Saint Lucy of Scotland

One day while she was at a sermon, the preacher recounted the words that Our Lord said in Saint Matthew: "If you want to be perfect, go, sell all the goods you possess and give the price to the poor, and you will amass a treasure in heaven: and whoever has left his house, or his brothers, or his sisters, or his father, or his mother, or his wife, or his children, or his inheritances for the love of my name, will receive a hundredfold and will have eternal life." Then she felt so convinced of the vanity of the grandeurs of the earth and the danger of riches for salvation, that, as if these words had been addressed only to her, she conceived in her heart the design of leaving her father's house and leaving her country to live unknown on the earth, and to follow Jesus Christ whom she had already taken for her spouse. She did not delay this design; but, having disguised herself, she cleverly escaped from the palace, crossed all of Scotland, crossed the sea, landed in France Écosse Birthplace of Saint Wiron. ; and, still continuing her journey, she penetrated as far as Austrasia, which is now Lorraine. She would have gone further, so much did she wish to move away from her homeland; but, having arrived on the banks of the Meuse, the waters, which had recently overflowed, prevented her and forced her to reach a nearby mountain to seek a retreat there. She met there a laborer named Thibault who, having noticed in her something above the or dinary, Thibault A plowman from Lorraine who welcomed the saint and made her his heir. received her very charitably into his house and honestly offered to feed her as long as she wished to remain there. She accepted this offer, but on the condition that she would be there as a servant, and even that she would be applied to the vilest and most arduous ministries of the house.

She spent several years in this humble condition, sometimes tending the herds, sometimes doing all the housework, which is known to be very arduous in the countryside, and which was certainly beyond the strength of a young girl raised at court; but grace sustained her, and the joy she felt in seeing herself as the servant of a villager, she who was meant to be served by the greatest lords of Scotland, meant that she found nothing difficult. She considered herself a thousand times happier in this obscure and humiliating state, which made her conform to her Savior, than if she had still been in the palace of the king, her father, honored in the capacity of a princess. These duties, laborious as they were, did not prevent her from performing all her spiritual exercises. She often spent part of the night spinning; and this work pleased her extremely, because while doing it she could easily converse with God.

Her services were so pleasing to Th ibault t Thibault A plowman from Lorraine who welcomed the saint and made her his heir. hat, finding himself without a wife or children, since divine Providence had taken them from him, he made her the universal legatee of all his goods. She immediately became the mistress of them upon his death; but, having left behind immense riches for the love of her heavenly Spouse, and having renounced all the claims she could legitimately have had to the kingdom of Scotland, she took care not to attach herself to a small estate such as that of a villager, even if he were the richest in his country. She sold everything and distributed the money to the poor, with the exception of the house, which she converted into a beautiful church in honor of the most holy Trinity, the Queen of Angels, and the Apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul. She had a grotto made there in the form of a vault, where, like a moaning dove in the excavations of rocks, she spent the rest of her days in tears, vigils, prayers, and austerities. One can still see there a hole carved into the rock in the shape of a chair, where she rested when she could no longer resist sleep. She died on September 19, aged about forty. The century is unknown; but it is conjectured that it was the 5th or 6th of the Incarnation; others say in 1090.

## CULT AND RELICS. Her body was buried in the middle of this same church, which is near the village of Samp igny, an Sampigny Principal site of worship and burial in Lorraine. d which now bears her name. One can see her mausoleum there, raised from the ground and supported by four stone pillars. It is a large marble tomb upon which is her figure in high relief, representing her dressed as a princess, with dogs at her feet. Local tradition holds that her head was transported to Scotland through the care of the king, her father, to console himself for the loss he had suffered of a daughter so dear and so worthy of veneration. It is even said that this prince came to Lorraine to remove her entire body; but that, having had it placed on a cart, it was impossible for him to make it move, which obliged him to content himself with the head alone and to leave the rest at the place of her burial. In 1322, these sacred relics were raised from the ground and pla ced in a reliqua Henri d'Apremont Bishop of Verdun who oversaw the elevation of relics in 1322. ry by Henri d'Apre Verdun City where the Abbey of Saint-Vanne is located. mont, Bishop of Verdun, and, about one hundred years later, they were transferred into another, more precious reliquary by Guillaume d'Harancourt, bishop of the same city; as appears from their own attestations, which were found in this latter reliquary in 1618, when Charles of Lorraine, one of their successors, visited it and had it opened. The Mini m friar Minimes Mendicant religious order founded by Saint Francis of Paola. s became the custodians of this rich treasure; the church where it rests having been given to them in the year 1625 for the foundation of a convent of their Order, by Louis of Lorraine, Prince of Phalsbourg, and Henriette of Lorraine, his wife. The church of Sainte-Lucie-du-Mont, founded by the Saint herself on the site of the house of the generous Thibault, is entirely destroyed; of the entire Minim convent, there remains only one building, in the middle of a walled garden, which has become private property. After '93, the owner, a former Lazarist brother, had a small chapel built, now in ruins, on the site of the old church. This chapel contains the ancient grotto, carved into the rock, where the Saint was accustomed to withdraw to pray. One descends into it by a dozen very worn steps. This grotto has no opening other than the door, closed by a trapdoor. One can still see there, in a kind of niche, the seat known as Saint Lucy's Armchair, where the Saint would rest and in which Marguerite of Gonzaga, Duchess of Lorraine, sat in 1609, Anne of Austria in 1638, and where, even in our day, all the wo men who come to Anne d'Autriche Queen of France who attended the missions of Jean Eudes. implore her intercession still sit.

There also existed, on the mountain where Saint Lucy led her sheep to pasture, an ancient chapel, which has just been raised from its ruins through the care of the Mayor and the municipal c ouncil o Sampigny Principal site of worship and burial in Lorraine. f Sampigny. The new construction is in a rather tasteful Gothic style.

It is on this mountain that the Saint one day planted the distaff or spindle she used for spinning while tending her flock. This spindle took root and produced the variety of tree that still bears the name today of Cherry tree or Saint Lucy wo od. It is a very fra Bois de sainte Lucie A variety of fragrant wood associated with the miracle of the distaff. grant, smooth, dense wood, capable of a very beautiful polish, of a reddish color when dry. It was once highly sought after; Lorraine sculptors made excellent use of it. Among them are cited the Foulons, who executed a quantity of small works in Saint Lucy wood for the Dauphin, son of Louis XIV; and Jean-François-Lupot, of Mirecourt (1684-1749), who worked this wood for the luthiers of the latter city.

The Saint Lucy cherry tree is currently very widespread, but it is claimed that it is more fragrant in Sampigny than anywhere else. Near the chapel, a very old one grows, which popular belief regards as the one the Saint planted; if it is not the mother-stump, it is at least one of its most ancient offshoots.

When the Revolution broke out, the relics of Saint Lucy were kept in a very ornate reliquary, which was carried in procession on solemn feast days, and which remained exposed to the veneration of the faithful for six months of the year in the church of Sampigny, and for the other six months in the church of Sainte-Lucie, which was the mother church, and near which the cemetery still stands. The holy mysteries and offices were celebrated in this church on certain determined days.

On the 12th of Frimaire, Year II (December 2, 1793), a revolutionary, who resided in the house of Saint Lucy, which had been sold as national property, assembled the municipality and led them, with the exception of one member, into this church; then, after locking himself in and haranguing his companions once more, he took down the reliquary of Saint Lucy that rested under a canopy and broke it with a blow of his saber. All those present then saw a bundle wrapped in very fine linen, under which was another covering of red damask that covered the holy relics. With the bones were six authentications, three of which were on parchment. One member, Nic olas Barbier, s Nicolas Barbier Member of the municipality who saved the relics in 1793. eized the relics with the intention of preserving them, and, with the consent of the municipality, went to carry them to a corner of the covered charnel house where the bones of the dead were kept; but he took care to take a certain quantity which he subsequently distributed to the pious people of the area. The next day, learning where this treasure had been deposited, the faithful hastened to collect it and share it among the inhabitants who expressed the desire for it.

After the restoration of the Catholic cult, M. Pierrot, parish priest of Sampigny, collected the relics of the Saint, thus saved during the Revolution by pious inhabitants, and placed them in a gilded wooden box that serves as a pedestal for a statue of the Saint, also in gilded wood, about one meter high.

These relics are carried in procession several times a year, mainly on the days of her feast, the Assumption, and the Rogations, with the authorization of the Bishop of Verdun: the influx of the faithful is always considerable when these ceremonies take place.

Acta Sanctorum; Cambrarius; Collection of the Saints of Scotland; the Rev. Fr. François de la Noue: Chronicle of the Order of Minims; Life of the Saint, or Lucindre, by the Rev. Father Pierre Philippe, of the Order of Friars Minor; Local notes provided by M. l'abbé Mangel, parish priest of Sampigny; and Memoirs of the Philomathic Society of Verdun, by M. l'abbé Clouet.