9781644135945

The Light of the World
St. Lucy made a pilgrimage with her sick mother to the grave of St. Agatha. Her mother recovered
her health, and in gratitude St. Lucy begged her mother to be allowed to live as a virgin and to
distribute her possessions to the poor. When she had returned to her native city, Syracuse, she
sold all that she possessed and gave it to the needy. She renounced marriage with a man to whom
she had been promised against her will. The disappointed suitor accused her to the authorities
for being a Christian. In 304 A.D. she suffered martyrdom without flinching.
This blessed martyr withdrew from everything that did not come from her beloved bridegroom,
Christ. “Thou hast loved justice and hated iniquity” (Introit). Thou hast given up everything
that does not come from Him, or which might hinder thy approach to Him.
In the sacred liturgy St. Lucy is a type and a symbol of Holy Mother the Church and of the
Christian soul. With St. Lucy the Church and the soul of man advance to meet the heavenly
bridegroom, through the reception of Holy Communion, at the moment of death, and finally
in the Last Judgment. St. Lucy, and with her the Church and the soul of man, has lifted her gaze
from purely temporal affairs to contemplate the things of heaven. She is concerned now with
her union with God, with her betrothal with Christ, with the kingdom of grace and holiness,
and with the time of her eternal nuptials with Jesus, her beloved. She has understood that the
kingdom of God is like a hidden treasure, for which a man, discovering it, will dispose of all that
he has that he may buy it. She knows that the kingdom of heaven is the priceless pearl which a
man should acquire at the cost of all his other possessions (Gospel).
May St. Lucy be our model in her eagerness to sacrifice her life for Christ, in the impetuosity of
her search for betrothal with Christ. “After her shall virgins be brought to the king” (Offertory).
In the Offertory of the Mass, St. Lucy leads the chorus of virgins to the King. By this group
of virgins is meant the Church and all Christian souls. At the hour of sacrifice we wish to be
offered with St. Lucy as a sacrifice of love. And the offering we make of ourselves during the
Mass should be continued in the trials, sufferings, and exertions of the day. Today we wish to
be offered to almighty God, together with St. Lucy and with Christ the King of martyrs, as a
holocaust of love. “Thou hast loved justice and hated iniquity.” I must be another St. Lucy; that
must be the true inspiration of the present feast.
Free from all earthly attachments, we hasten forward with St. Lucy and with Holy Mother
the Church, in this advent period of our earthly life, to meet the bridegroom who is approaching.
For He is the hidden treasure, the priceless pearl. No one else and nothing else has any value
or attraction in our eyes. “I count all things to be but loss for the excellent knowledge of Jesus
Christ my Lord; for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but as dung,
that I may gain Christ” (Phil 3:8).
Prayer
Graciously hear us, O God of our salvation, and grant that we who keep with rejoicing the
festival of blessed Lucy, Thy virgin and martyr, may profit by the devout fervor we feel in so
doing. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
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