gather: St. Lucy's Day
Glowing crowns light our way
'Tis the year's midnight, and it is the day's,
Lucy's, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks;
The sun is spent, and now his flasks
Send forth light squibs, no constant rays…John Donne (1572—1631), excerpt from “A Nocturnal upon St. Lucy's Day”
Welcome, friends. I’m Kristin: a Pacific Northwest artist, mom, & farmer offering support for seasonal, local, liturgical living. Together, we’ll explore the agrarian heritage of the Church calendar and ideas of sacred time & sacred place.
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For the past few years, I’ve hosted a Liturgical Life group. We’re a diverse gathering - of all ages, from a variety of denominations, learning alongside each other and working to graft the traditions of the liturgical calendar into our own varied circumstances.
After our St. Lucy party on Friday evening, as we were washing a few dishes & cleaning up, our son came up to me and said: “One year.”
I had no idea what he was getting at, so he continued: “It’s been one whole year of hosting monthly liturgical ladies!” And my goodness, he's RIGHT. I was so caught up in the evening that I’d forgotten what a sweet moment that anniversary was.
For the first few years of liturgical ladies, our gatherings were spotty - here & there, with me dropping the ball for long chunks of time because life got too “hectic/stressful/whatever.” And there certainly are times for needing to step back (I’ve weathered many of them)...but in making a commitment to foster a gathering each month throughout our changing & unpredictable days, I received something truly beautiful: I finally had an experiential taste of the real brilliance of the liturgical year in its local community context. The way it serves as a scaffolding to receive us in any state of life, through joy and through hardship.
David & the kids helped me recall a list of our 2024 liturgical gatherings that night:
January: Epiphany (epiphany cake with crowns, making Epiphany blessing boards, smelling frankincense & myrrh, dancing to Dolly Parton...)
February: Lent (soup & salad dinner, DIY altar bar)
March: Annunciation (waffle bar & Paschal candles)
April: St. Mark's Day (field blessing, Italian supper, sage shoe spray)
May: Pentecost (fruits of the spirit, potluck in the greenhouse, Pentecost lanterns)
June: Johnsmas (s'more bar at the river, flower bar with river water)
July: Rushbearing (English potluck, harvesting rushes & weaving them, gingerbread)
August: Bartlemas (watermelon-eating contest, lesson from beekeepers up at the beehives, making bee-waterers)
September: Michaelmas (picking & crushing apples for cider)
October: Lukismas (painting, beef potluck, pushing hay up for the herd)
November: Catternday (wheel-shaped food for supper, lighting a candleblock, spinning wool)
December: St. Lucy's Day (Swedish supper, making evergreen candlelight crowns, Lussekatter)
And, throughout all of those events, our group’s members helped us donate shoes, clothes, food, and more to our community members in need.
Recalling these monthly gatherings is a balm to our little family. Each one of them is an ebenezer (“stone of help”) for me: a tangible commemoration of the work of God amidst our daily trials, something to look to and hold onto as a reminder when our hearts need some reminding.
We closed this year of monthly celebrations with a holiday that has long been a favorite of our family’s, and one of the first “non-Christmas/Easter” feasts we had ever celebrated. It’s become an annual tradition in our home - it doesn’t feel like Advent without St. Lucy anymore! - and getting to bring friends into the celebration this year was incredibly special.
St. Lucy (ca. 283 – 304 AD) is the legendary Italian saint who captured the imagination of the Scandinavian countries, and her feast day celebrations are a beautiful blending of different regions and stories. Throughout all of them, the theme of light is woven: we almost always see St. Lucy bedecked in a candlelit crown (owing to a legend that she brought food to persecuted Christians in the catacombs), and before the calendar revisions, her feast landed right near the winter solstice…making the light of her celebrations even more startlingly.