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Lucy was born to a wealthy Christian family in the city of Syracuse, in Sicily, in the late third century. Lucy’s widowed mother eventually began seeking a husband for her daughter, though at a young age Lucy had made a secret vow of perpetual virginity. After reading the Gospel passage of the woman who touched Our Lord’s robe, Lucy convinced her mother to pray at the tomb of the virgin martyr St. Agatha, and her mother’s painful chronic hemorrhages were miraculously cured. Lucy’s mother now happily gave her blessing to her daughter’s vow, but an angry former suitor, a pagan, betrayed Lucy’s Christianity to the authorities. The judge ordered Lucy to be thrown into a brothel, but by the grace of God Lucy remained where she stood, as immovable as a pillar despite the efforts of many men and even oxen to carry her away. Finally she was taken away to suffer various physical torments, including the loss of her eyes, until she died by the sword, in the year of Our Lord 304, though she miraculously remained alive until a priest could bring her the Holy Eucharist. Lucy’s feast marks the approach of the Advent Ember Days, and she has long been the primary patron of the blind and other matters regarding the eyes.
AT Syracuse, in Sicily, the birthday of St. Lucy, virgin and martyr, in the persecution of Diocletian. By the order of the ex-consul Paschasius, she was delivered to profligates, that her chastity might be insulted; but when they attempted to lead her away, they could not succeed, either with ropes or with many yoke of oxen. Then pouring hot pitch, rosin, and boiling oil over her body without injuring her, they finally plunged a sword into her throat, and thus completed her martyrdom.
In Armenia, the martyrdom of the holy martyrs Eustratius, Auxentius, Eugene, Mardarius, and Orestes, in the persecution of Diocletian. Eustratius was first subjected alone to barbarous torments under Lysias. Then he was conducted to Sebaste, where he was tortured together with Orestes under the governor Agricolaus, and being cast into a furnace, yielded up his soul; but Orestes being laid on a bed of red-hot iron, rendered his soul to God. The others were made to endure most grievous torments among the Arabraci, under the governor Lysias, and consummated their martyrdom in different manners. Their relics were afterwards carried to Rome, and placed with due honors in the church of St. Apollinaris.
Near Sardinia, in the island of Solta, the martyrdom of St. Antiochus, under the emperor Adrian.
At Cambrai, in France, St. Aubertus, bishop and confessor.
In Ponthieu, St. Judocus, confessor.
In Alsace, St. Othilia, abbess.
At Moulins, in France, the birthday [into heaven] of St. Jane Frances Fremiot de Chantal, foundress of the nuns of the Visitation of St. Mary, distinguished by the nobility of her birth, by the holiness she constantly manifested in four different states of life, and by the gift of miracles. She was placed among the saints by Clement XIII. Her sacred body was conveyed to Annecy, in Savoy, and interred with great pomp in the first church of her Order. By the command of Clement XIV, her festival is kept by the whole Church on the 21st of August.
℣. And elsewhere many other holy martyrs, confessors, and holy virgins.
℟. Thanks be to God.
