Saint of Light

Baptized into the Lutheran church at four months of age on Easter Sunday 1973, I was marked in more ways than one. Entrusted to my godparents, parents, and members of the church community, I was to be raised according to the Lutheran beliefs. And with the last name Swanson, I joined an elect group of people with names like Patterson, Anderson, Johnson, and Townsend, because half of my gene pool could be traced back to the motherland, Sweden.

When you grow up in a Lutheran church composed mostly of Swedes, there are two climacteric events, besides the obvious feasts of Christmas and Easter, which are heralded and revered with gusto: Midsummer in June and St. Lucia Day in December. As a young girl, I remember the anticipation, the mystery: Which teen-aged girl would be the Lucia Bride? and Would I someday be chosen to perform this part? As a member of the children's choir, I recall walking into a darkened auditorium at my church where men, women, and children assembled to commemorate this special day. Dressed in traditional Swedish costumes, the only light driving out the darkness was that emitted from candles each of us children grasped in our hands. As we entered, we would sing verse after verse, in Swedish and English, the song tributing this Saint of Light.

Night treads with heavy step. Round yard and hearth

Woods brood in darkness now. Sun's gone from earth

But through the darkness comes. With brightness glowing

Saint of the heav'nly light. Our Savior showing

Maiden so sweet and fair, Bright candles in your hair,

Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia!

Child of the holy light, Banish the dark of night,

Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia!

And then she would appear; an adolescent girl clothed in a white gown, a crimson sash cinched around her waist, a crown of seven candles aflame upon her head, a tray of bread and coffee to serve her guests. From the eyes of a young child, it was beautiful and magical, like Christmas Day. My family left the Lutheran church when I was in eighth grade; I never was the Lucia Bride.

St. Lucia was a young, Sicilian woman who lived in the late third century. So committed was she to Christ, she desired that He alone be her Bridegroom. Although promised in marriage by her mother to a pagan man, Lucia ultimately was given permission by her mother to terminate her betrothal and give her dowry to the poor. Upon learning of Lucia's rejection, her fiance betrayed her to the governor of the island as being a Christian, which was illegal at the time. After being arrested for her faith and refusing to sacrifice to idols, St. Lucia received the crown of martyrdom when a soldier stabbed his sword into her throat. Her adoration by the Swedes stemmed from an event which occurred in the Middle Ages. According to Swedish tradition, in the midst of a horrific winter and famine in southern Sweden, a ship sailing across Lake Vannern appeared. At the prow stood a young woman dressed all in white and emanating a holy light. Once upon shore, the maiden dispersed bag after bag of wheat until the ship was empty, thus saving the people from starvation and imminent death.

Last Sunday evening, each of my sons deferred my offering that one of them play the role of St. Lucia, and so, finally, twenty years after the fact, I acquiesced and became the Lucia Bride. It was nothing fancy. There was just the five of us. There was not a white gown to don nor a crown of lighted candles to adorn. Instead, I plopped one of the boys' homemade autumn crowns - a hat cut out from a used Cheerios box decorated with disintegrating leaves and buttons - which lost most of its grandeur on my head. Rather than flaming candles, I concocted a quirkie seasonal replacement - seven pine cones strapped on with orange pipe cleaners. We did form a procession (I mean, we are Orthodox; we love to process), and with lights dimmed, lit candle in my hand, a plate full of ginger cookies precariously in Thomas' hold, our family circled our home singing "Santa Lucia."

By the third stanza, the electric mayhem duo was causing enough of a ruckus that cookies were spilling onto the floor, shouts of, "No!" were being heard, and there was laughter. We concluded our first annual St. Lucia celebration by reading a lovely book, Lucia Saint of Light by Katherine Bolger Hyde which the boys recently received from my parents. And as Russell and Elliot bumbled around our room, turning the box fan off and on, moving icons from the icon table to the bedside table, Jared, Thomas, and I snuggled on our rumpled bed. And there was more laughter as my dear husband put little Thomas into the kind of near-frenzy only possible for a five-year-old boy as he insisted on calling the governor from the story, Paschasius, "Pass Gas"-ius. Oh potty humor. I am confident, it will be the one and only thing Thomas remembers about this day.

With what wreaths of praise shall we crown Lucy, the namesake of light? What

diadem of honor befits the brow of her who willingly gave up her life for her

heavenly Bridegroom, bringing Him as dowry, as though they were priceless rubies,

the drops of her precious blood, shed by the sword for His sake?

Come, you who love the martyrs, and let us fashion wreaths of praise, glorifying

her who in her pure virginity, her blameless life and spotless death glorified above

all the Holy Trinity, the one true God, and put to shame the mindlessness of the

pagans! For having been faithful to Christ unto the end, she has truly entered into

the joy of her Lord, and abides forever in the eternal bliss of His mansions on high.

From the Aposticha for the Feast of St. Lucia

December 13