Sankta Lucia Jungfru & Martyr (286-304?)

http://www.katolik.nu/html/artcl_sankta_lucia.htm

A December tradition i Sweden is Sankta Lucia, originally a Sicilian saint.

In the morning of the 13 of December a procession is held in every school and workplace with singing girls and boys.

The Lucia with candles in her hair.

Lucia symbolizes light and growth for human and beast as she emerges out of the darkness.

She is said to have been beheaded by the sword during the persecutions of Diocletian at Catania in Sicily.

Her body was later brought to Constantinople and finally to Venice, where she is now resting in the church of Santa Lucia.

Because her name means "light" she very early became the great patron saint for the "light of the body"--the eyes. Many of the ancient light and fire customs of the Yuletide became associated with her day.

Thus we find "Lucy candles" lighted in the homes and "Lucy fires" burned in the outdoors. Before the Reformation Saint Lucy's Day was one of unusual celebration and festivity because, for the people of Sweden and Norway, she was the great "light saint" who turned the tides of their long winter and brought the light of the day to renewed victory.

Before the calendar reform, her original feast day (the day of her martyrdom) happened to fall on the shortest day of the year.

The winter solstice was December 13 by the Julian calendar rather than December 21, which it became with the change to the Gregorian calendar in the 1300s, linking it with the far older Yule and Winter festivals of pre-Christian times. Lucy's lore survived the Reformation and calendar reform, which brought the solstice to December 23.

Another Scandianavian custom was for children, on the eve of December 13, to write the word "Lussi" on doors, fences, and walls. In ancient times the purpose of this practice was to announce to the demons of winter that their reign was broken on Saint Lucy's Day, that the sun would return again and the days become longer. "Lucy fires" used to be burned in many parts of northern Europe on December 13. Into the bonfires people would throw incense, and while the flames rose, trumpets and flutes were playing to celebrate the changing of the suns's course.

I hope u all get a wonderfull day.

This is the first day of christmas for me the first day in december that u realy can feel that the 24/12 is near so Merry Christmas everyone.