Lucy, Martyr at Syracuse, 304
Lucy was a native of Syracuse in Sicily. She lived at the beginning of the fourth century, when the Roman authorities were attempting to re-establish the worship of gods they approved.
The emperor himself was the focus of one of the cults. Tradition has it that Lucy, as a young Christian, gave away her goods to the poor and was betrayed to the authorities by her angry betrothed, who felt that they should have become his property.
She was put to death for her faith in the year 304.
Her name in Latin means light and, as her feast-day falls in December, she became associated with the one true Light who was coming as the redeemer of the world, the Light that would lighten the nations, the Light that would banish darkness and let the eyes of all behold Truth incarnate.
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Samuel Johnson, Moralist, 1784
Samuel Johnson was born in 1709 and is best known as a writer of dictionaries and a literary editor. Yet in his lifetime he was renowned for his religious beliefs and as a firm supporter of the practice and order of the Church of England.
He had been converted to Christianity as a young man after reading William Law’s A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, and his support of the High Church party was unstinting. Amongst his other writings, his essays entitled The Rambler, which appeared twice-weekly between 1750 and 1752, earned him the nickname ‘The Great Moralist’, then a term of affection and honour. He died on this day in 1784.
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