December 13th the church remembered St. Lucy (St. Lucia) who was martyred in 304 AD. In many stories it is said that she was given by her mother to marry a pagan man, but she refused and gave her dowry to the poor. The man she was to marry denounced her as a Christian in a time that that meant a death sentence. Since she could not be burned (the flames would not burn her) or moved (she became as heavy as a mountain…I know the feeling), her eyes were gouged out and she was killed by being stabbed through the neck. Because her eyes were taken, and since her name means ‘light‘, she became the patron saint of the blind.
