It is already dark at four thirty. This is that time of year when darkness
predominates, and when one hears so many people complain about the
darkness. The season of Advent takes
place in the dark, at least in the northern hemisphere. And despite the complaints about this time of
the year in which the time of darkness increases every day, we thank God for
this time of preparation for Christmas that forces us to contemplate what that
feast means at the darkest time of the year.
These thoughts were especially present as I read Vespers for the feast of
St. Lucy. This early Church martyr about
whom we know very few historical facts is so very much a deep part of the
Christian Tradition that she appears in the Roman Canon, not by accident but by
grace.
If one goes into an Italian parish in the northeastern part
of the United States, the odds are good that you will see a statue of St. Lucy,
holding her eyes on a paten that she holds out before her as if inviting us to
look and see. Tradition tells us that
she was a martyr in Sicily and that part of her torture was that she had her
eyes plucked out of her head. And so she
became a saint associated with light. I
say “and so” even though the world would
not understand the relation between being made blind with light. But in some way, it is very simple. If one lights a candle at noon in July, the
light of the candles fades in the bright sunlight. It is barely seen. But when one lights a candle at night, the
light of the candle is not only seen but seems to push back, even in a small
way, the darkness that surrounds it.
St. Lucy inspired not only Neapolitan sailors to pray to her
and sing songs entreating her intercession as they sailed along a rocky
coast. She became part of a lovely
tradition in the Scandinavian countries where on the feast of St Lucy one of
the young girls in a family walked down the stairs of her house wearing a
wreath of candles on her head while the rest of the family sang a traditional
song about St. Lucy. It may be true that
this does not often happen any more in this time and in those places, where now
the fact of cold and darkness are dismissed as mere weather and season and where
St. Lucy is just part of a national tradition shorn from its Christian roots. But it was there. And it was real.
The feast of St. Lucy points so gently and so beautifully to
the feast of Christmas that is the feast of coming into the world of the Light
of the world. So many of the great
paintings depicting the birth of Christ use the technique of chiaroscuro to bring to life what this
birth means. The background is in
darkness, and there is a light that surrounds Mary and Joseph, and the source
of that light is both the Child in the manger and the angels that brighten up
the dark night of winter. This calls us
to understand that the Light of the Word of God came into the darkness of this
world and that most did not see this Light at that time because they assumed
that in the darkness there is nothing to see.
And the same is true today.
Christmas “happens” to come at this time of year. Liturgical debunkers will prattle on about
the pagan feast of the Solstice and that this is why the Church “chose” this
particular day of the year to celebrate Christmas. They are boring and do not get it at
all. They seem to have never read the
Prologue to St. John’s Gospel.
As I drove home this evening, many homes had candles in the
window in anticipation of Christmas. I
am amazed, and my heart causes my throat to catch and my eyes to tear as I am
surprised by this dogged attachment to the power of the candle in the darkness,
those who place these candles in the window, whose depth of belief in Christ
runs the gamut even down to the vaguest of belief, that nevertheless recognizes the
image, the icon, the light in the darkness.
Santa Lucia, ora pro nobis.
