 1976).
[e. g. ryan]