Friday, December 13, 2024

*** This is a rough transcript of today’s show ***

It is the 13th of December 2024. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

It is St. Lucy’s Day- a big day in the Nordic countries. This is the start of the Holiday season for many, and they do so with processions in honor of St. Lucy- a play on the word “light” (Lux) she comes on her feast day, just as Christ the Light of the World is coming too.

St. Lucy was a popular virgin martyr from around the year 300. We’ve done shows on her in the past.

But because today is St. Lucy’s Day, December 13th, when Bartolomeo Broccadelli and his wife Gentlina welcomed the first of their eight children- a girl- into this word on this day in 1476, they named her Lucy. She would be another St. Lucy, one of the more renowned, popular, and controversial of her day.

We will start with the big story for some: the Broccadelli were minor nobility in Umbria (Central Italy) in a town today called “Narni” and in Latin: “Narnia”. And yes, our figure is indeed called Lucy of Narnia- as in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (a Christmas movie, by the way- but especially the 1979 Animated version, directed by Bill Melendez, who oversaw the Peanuts Christmas Special).

Lewis told a friend that he took the name Narnia from this town, midway between Assisi and Rome- he liked how it sounded. As we see, Lucy was a girl sometimes misunderstood for her piety and purity and had visions others couldn’t see. However, Lewis stated that Lucy was named for his Goddaughter, Lucy Barfield.

This Lucy on the cusp of the 16th century was something of a wonder child- there were reports of her piety and the miraculous, including conversations with an apparition later found out to be, allegedly, St Catherine of Sienna.

She expressed a desire to enter a convent, and while her father did not deny her this, he died before she was of age, and her uncle wanted to marry off the 14-year-old girl. She would reject all suitors until one Count Pietro agreed to Marry her as long as she could keep her Sisterly vows. One story has her placing a crucifix in their bed as a kind of divider.

But he soon became jealous and locked her away, according to the story, for all of the Lenten season in 1494. She escapes and enters a convent, Pietro tries to kill Lucy’s confessor and burns down the convent.

By now, this young woman has become such a story that she is welcomed to Rome by the Pope himself, Alexander VI. She will go on to found a convent in Viterbo where her legend grows- she is said to have received the Stigmata, and the Pope had her undergo five tests over six years to determine the validity of the phenomenon- they were determined to be legitimate, and she herself became something of a destination for pilgrims (which included Pietro who is said to have reformed and himself become a monk).

The Duke of Ferrara (a big deal; he’s a key figure in the Italian Renaissance) wants her to found a convent in Ferrara, and under his leadership, she is protected. However, her patronage system soon grew old and died. She was accused of some unknown heresy by a superior in the Order who had come to Ferrara (it may have been that Lucy was favorable to one of the various reforming groups during this time, and she was exiled) she was sent into captive solitude for the next thirty-nine years, only sporadically visited. Still, even then stories about the mystic, known about since her childhood and feted by the Pope and Duke- became more alluring.

Like the original St. Lucy, this one, too, would become an outsized favorite amongst the people in relation to what we actually know about her. It is worth noting Lucy Broccadelli in the long tradition of female mystics and religious figures butting the general trend of male domination in other aspects of life. Whatever we know of this woman, she was seen as pious and worthy of attention- even (or in some way, I’m sure) on account of her controversies amongst her order.

Lucy was beatified in 1710 by the Roman Catholic Church, and she is recognized on the day of her death on the 15th of November 1544- born on this, St. Lucy’s Day in 1476, the Blessed Lucy Broccadelli- or “St. Lucy of Narnia” was 67 years old.

The last word for today is from the daily lectionary and a word from 2 Corinthians 9:

God is able to bless you abundantly so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. 9 As it is written:

“They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor;
    their righteousness endures forever.”

10 Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. 11 You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 13th of December 2024, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man quite happy I’m back on LogicX today, and out of that blasted native app… He is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who was sure he went to high school with Lisa Broccadelli, maybe her sister Stephanie… this name is hardly medieval… Dan van Voorhis. 

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.