Advent Meditations: Monday 14 December

Dec 14, 2020 by Jill

 ON THE CALENDAR, Feast of St. Lucy, Martyr of Syracuse, 304 – According to the traditional story, she was born to rich and noble parents about 283. Her father died when she was young. Fifty-two years prior to Saint Lucy, Saint Agatha, virgin, and martyr was executed. Saint Agatha’s fame attracted many visitors to her relics at Catania. Lucy and her mother, Eutychia, made the pilgrimage, where Eutychia was healed of a hemorrhage. Lucy persuaded Eutychia to distribute a great part of their riches among the poor. This angered the young man to whom she was betrothed. He reported her as a Christian. She was executed by with sword in the year 303. She was first condemned to suffer the shame of prostitution but in the strength of God she stood unmovable and could not be dragged away to the place of shame. God also saved her from being set on fire. According to some stories, Saint Lucy’s eyes were plucked out during her torture and God miraculously restored her sight. Her feast day is celebrated especially in Sweden, where elements of light and sight, as well as the martyr’s crown, are combined in a beautiful family custom appropriate for Advent celebration.

Meditation -. The second lesson today from 2 Peter offers us some important spiritual counsel as we make our way through the next 12 days of Christmas…he urges us to “make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love.” We are being asked to participate in the very character of the one whose birth we say we await. What better way to prepare people who are dubious of the Messiah than to live in the very virtues that the Christ himself incarnated! Self-control, perseverance, Godliness/Holiness, kindness, and love are not simply good ideas or having an attitude of “holiday tidings of good cheer”. No this is about changing the world which by necessity requires discipline and determination seeking insight and understanding of the things of Christ.

Apparently, Saint Lucy whose feast is today understood that as we consider how she lived her life amidst great adversity and threat (not unlike the world we may be facing today) (along with countless clouds of witnesses). We have here again yet another invitation to get ready by making our lives resemble His just as Blessed Lucy did. She is a genuine authentic heroine, an inspiration for all Christians. The moral courage of the young Sicilian martyr shines forth as a guiding light, just as bright for today’s youth as it was in A.D. 304.

PRAYER: O Gracious Lord, whose servant Blessed Lucy demonstrated the light of faith without counting the cost. Bestow upon us we pray light of faith, increase and preserve this light in our souls so that we may avoid evil, be zealous in the in the faith, commit to acts of charity and abhor nothing so much as the blindness and the darkness of evil and of sin. Amen

Discipline/Activity – This day in Advent is especially significant in Scandinavia and Italy where the day has traditionally been celebrated with bonfires, processions, and other illuminations. In Sicily St. Lucy, dressed in a blue cloak showered with stars, brings gifts to children on the eve of her feast day. Children leave their shoes outside on St. Lucy’s Eve in order to collect her offerings. Sicilians also remember the miracle that St. Lucy performed when famine struck the island. According to legend, hunger had weakened so many that the people of Syracuse went as a group to the church to ask the saint to deliver them. While they were praying, a ship loaded with grain sailed into the harbor. For this reason, Italians celebrate St. Lucy’s Day by eating a boiled wheat dish called cuccia or cuccidata.

ANCIENT WISDOM/PRESENT GRACE: “Though the light shines on things unclean, yet it is not thereby defiled. — St. Augustine of Hippo from The Confessions.

See also:  Advent Devotion 11 – Devastating News, from GAFCON

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