Santa Lucia Feast in Campania, Italy

Santa Lucia is very loved saint in Campania. There are many settlings (villages and districts) that have her name. When I joined a trekking association for a walk over Sorrento, we passed a medieval village S.Lucia on our way to the S.Antonio chapel and could see the preparations for S. Lucia feast that is celebrated on December, 13.

First, we could see a special little place near this church prepared for the fire. Than, just passed the church, there were entire deposits of wood for it. They said, they had to collect enough wood to maintain fire all the night.



I was surprised:
Is it not a pagan usage to burn wood in the honour of a deity? No, they said: the name of the saint "Lucia" means "luce"="light" -that is why they burn all that wood in her honour. If you don't know -St. Lucia was blinded different times for her devotion to Christianity but the eyes turned to see every time she was blinded. So, you can translate the name as "light" from this point of view, too.

From the top of the mountain we had a very beautiful view on Sorrento...



...this is the same place with zoom on... the tree ...on the trunk (in the center of the green area) where the bonfire will be maintained all the night.
It's incredible how the pagan rituals are deep implanted in our coscience. Don't you think?