Saint Lucia, pray for us

(first published Sunday, December 13, 2009 on Cebu Daily News Faith and inquirer.net, the website of the Philippine Daily Inquirer)

Upon learning some years ago that my mother's late Lolo Lucio Lopez was born on this day, I surmised that his parents—either by their religiosity or heeding a pious Christian's prompts—must have named him in honor of Lucia, the turn of the fourth century, Roman virgin saint. Her martyrdom is remembered by Catholics and Orthodox everywhere and by Lutherans in Scandinavia every December 13.

An image of Saint Lucia is enshrined on the second-floor narthex of Cebu City's Our Lady of Mount Carmel church on Magallanes Street. The statue is faithful to the rather shocking Lucia iconography that the likes of Italian Renaissance-Mannerist painter Domenico di Pace Beccafumi (1486–1551) propagated: the saint as a woman clad in red and holding with one hand a plate containing a pair of eyes.

Tradition generally holds that during the persecution of Christians circa the year 304, either Emperor Diocletian himself or Roman soldiers gouged out Lucia's eyes with a fork. This was in retaliation for her refusal to worship as divine a statue of the emperor and deny the lordship of Jesus Christ.

In a version of Dante's “Purgatorio,” Lucia plucks out her own eyes to turn down a suitor (who hugely admired the saint's beautiful eyes) in light of her total gift of self to Jesus. God took pity on Lucia and gave her lovelier new eyes.

Generations of optometrists and blind and visually impaired persons, whom the Church placed under Saint Lucia's patronage, have found hope and solace in the “eye portion” of the long story of her passion and eventual death. The episode is one of many heavenly assurances that God continues down the centuries to restore sight, miraculously or through the agency of medical arts, to people whose prayer is “Lord I want to see.” (Luke 18:41)

On another plane, Saint Lucia, whose name shares a root word with lucis, Latin for light, is patroness of sight and light because the choices she made amid difficulties in favor of faith were poetry in motion founded on our Lord Jesus' words: “The lamp of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.” (Matthew 6:22)

Single or pure eyes enlightened Lucia to radically choose no love for her soul apart from Jesus and no Lord for her life apart from him. As a consequence, her whole being, “like the stars for ever and ever,” (Daniel 12:3) is for people throughout the ages a bright signpost to God and example of faithfulness to him.

Like Lucia's, the eyes of everyone who believes in Jesus ought to function beyond skin-deep or superficial seeing. Our Master, basically explaining how we can make our eyes single or pure, and promising on those with purified eyes the greatest of rewards, said: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Matthew 5:8)

It follows that the single or pure eye, exclusive to the pure in heart, sees God in its very soul, in every man and woman, and behind every created thing. Singleness or purity of heart and vision therefore leads, among other results, to a person's modesty, lest in lust he defiles anyone who is God's home, and to his serenity, lest in belligerence he finds himself fighting not only against his fellowmen, but “fighting against God himself.” (Acts 5:39)

So we pray that Saint Lucia may intercede with God for purity of heart and singleness of sight, not only for those captive to lust, but for all who are involved in conflict, especially in Mindanao's discordant spots – Agusan del Sur, Basilan, and Maguindanao – from where political thuggery, hostage-taking, and banditry casts despair's pall over the Philippine archipelago.

Only purity of heart and singleness of sight can tame and cause contrition and repentance leading to acts of reparation in the hearts of the wicked: they who failed to see God's image and likeness in the people – someone's son or daughter, husband or wife, mother or father, brother or sister, relative or friend, God's beloved children, everyone – they harmed or killed.

Only purity of heart and singleness of sight can chase away the shadows of vengefulness in the victimized and bereaved (which by extension includes every Filipino), so that any crusade for justice may be unblemished by vigilantist or politically expedient injustices in the brilliance of its righteousness.

Only purity of heart and singleness of sight can sweeten the bitterness of those who mourn as they fumble to rise and walk again in this valley of tears, seeing in hope their dead alive again in the peaceful arms of their Creator, and envisioning in hope a happy reunion with them one day.

As we light our pink Advent candles today, pray for us, Saint Lucia, that we may have pure hearts and eyes, that seeing God in Christ who is light of the world everywhere and in everyone, we too may know how to shine and give the light of love to one another, especially the heartbroken and war-torn. Amen.