Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 9.djvu/455

 LWIT 41

fdeven reli|;iout) coniiiiuuitirat of woinpn. At 11 ic doae of the niDeteenth ceDtury the dioceue could boast of the following establiBhrnentB conducted by nligious: 42 infant schools, 1 boys' orphanage, 5 giria' orphanages, 1 alms-house, 15 hospitals or hos- pices, and 13 communitiea for the care of the sick in their homes. At the end of 1907 the Diocese of Lugon had a population of 441,311, 36 canonical parishes, 262 "succursalca" parishes, 154 curacies, 12 chapels- of-ease, and 633 priesta.

L* F0HTE[

BttQiiti dt Zuc"" (Foalenay-lv- Cqmlc. 1847:|; nn Trew* !.»>•-

■ JlDNTA

dt Lveon, I BUB Di V la CtMcepti tittit (ViiE___. ..

I^nmdri dr< fom- — ,

dt Viglite dr Luton (Fontriu le-Comle. 1SB2); LabadlKb RecMtreAea hiatar-igue* fvt Lu^' (Lueon, 1907): 1-irEioix, Ricl Ut» A iufon (Puris. 1M90): I. CDBiB, Uuioifp de I'abbnuf Mu'IlBaif (FoDleDsy-lp-dimL., I8B2); CHEv*i.irH, T->pabibl.. :•.

Georqbs Goyau.

Lae7, Saint, a virgin and nuutTT of Syracuse in Sici- ly, wnosc feast is celebrated ay Latins and Greeks alike on 13 Dec. According to the traditional ston', she waa bom of rich and noble nsrents about the yedr 283. Her father was of Roman origin, but his early death left her dependent upon her mother, whose name, Euty- chia, seems to indicate that Bhe came of a Greek stock. Like BO many of the early martyrs, Lucy had conse- crated her virginity to God, and she hoped to devote all her worldly goods to the service of the poor. Her mother was not so single- minded, but an occasion offered itself when Lucy could carry out her gener- ous resolutions. The fame of the virgin-martyr Agatha, who haa been executed fifty-two years before, in the Decian persecution, was at- tracting numerous visitors to her relies at Catania, not fiftr miles from Syracuse, ana many miracles had been wrought through her intercession. Eutychia was therefore persuaded to make a pilgrimage to Catania, in the hope of being cured of a luemorrhage, from which she had been suffering for several veara. There ahe was in fact cured, and Lucy, availing herself of the opportunity, persuaded her mother to allow her to distribute a great part of their riches among the poor. The largess stirred the greed of the unworthy youth towhom Lucy had been unwillingly betrothed, and he denounced her to Paschaaius, the Governor of Sicily. It was in the year .303, during the fierce persecution of Diocletian. She wa? first of all con- demned to suffer the shame of prostitution; but in the strei«1h of fiod she stood immovable, so that they mniJcniot cirag her away to the place of shame. Fag- giMv wire then heaped about }>eT and net on fire, and

4 LtlOT

again Goil saved her. Finally, she mot her death by the sword. But before she died she foret«td the p<mish- ment of Paschasiua and the speedy termination of the persecution, adding that Diocletian would reign no more, and Ma;dmian would meet his end. So, strengthened with the Bread of Life, she won her crown of vir^iuty and martyrdom.

This beautiful story cannot unfortunately be ac- cepted without criticism. The details may be only a repetition of similar accounts of a virgin martyrs life and death. Moreover, the prophecy was not realiied. if it required that Maximian "should die immediately after the termination of his reign. Pas- chasiua. dJso, is u strange name for a pagan to bear (see Schill in Kraus, "Real- Encyc", s, v. "Namefi"). However, eince there is no other evidence by which the story may l>e tested, it can only he suggested that the (acts peculiar to the saint's stor)' deserve special notice. Among these, the place and time of her death can hardly be questioned; for the rest, the most nota- ^ith

blea

Rt. Agatim and the n bus cure of lihityehia, and it is to l>e hojied that these have not been introduced by the pious compiler of (he saint s Btory or a popu- lar instinct to link together two imtional saints. The story, such as we have eiven if, is to l>e traced Fmck to the Acta, and these protiably lieloiig to the fifth century. Though they can- not be regarded as accurate, there can be no doulrt of the (treat veneration that was .thowii to St. Lucy by the early Church. She is one of those few female sninta

1 the

Tlepolo, Church

if St. Gregory, and " arc special prayers < :i^n|ihnoratert in the ancient Roman Martvrology. St. Aldhrlni (d 709) is the first es her Acta logiveaiiii] account of her life and death. This he does in prose in the "Tractatua de Laudibus \'irginitatis" (Tract. x!ii, P. L., LXXXIX, 142) and again, in verse, in the poem " De Laudibus Virginum (P. L., LXXXIX, 26B). Following him, the Venerable Bede inserts the story in his Martj'rologj-.

With regard to her relics, Sigebert (1030-1112). a monk of GemNoun, in his "serrao do Sancta Lucia", says that her liody lay undisturbed in Sicily tor 400 years, until Faroald. Duke of Spoleto, captured the island and transferred the s^nt s body to Corfiniimi in Italy. Thence it was removed by the Emperor Otho I, 972, to Mete and deposited in the church of St. Vincent. And it was from this shrine that an arm of the saint was taken to the moniujterj- of I.uitburg in the Diocese of Spires — an incident celebrated by Sigeltert himself in verae. The .subsequent history of the relics is not clear. On their capture of Oonstamti-