Pontifical North American College
Saint Lucy, Memorial
Thursday of the Second Week of Advent
Rev. Kurt Belsole, OSB
December 13, 2018
Today we celebrate the feast of Saint Lucy, a virgin martyr of the early Church from Syracuse in Sicily and whose incorrupt remains are found today in Venice in the church of San Geremia e Santa Lucia. She was probably martyred during the reign of Diocletian and is venerated as the patroness of people who have trouble seeing and those who are poor.
Today’s feast and today’s readings give us two realities to reflect on:
First of all, and I am not usually one to recommend that people go and check out things on the internet, but today you might just want to Google: Sunset in Rome on December 13th. I say that because in this season of Advent as the days are getting shorter, and as the darkness surrounds us more and more, we proclaim, in the Vespers hymn, Christ, the Light of the World, as the Creator of the Stars of Night—Cónditor alme siderum.
The reason that you should Google for sunset today is that on the feast of Saint Lucy, sunset stops getting earlier and slowly, within four days, it begins to get later. In other words, already beginning with today’s feast, the afternoons are starting to get longer. At the same time, sunrise continues to get later until on December 25th when it is one minute earlier than on December 24th.
Saint Lucy may well have been martyred on this day, but if she was not,
I do not know how the astronomers, at the time that Saint Lucy’s feast was assigned to today, knew that sunset would start getting later—but they did—and her name is a living symbol, amidst the season’s darkness—of how Christ, through his saints—brings light into the world. Her very name echoes the Latin word for light: lux, lucis. We celebrate Lucy, because we celebrate Christ who is the Light who has come into the world—a Light that darkness does not overcome.
A second reality to reflect on is the person of Saint John the Baptist—and as the season of Advent continues, it is not just the person of John the Baptist himself, but Christ’s own testimony to John that comes more and more to the fore. This evening, we heard the Lord saying: Among those born of women, there has been none greater than John the Baptist . . . and; All the prophets and the law prophesied up to the time of John. And if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah, the one who is to come.
John is the last of the prophets, and in his own person he summarizes, so to speak, the whole of the history of the People of Israel that is about to come to completion in the Messiah. In a sense, John incarnates the spirit of Advent. He is the sign of God intervening on behalf of his people. He calls the people to prepare the way of the Lord. And he offers to Israel the knowledge of salvation that consists in the forgiveness of sins—the work of the loving kindness of our God—or to put it more literally—per viscera misericordiae Dei nostri—through the bowels of mercy—the splankna theou.
John wants always to give Christ the first place—he is the friend of the Bridegroom and is happy when he hears the Bridegroom’s voice—he himself testifies that Christ must increase and he must decrease—and to look at natural symbolism and Christian liturgy again, it is not without reason that the feast of John the Baptist’s birth is set on June 24 when sunrise in Rome moves from 5:35 AM on the 24th to 5:36 AM on the following day—which, therefore, becomes one minute shorter than the preceding day. In that sense, the Baptist is always a model for us in respect to Christ. He must increase, I must decrease.
In a deeper sense though, the amazing greatness of John the Baptist is that one cannot speak of John without speaking of Christ—and would that this might be said of us—that people could not speak of us without speaking of Christ!
All glory be to him now and forever. Amen.