Saint Lucy's Day (Italian: Giorno di Santa Lucia) is celebrated as a Catholic holiday in Sicily and Northern regions of Italy on the supposed Shortest day of the year which is December 13. St. Lucy (Santa Lucia) is the patron saint of the city of Syracuse. Evening candlelight processions called the parade of light are conducted and are followed by the Feast of St. Lucy. Sicilians pay tribute to a miracle performed by St Lucy during a famine in 1582. At that time, she brought a flotilla of grain-bearing ships to starving Sicily, whose citizens cooked and ate the wheat without taking time to grind it into flour. Thus, on St. Lucy's Day, Sicilians do not eat anything made with wheat flour. Instead they eat cooked wheat called cuccìa.