Today we pray for the gift to see. Not only seeing light, color and people/things, but seeing deeply things of God –in the spiritual life — through the intercession of Saint Lucy of Syracuse (283–304). It is a fervent pray of mine that Saint Lucy will open the eyes of us all to see truth, beauty and goodness; I also pray for my friend Ken whose birthday is celebrated today, and for those who live eye problems.
The feast of St. Lucy whose name from the Latin lux, for “light”, reminds us who dwell in the still darkening northern hemisphere that our days will soon be getting longer again.
One her biographers say “Some accounts have Lucy slain by having her throat thrust through with sword.
“Other accounts say that to protect her virginity she disfigured herself by cutting her own eyes out and sending them to her suitor, a plot likely to discourage him.
“St. Lucy is therefore the patroness of sight.
“St. Lucy shows up fairly often in Dante’s great Divine Comedy. She is first in the Inferno. It is Lucy who asked Beatrice to help Dante. In Purgatory the eagle that bears Dante upward in a dream is actually Lucy who is bearing him to the gate of Purgatory. Eagles, of course, are “eagle-eyed” and see very well. In the Paradiso she is placed directly across from Adam in the Heaven of the Rose. She can gaze directly at God.
The photo, above, is from the Church of St. Lucy in Rome taken by Fr JZ.