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Letter of Pope Francis to the Church in Syracuse
on the occasion of the temporary translation of the body of St. Lucy
St. Lucy, Virgin, Martyr – Feast Day on Friday of the 2nd week of Advent
“We need the work and the word of women in an outgoing Church”
To dear Brother, Archbishop Francesco Lomanto, Metropolitan Archbishop of Syracuse
I have learned with joy that the Church in Syracuse is celebrating the Lucian Year, dedicated to the Virgin and Martyr Lucy, your fellow citizen.
The affection that unites you to St. Lucy has thus led you back to one of the most ancient Christian insights: ‘God is light and in him there is no darkness’ (1 Jn 1:5).
And remember that the Apostle immediately adds: ‘If we say that we are in communion with him and walk in darkness, we are liars and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we are in communion with one another’ (1 John 1:6-7).
On the feast day of your Patroness (Friday 13 December 2024), I write to you, dear Brother, and to the entire Archdiocesan community, so that these words of salvation may also guide your path today and renew in the spirit of the Gospel the family, ecclesial and social bonds of which your beautiful city is made.
The month of December will culminate this year in the beginning of the Jubilee that wants us to be ‘Pilgrims of Hope’, but it will be marked for you by another pilgrimage, that of St. Lucy from Venice to Syracuse, that is, from the city that has enshrined her body for eight centuries to the city where her witness first shone and spread light throughout the world.
In her movement towards you is reflected the mystery of a God who always takes the first step, who never asks what he himself is not willing to do.
St. Lucy comes to you, so that you yourselves may be men and women of the first step, daughters and sons of a God who makes himself known.
The communion between two particular Churches, that has made this temporary step possible, points to a way of living the world that can overcome the darkness that surrounds us: there is light where gifts are exchanged, where the treasure of one is wealth of another.
The lie that destroys fraternity and devastates creation suggests the opposite: that the other is an enemy and his wealth a threat. Too often people see themselves in this way.
Dearly beloved, Lucy is a woman and her holiness shows your Church and all the Churches how women have their own way of following the Lord.
Since the Gospel narratives, the disciples of Jesus have been witnesses of an intelligence and love without which the message of the Resurrection could not reach us.
The image of your Patroness, if you look at it carefully, is a powerful expression of the dignity and the ability to see far that Christian women bring today to the center of social life, not allowing any worldly power to make their witness invisible and silent.
We need the work and the word of women in an outgoing Church, which is leaven and light in culture and coexistence.
And all the more so in the heart of the Mediterranean, cradle of civilization and humanism, tragically at the center of injustices and imbalances which, since my first apostolic journey, to Lampedusa, I have proposed to transform from a culture of waste to a culture of encounter.
The martyrdom of St. Lucy teaches us to weep, to be compassionate and tender: these are virtues confirmed by the tears of Our Lady of Syracuse.
They are not only Christian virtues, but also political virtues.
They are the true strength that builds the city.
They give us back the eyes to see, the sight that we are dramatically losing through insensitivity.
And how important it is to pray for them to heal our eyes!
Being on the side of the light, dear brothers and sisters, also exposes us to martyrdom.
They may not lay their hands on us, but choosing sides will take away some of our tranquility.
In fact, there are forms of tranquility that resemble the peace of the cemetery.
Absent, as if we were already dead; or present, but like tombs: beautiful on the outside, but empty on the inside. Instead, we choose life.
We could not do otherwise: “Because life was made manifest, we have seen it” (1 John 1:2).
To gather around a saint – and I am thinking of the immense crowd that surrounded Saint Lucy in Syracuse – is to have seen life manifested and now to choose the side of light.
To be clear, transparent, sincere people; to communicate with others in an open, clear, respectful way; to come out of the ambiguities of life and criminal connivance; not to be afraid of difficulties.
Let us never tire of educating children, young people and adults – starting with ourselves – to listen to the heart, to recognize witnesses, to cultivate a critical sense, to obey conscience.
God is light, and its echo is a community of brothers and sisters educated in freedom, not doubting what they say will never change.
To choose: this is the luminous core of every vocation, the personal response to the call that the saints represent on our journey.
They show us how to get out of “those personal or community shelters that allow us to keep our distance from the knot of human drama.
[When we do this, life is always wonderfully complicated for us and we live the intense experience of being a people, the experience of belonging to a people” (Evangelii gaudium, 270).
Dear Brother, dear faithful of Syracuse, do not forget to spiritually bring to your feast the sisters and brothers throughout the world who suffer because of persecution and injustice.
Include the migrants, the refugees, the poor who are with you.
And please remember to pray for me too.
May the intercession of Saint Lucia and Our Lady of Tears accompany your people, upon whom I impart my Apostolic Blessing with affection.
Rome, from St John Lateran, 13 December 2024
FRANCIS
