| Lucy
was the daughter of a wealthy family of Syracuse (Sicily)
and was the betrothed of a young man of the same town.
A girl in the 3rd and 4th centuries A.D. normally
expected to spend her life as a wife and mother. |
| Her
father was probably named Lucius; her mother was Eutyichia.
Eutyichia had been suffering from haemorrhages for
several years. Lucy and her mother decided to go to
Catania to pray at the tomb of the martyr Agatha for
a cure. |
There
the martyr appeared to Lucy and told her to give her
riches to the poor.
Back in Syracuse, Lucy fulfilled the request. She
broke off her engagement, and, with a lamp attached
to her head, began to wend her way through the catacombs
in order to distribute her considerable dowry among
the poor. |
| Her
rejected pagan betrothed would not accept her decision,
perhaps because he had designs on her family’s
wealth. Thus, out of revenge, he informed Paschasius,
the governor of Sicily, that Lucy was a Christian
(it was the period of Diocletian's persecutions). |
| Arrested,
threatened and tortured, Lucy proclaimed herself a
follower of Christ and refused to abjure her faith
in any way. |
| Paschasius,
as a consequence, forced her into prostitution and
then condemned her to death. Lucy said: "the
body is only contaminated if the soul agrees"
and thus nobody, not even six men nor six oxen, were
able to move her frail emaciated body which had miraculously
become enormously heavy. |
| Before
her execution, however, Lucy was able to receive Holy
Communion and she predicted both Diocletian's death,
which happened a few years later, and the end of persecutions,
which ceased in 313 A.D. with the proclamation of
Emperor Constantine's edict. |
| Today
St Lucy's body rests in the church of Sts. Jeremy
and Lucy in Venice. |
|
Statue
of St. Lucy in a recent procession |
|
