of perfectly maintained relics housed in beautifully crafted vessels located in magnificently designed and executed architectural wonders, in my opinion. Other Christians completely lack the obsession for the saints and no one except for maybe the Mexicans can hold a candle to the Italians for the worship they have for the Madonna. I do not mock them. I think that it is human to need to believe in something, to create some kind of structure as a filter to make sense of the world the best we can. As long as no gets hurt, I could care less what it is or how it is done.
Among my favorite saints, who are very prominent in Sicily are Saint Lucia and Saint Agatha. Because both were born and martyred in Sicily, the island is rich with images. Still festivals are held and pilgrimages made to celebrate them and the implore protection from them. Saint Agatha's image is a bit more ubiquitous in Italy, often being the subject of paintings and sculptures by some of Italy's best like Tiepolo, Tintoretto and Titian. Rome is the home of two churches dedicated to her.
In the north I found the story of Agatha to vary a bit from the South but the basics are very much the same. Saint Agatha was the fairest of all maidens and super young to boot, some versions write that she may have only been 11. (Now I am no expert, I am just restating the facts that I found). Of the dozens of images I have seen of her, only one represents her this young and it is quite disturbing. A huge canvas portraits a life size image of Agatha, blond, fair skinned, dainty standing in a audience of towing adult males with her breast exposed. Her suitor on an elevated platform points to his guards, one holding a blade and the other enormous pliers, ordering them to remove her breasts. Vowing her virginity to God and refusing the hand of her jilted suitor, she was reported and first sentenced to a brothel. After converting all of the whores into good Christian woman, she was sentenced to public removal of her breasts. On the evening of this day, in her cell, located in Catania, she was comforted by the vision of Saint Peter who restored her breast to their former perky state. Enraged, her jilted suitor ordered her to be rolled in hot coals. Here is where the story changes a bit.
One story states that Agatha was rolled in coals, causing an earthquake leading to the fall of an enormous wall that crushed her suitor to death as well as his executioners. After she died in the burning coals. A second version is that she rolled in coals, caused an earthquake then died alone in her cell after years of torture. A third version is that she was burned at the stake but would not die. After several attempts to burn her they chopped off her head. This did the trick but when she died she smelled like roses. She is the patron saint for protection against earthquakes and natural disasters, jewelers, breast cancer, torture victims and because she is portrayed in painting with her breasts on a platter, she is also the patron saint of bell makers. The last one makes me chuckle a little bit.
Saint Lucia was inspired by Agatha, born thirty years after Agatha's death, and only 19 at the time of her martyrdom, she too consecrated her virginity to God. Again Saint Lucia was an ideal candidate for marriage. she was young and beautiful, born as a noble to Catholic parents in Syracusa. Her father died when she was a child, left in the care of only her mother. A young suitor asked for her hand in marriage and Lucia refused. Her mother annoyed and frustrated developed a hemorrhage. Lucia told her mother to visit the tomb of Saint Agatha and pray for a cure. Her mother was delighted that she had been cured. This was the green light for Lucia to confess to her mother that she wanted to dedicate her life to helping the poor and to God. Her mother bursting with pride called off the plans for marriage. The young man, angry and vengeful, accused
Lucia of being a Christian before a judge. Again, like Agatha, the first thing the judges do is send the virgins to a brothel. When the guards arrived however the souls of Lucia's feet were like magnets to metal and she could not be budged. They tried to burn her, but could not be burned so instead of taking her head like Agatha, they drove a sword through her throat. Now sometime her eyes came out and they were restored.
There are different versions of this part of the story. First version is that the judge ordered her eyes to be removed before they attempted to burn her. The second version was that her jilted lover had removed them because he thought they were so beautiful. The third, the version I prefer, that she removed them herself, sent them to her jilted lover and said. "Here you liked them, you can have them now leave me alone." Either way it happened in the end she comforted by a vision of God, her eyes were restored and were even more beautiful then before. of course. She died a whole woman and she probably too smelled like roses. Saint Lucia is the patron saint of the blind and to protect against blindness. She is almost always portrayed with eyes on a platter.
If I were a person that navigated through life as an intellectual I think I would mock these beliefs, believing that all of this was complete rubbish, nonsense, propaganda. I know that I do not. I pray to Saint Anthony when I loose something, and there is a postcard of Saint Agatha in my jeweler's bench. Before I pull go on my motorcycle throttle I say the same prayer in the same way enlisting the protection of all my dead relatives in heaven. As I progress to the last grain in my hour glass I value the accumulation of my experiences and find that I have learned to distribute the weight of importance more evenly. I am grateful for the questions that I ask sometimes liking the answers and other times not. I have learned to celebrate most differences but have learned enough to know that some, like those steeped in hate should not be tolerated. I love that I love beautiful things and that I have learned to find them in the smallest places. Here more than ever I witness and accept that a church, a festival for a saint, a pilgrimage represents tradition, which is often just a romantic notion of people getting together and eating really good food. And for me more importantly, visiting the same subject over and over my eyes become more keen and my pleasure more intense.
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