13 December was the darkest day of the old Julian calendar. Thus, today in the Gregorian calendar is the feast of St. Lucy, whose name from the Latin for “light”, reminds us who dwell in the still darkening northern hemisphere that our days will soon be getting longer again.
Lucy will usually be depicted in art with a lantern, or with a crown of candles, or – most commonly – with her own eyes on a platter.
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. It seems that St. Lucy was something of a patroness for Dante and that he was devoted to her because, as we glean from various works, he may have had a problem not just with his eyes but also struggling with sins of the eyes.
This week we also have Ember Days, which in Advent come after the Feast of St. Lucy. Do you remember the little mnemonic poem? “Lenty, Penty, Crucy, Lucy”, or else “”Fasting days and Emberings be / Lent, Whitsun, Holyrood, and Lucie.”
Ember Wednesday will be the Missa aurea.
In the meantime, in the Ordinary Form, we have a new, corrected translation! Let’s have a look.
This prayer was not in the pre-Conciliar editions of the Missale Romanum. It is based on a prayer in the ancient Gelasian Sacramentary for St. Felicity (VIIII KALENDAS DECEMBRIS).
Intercessio nos, quaesumus, Domine,
sanctae Luciae virginis et martyris gloriosa confoveat,
ut eius natalicia et temporaliter frequentemus,
et conspiciamus aeterna.
First, you will have immediately caught the elegant hyperbaton, the separation of intercessio and the adjective that goes with it, gloriosa. There is also a nice et… et construction.
Confoveo is “to cherish, caress, keep warm.” It is a compound of foveo which essentially is “to be hot, to roast”. It obviously deals with heat, flame, light. This is a good word for this time of year in the northern hemisphere (unless you are in, say, Florida).
Conspicio is “to look at attentively, to get sight of, to descry, perceive, observe”. We are obviously dealing the seeing and sight. This word should ring mental bells for the throngs of you readers who attended Holy Mass in the Novus Ordo celebrated in Latin. Conspicio is in the Collect for the 3rd Sunday of Advent, used in a an extremely clever way juxtaposed to exspecto. They share a common root. But I digress.
Natalicia refers to birthdays. In the Christian adaptation of this word, we are always referring to the saints being “born” into heaven.
OBSOLETE ICEL (1973):
Lord,
give us courage through the gracious prayers of Saint Lucy.
As we celebrate her entrance into eternal glory,
we ask to share her happiness in the life to come.
Here is the usual clunky parataxis we know so well from the obsolete translation. As usual, the translation is dumbed-down. Do you see anything of the concept of vision? Sight? Is there anything in there that harks to the time of year?
NEW CORRECTED ICEL (2011):
May the glorious intercession
of the Virgin and Martyr Saint Lucy
give us new heart, we pray, O Lord,
so that we may celebrate her heavenly birthday
in this present age
and so behold things eternal.
We are obviously much closer to the Latin in this new version. Also, that behold at the end is consoling.
Reason #7569320 for a new, corrected translation.
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Not being flippant here, but another account that I heard it was her breasts that were amputated and over time the members on the tray were shrunken in size so it would not be quite as gross and thus the story changed to “eyes.”
I would think if she removed her own eyes that would have disqualified her on the grounds of self-mutilation?
Hey, we are cold in FL too. It’s 58 degrees out there!!!
Frjim4321,
I find your post to be odd and your tone strange. I would think you would have recourse to St. Lucy in your situation; not call her saintliness into question. In my view, she is the light that opposes Lucifer. She is great to me.
St. Agatha’s the one whose breasts were cut off, and which are sometimes changed to breast-shaped loaves or cakes on a tray instead of her actual breasts.
Eyes on a tray are plenty gross.
Probably most people do not know this more recent bit of Lucy-lore, but she was kidnapped (well, her saintly remains) and held for ransom in November 1981. The case was solved in a short time, however, and her remains were found by her feast day, December 13, 1981, because they hired a Private Eye.
> This week we also have Ember Days,
Aren’t the Ember Days next week?
>Aren’t the Ember Days next week?
Yes; the Ember Days of Advent are the Wednesday, Friday and Saturday following the Third Sunday of Advent. The connection with St. Lucy’s feast is coincidental. At any rate, the “rule” still holds, but since St. Lucy’s feast fell on a Thursday, the Embertide begins next Wednesday.