Saint Lucy’s Day

Happy Saint Lucy's Day everyone!

The children from the local kindergarten came today to sing the Lucia Song for us at work. They were beautiful as they walked in the traditional Lucia procession whilst singing. So sweet.

I made 2 small videos:
See the first one here!
And the second one here!

I have uploaded a couple of extra pictures too.

Saint Lucy's Day, also called the Feast of Saint Lucy, is a Christian feast day celebrated on 13 December in Advent, commemorating Saint Lucy, a 3rd-century martyr under the Diocletianic Persecution, who according to legend brought "food and aid to Christians hiding in the catacombs" using a candle-lit wreath to "light her way and leave her hands free to carry as much food as possible". 

Saint Lucy’s Day is celebrated most commonly in Scandinavia, where Saint Lucy is called Santa Lucia and is represented as a lady in a white dress and red sash with a crown or wreath of candles on her head.

Saint Lucy:
According to the traditional story, Lucy was born of rich and noble parents about the year 283. Her father was of Roman origin, but died when she was five years old, leaving Lucy and her mother without a protective guardian. 

Lucy was seeking help for her mother's long-term illness at the shrine of Saint Agnes, in her native Sicily, when an angel appeared to her in a dream beside the shrine. As a result of this, Lucy became a devout Christian, refused to compromise her virginity in marriage and was denounced to the Roman authorities by the man she would have wed.

According to the legend, she was threatened to be taken to a brothel if she did not renounce her Christian beliefs, but the priests were unable to move her, even with a thousand men and fifty oxen pulling. Instead they stacked materials for a fire around her and set light to it, but she would not stop speaking, insisting that her death would lessen the fear of it for other Christians and bring grief to non-believers. One of the soldiers stuck a spear through her throat to stop these denouncements, but to no effect.
Saint Lucy was able to die only when she was given the Christian sacrament. 

In another story, Saint Lucy was working to help Christians hiding in the catacombs during the terror under the Roman Emperor Diocletian, and in order to bring with her as many supplies as possible, she needed to have both hands free. She solved this problem by attaching candles to a wreath on her head.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Lucy's_Day