Today the Primitive Catholic Community commemorates Lucy, a young Sicilian who gave her life after giving away everything else she possessed.
Lucy
was a native of Syracuse in Sicily. She lived at the beginning of the fourth
century, when the Roman authorities were attempting to re-establish the worship
of gods they approved. The emperor himself was the focus of one of the cults.
Tradition has it that Lucy, as a young Christian, gave away her goods to the
poor and was betrayed to the authorities by her angry betrothed, who felt that
they should have become his property. She was put to death for her faith in the
year 304. Her name in Latin means Light and, as her feast-day fell in December,
she became associated with the one true Light who was coming as the redeemer of
the world, the Light that would lighten the nations, the Light that would
banish darkness and let the eyes of all behold Truth incarnate.
