Scandalously irreverent and theologically imprecise briefs on heroines of the faith, written by a recovering Protestant agnostic seeker with practically no training and exactly zero filter.
A while back, I stumbled across a bio of an early Christian martyr — a woman, and a total badass. I told my editor he shouldn’t let me say that, but he told me it is a technical term and he’s the one who’s all hyper-Catholic, so take it up with him. Anyway, the short version of this story is that I started to do some digging on her and other saints I’d never heard of.
Armed only with the often fallible knowledge of Google and the power of Wikipedia, I set off this week to learn about a fierce lady saint: St. Lucia of Syracuse (St. Lucy, the one who had her own eyeballs out, but more on that in a bit).
Hers is a tale of a consecrated virgin—there are lots of these—who had the bad fortune of being born in a very rapey Rome. The Pagan patriarchy was alive and well back then, and because her father died when she was only five, she and her mother were left very vulnerable.
But because she was a consecrated virgin who had no siblings, nor plans to have children herself, she intended to distribute her dowry to the poor. The only prob was, she hadn’t run any of this past her mom.
It also didn’t help that her mother, Eutychia, had a “bleeding disorder” which I’m sure really limited what she could wear before Labor Day. Because of this, Eutychia didn’t know how much time she had and since she wanted Lucy to be taken care of, she promised her daughter’s hand to some wealthy Pagan dude.
Hers is a tale of a consecrated virgin—there are lots of these—who had the bad fortune of being born in a very rapey Rome.
But then, one day they decided to go visit the Shrine of Saint Agatha in Catania. It was known for healing people. And while they were there, Saint Agatha came to Lucy in a dream and said her mother would be cured, and she’d be the “Glory of Syracuse.” Which, not gonna lie, feels a bit misleading. Like, if I heard that I’d be super hyped. I wouldn’t necessarily be thinking, “Oh, cool, maybe that means I’m about to get martyred like you, Agatha. Rad! Where do I sign up?”
And obvi that’s not what Lucy was thinking either, because she decided to finally ask her mom if they can give all their riches to the poor—because, I mean, that’s how she’s gonna become the glory and all, right?
Eutychia basically said, “Girl, those riches are supposed to go to your future hubs as a dowry,” but Lucy tells her, “…whatever you give away at death for the Lord’s sake you give because you cannot take it with you. Give now to the true Savior, while you are healthy.”
Finally, her mom agrees, and they start makin’ it rain all over town, giving jewels and gold to people. Only problem, evidently they forgot to tell the Pagan she was supposed to marry. Whoops.
And turns out this dude was a little punk snitch—#snitchesloseriches. So, he goes off and tattles on her to Paschasius, the Governor of Syracuse, like the whiny baby he was.
Paschasius was all, “Here’s the deal, Lucy, burn a sacrifice to the emperor and we’ll be good,” but Lucy refused. And because again, Rome was kinda the WORST for women back then, Pasch then decides to flex his male privilege by sentencing her to defilement in a brothel.
Rage. I felt all the feminist rage at the point. I decided to take a break from Lucy’s story and channel my fury into scrubbing dried spaghetti sauce off a pan, but then I realized the irony of that, and how the patriarchy had won yet again, so I stopped and went back to Wikipedia.
Ok, so this is where God finally stepped in.
Lucy refused to go, to the point where Perv Pasch legit tied oxen to her to drag her to the brothel and that’s when a divine angelic #flockblock took place to protect her.
Paschasius was all, “Here’s the deal, Lucy, burn a sacrifice to the emperor and we’ll be good,” but Lucy refused. And because again, Rome was kinda the WORST for women back then, Pasch then decides to flex his male privilege by sentencing her to defilement in a brothel.
So then, like was trendy back in the day, they piled wood all around her and tried to burn her. But that didn’t work either, which must’ve enraged them enough to clean all the dried spaghetti in Rome.
Eventually, they just stabbed her in the throat and she died. There are more recent accounts of her torture—like 14th century—that say her eyes were gouged out (she’s the patron saint of eye problems), and other stories say she actually gouged them out herself because some thirsty creep liked them. I’m choosing to believe the latter because that’s the most baller. move. of. all. time.
Like, “Oh, you think I have pretty eyes? Cool, take them, and GTHO.” That’s some next level philanthropy right there.
Since I’m not Catholic, I’m not sure if you all have a ‘Patron Saint of Badasses’ yet, but if ya don’t, I’d like to hereby formally petition the Church to assign that to Lucy, because she was a legit HBIC.
Destiny Herndon De La Rosa is the founder of the secular pro-life New Wave Feminists organization. She is a frequent op/ed contributor to the Dallas Morning News and a sought-after speaker.
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