Calendar Class of December 13, 2025

A Carpe Diem Snapshot:

Carpe Lux! Buona festa di Santa Lucia!

Tonight is the largest meteor shower of the year, appropriately falling on the longest night (in the Julian calendar), the feast of the saint whose name banishes the dark-- Santa Lucia. In honor of this Sicilian saint's feast day, I share with you some rhymes, songs, and a poem created to celebrate this saint so beloved from the north (Sweden) to the south (Sicily):

A rhyme for children:

Questa è la notte di Santa Lucia

senti nell'aria la sua magia.

Lei vola veloce col suo asinello

atterra davanti ad ogni cancello.

Ad ogni finestra un mazzolin di fieno

e l'asinello ha già fatto il pieno.

Santa Lucia con il suo carretto

lascia a tutti un gioco e un dolcetto.

Porta ai bambini tanti regali

tutti belli, tutti speciali.

The traditional Neapolitan song sung by fishermen:

Sul mare luccica l’astro d’argento.

Placida è l’onda, prospero è il vento.

Sul mare luccica l’astro d’argento.

Placida è l’onda, prospero è il vento.

Venite all’agile barchetta mia,

Santa Lucia! Santa Lucia!

Venite all’agile barchetta mia,

Santa Lucia! Santa Lucia!

The traditional Swedish song

Night walks with a heavy step

Round yard and hearth,

As the sun departs from earth,

Shadows are brooding.

There in our dark house,

Walking with lit candles,

Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia!

Night walks grand, yet silent,

Now hear its gentle wings,

In every room so hushed,

Whispering like wings.

Look, at our threshold stands,

White-clad with light in her hair,

Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia!

Darkness shall take flight soon,

From earth's valleys.

So she speaks

Wonderful words to us:

A new day will rise again

From the rosy sky…

Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia!

Poem on Saint Lucie's Day by Thomas Merton

Lucy, whose day is in our darkest season,

(Although your name is full of light,)

We walkers in the murk and rain and flesh and sense,

Lost in the midnight of our dead world's winter solstice

Look for the fogs to open on your friendly star.

We have long since cut down the summer of our history;

Our cheerful towns have all gone out like fireflies in October.

The fields are flooded and the vines are bare:

How have our long days dwindled, and now the world is frozen!

Locked in the cold jails of our stubborn will,

Oh, hear the shovels growling in the gravel.

This is the way they'll make our beds forever,

Ours, whose Decembers have put out the sun:

Doors of whose souls are shut against the summertime!

Martyr, whose short day sees our winter and our Calvary,

Show us some light, who seem forsaken by the sky;

We have so dwelt in darkness that our eyes are screened

and dim,

And all but blinded by the weakest ray.

Hallow the vespers and December of our life,

O martyred Lucy:

Console our solstice with your friendly day.