One can celebrate the feast of St.Lucy using readings from either the Common of Martyrs or the Common of Virgins; I opted today to do the Office of Readings for Martyrs.
My reward was this marvelous passage from the Book of Sirach.
I give you thanks, O God of my father; I praise you, O God my savior! I will make known your name, refuge of my life; you have been my helper against my adversaries. You have saved me from death, and kept back my body from the pit, From the clutches of the nether world you have snatched my feet; you have delivered me, in your great mercy From the scourge of a slanderous tongue, and from lips that went over to falsehood; From the snare of those who watched for my downfall, and from the power of those who sought my life; From many a danger you have saved me, from flames that hemmed me in on every side; From the midst of unremitting fire, From the deep belly of the nether world; From deceiving lips and painters of lies, from the arrows of dishonest tongues. I was at the point of death, my soul was nearing the depths of the nether world; I turned every way, but there was no one to help me, I looked for one to sustain me, but could find no one. But then I remembered the mercies of the LORD, his kindness through ages past; For he saves those who take refuge in him, and rescues them from every evil. So I raised my voice from the very earth, from the gates of the nether world, my cry. I called out: O Lord, you are my father, you are my champion and my savior; Do not abandon me in time of trouble, in the midst of storms and dangers. I will ever praise your name and be constant in my prayers to you. Thereupon the LORD heard my voice, he listened to my appeal; He saved me from evil of every kind and preserved me in time of trouble. For this reason I thank him and I praise him; I bless the name of the LORD.
Sirach, also known as Ecclesiasticus, is one of the Deuterocanonical books, of the Bible, which means it comes from the Septuagint of the Greek-speaking Jewish Diaspora, and not from the Palestinian Canon. As a result, it is a book that appears in Catholic and Orthodox Bibles, but not in most Protestant editions, except perhaps as Apocrypha. The Deuterocanonicals are usually considered by Protestant Bible scholars to be worthy of study as background texts, but are not strictly considered Scripture by them. Catholics accept all the books of the Septuagint as scripture. The argument advanced by Catholics to include the Deuterocanonicals is that they are alluded to in the New Testament, as Wikipedia discusses:
Some people claim that there are several allusions to the book of Sirach in the New testament. These include The magnificat in Luke 1:52 following Sirach 10:14, the description of the seed in Mark 4:5,16-17 following Sirach 40:15, and Christ's statement in 7:16,20 following Sirach 27:6.The distinguished patristic scholar Henry Chadwick has claimed that in Matthew 11:28 Jesus was directly quoting Sirach 51:27.
I had not heard that Christ quoted Sirach directly; The NAB has Sirach 51:27 as
See for yourselves! I have labored only a little, but have found much.
and Matthew 11:28 as
Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.
I guess I still don't see the direct connection, but I am not a Bible scholar.
Jimmy Akin has compiled a list of places where the New Testament appears to refer to the Deuerocanonicals; I have not gone through them, but it does not surprise me. Certainly, some of the authors of the New Testament who wrote in Greek (St. Paul, for instance), could be expected to know, draw from, and quote the Septuagint as it was the version of the Old Testament that was common among Greek-speaking Jews.
I, of course, accept the Deuterocanonicals because the Church does. My faith does not require a great deal of proof -- I accept that Christ is who He said He was, and that the Catholic Church is what it says it is.
If you accept those two propositions, you don't get drawn into a lot of proofs, or a lot of arguments. It makes practicing the faith easier, though naturally, it makes the task of evangelization harder. I will never be a great apologist because I do not have the patience to get drawn into these battles. I accept Sirach because Rome does.
And I'm glad I have the Liturgy of the Hours, especially when it rewards one with beautiful passages like the one above.