Saint Lucy, by Domenico Beccafumi, 1521

Today is Santa Lucia Day, or the feast day for St. Lucy.

From the Wikipedia page for Saint Lucy:

Saint Lucy (283–304), also known as Saint Lucia or Santa Lucia, was a wealthy young Christian martyr who is venerated as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church, Anglican, Lutheran, and Orthodox Christians. Lucy's Latin name Lucia shares a root (luc-) with the Latin word for light, lux. It is said in Sweden that to vividly celebrate St. Lucy's Day will help one live the long winter days with enough light.

You can read more details about her life and legend in the article - one defining detail of her legend is her eyes were gouged or plucked out, which adds to the symbolism of darkness and light that we attribute to her feast day (and which adds a gruesome touch to all paintings of her!)

I love Santa Lucia Day, because it gives us a clear and beautiful picture of light shining in darkness. About lengthening darkness and the hope of light.

There is a singer-songwriter duo called Storyhill who have written a song referencing Santa Lucia Day and this muddling of darkness and light, both in nature and in our own souls. The song is entitled, "Well of Sorrow," and John Hermanson, one half of Storyhill, says of this song,

I worked in a daycare over in Norway, and in Norway they have a holiday called Santa Lucia Day. They dress up the prettiest, youngest, cutest, blondest, girl in the daycare, and have her parade in with hot cross buns, and she's supposed to bring the happiness and light and joy into the room on the shortest day of the year, the time when the sun starts coming back, each day from then on is longer. But I started thinking about depression...because there's a lot of depression over in Norway, there's actually pretty high suicide rate, and there's a statistic that struck me that actually suicides go up as the light comes back, which is kind of a strange thing. But this is a happy-sounding song, it's hopeful.

The human soul struggles with light as much as it struggles with darkness, I suppose. And even if the darkness pulls us down, it is sometimes hard to step into the light, and to see our lives illuminated. Stepping out of the darkness means bringing everything into the light, the good and the bad. And Advent is messy like this. We are both the "people who walk in great darkness" and the people "who have seen a great light," as Isaiah would say. Sometimes the darkness helps us be quiet, and to feel God's call in our lives ever more clearly. And sometimes we need the light to break in to remind us of God's hope.

And so what I think Santa Lucia can symbolize for us, and what "Well of Sorrow" can sing for us, is that God is always beckoning us to the light, even as God is always with us in the darkness. Hope is what helps us endure the darkness, and hope is what helps us step into the light.


Well of Sorrow
by Storyhill

Come Lucia to the light
Open windows on the brightening snow
And make it though the longest night
A crown of candles for your head tomorrow
I fell in your well of sorrow

You were radiant, all in white arrayed
Long braided hair and burning flame hallow
But I saw through the whole charade
Your red sash and your robe of white were borrowed
I fell in your well of sorrow

Come Lucia to the light
Open windows on the brightening snow
And rage against the coming night
But don't let go of love hat grows in shadow
I fell in your well of sorrow
And I fell in your well of sorrow