Saint Lucy, Virgin and Martyr

Lucy was a young Christian of Syracuse in Sicily who died in the persecution of Diocletian about 304; her name is in the Roman Canon of the Mass, and an inscription of about 400 in the catacombs of Syracuse already honours her. Her Acts tell that she went with her mother Eutychia, long ill, to pray at the tomb of St Agatha in Catania, and that after her mother's recovery she gave her dowry to the poor. The suitor she refused denounced her as a Christian. The Acts say that guards could not move her when she was sentenced to a brothel, that fire did not harm her, and that she died by the sword. Her feast falls near the old winter solstice, and in Sweden it is kept with processions of light.