Who (or What) Was Lucifer?

Recently I got a query from someone wondering about an anti-Catholic video

that claimed “the pope’s deacon” invoked Lucifer during the Easter Vigil
liturgy and referred to Jesus as his Son.
Of course, that’s not what happened, but to understand what really did
happen, you need to know a few things about “lucifer.”
What does the word lucifer mean?
It’s a Latin word derived from the roots lux (light) and ferre (to carry).
It means “light bearer” or “light bringer,” and it was not originally used in
connection with the devil.
Instead, it could be used multiple ways. For example, anybody carrying a
torch at night was a lucifer (light bringer).
It was also used as a name for the Morning Star (i.e., the planet Venus),
because this is the brightest object in the sky other than the sun and the
moon. As a result, Venus is the first star seen in the evening (the Evening
Star) and the last star seen in the morning (the Morning Star).
Venus is also known—in English—as the Day Star because it can be seen in
the day.
Because sight of it in the morning heralds the light of day, it was referred to
by Latin speakers as the “light bringer” or lucifer.
So there was no connection with the devil?
No. In fact, it was used as an ordinary name. In the 300s, St. Lucifer of
Cagliari was a defender of the deity of Christ and of St. Athanasius against
the Arians.
Another bishop in the 300s—Lucifer of Siena—also bore this name.
Is the symbol of the Morning Star used in any surprising ways?
Yes. The Bible uses it as a symbol for Jesus Christ. In the book of Revelation,
we read:
“I Jesus have sent my angel to you with this testimony for the churches. I
am the root and the offspring of David, the bright morning star” (Rev.
22:16).
(Spoiler alert! This is going to play a key role in what we have to say about the
liturgy.)
So we shouldn’t freak out just because we see references to the words
“lucifer” or “light bringer” or “morning star”?
Correct. These terms have no intrinsic connection to the devil. In fact, they
may be used—as in Scripture itself—as symbols of Jesus Christ.
How did this word get connected with the devil?
It’s based on a passage in the book of Isaiah. Chapter 14 of that
book contains a taunt (a kind of ancient insult song or poem—like you might
find at a modern rap battle) against one of the oppressors of Israel: the king
of Babylon.
It predicts his downfall, but it also depicts his pride, which sets him up for the
downfall:
How you are fallen from heaven,
O Day Star, son of Dawn!
How you are cut down to the ground,
you who laid the nations low! (Is. 14:12).
In the Latin Vulgate, that’s:
Quomodo cecidisti de caelo, 
lucifer, fili aurorae?
Deiectus es in terram, 
qui deiciebas gentes.
The king of Babylon thus fancies himself as something high and mighty—like
the Day Star itself—but God brings him low in the end.
In this passage, the reference to the Day Star/the Morning Star/lucifer is thus
an ironic allusion to the king of Babylon’s prideful self-image.
But surely we’re talking about the human king of Babylon, not the devil.
Doesn’t the passage refer to him as a man who dies?
Yes. This passage explicitly refers to the king of Babylon as a man (Heb., ’ish)
who conquered kingdoms:
Those who see you will stare at you, and ponder over you:
“Is this the man who made the earth tremble, who shook kingdoms, who
made the world like a desert and overthrew its cities, who did not let his
prisoners go home?” (Is. 14:16-17).
It also refers multiple times to his decay after death and how he will not lie in
his own tomb!
Your pomp is brought down to Sheol, the sound of your harps; 
maggots are the bed beneath you, and worms are your covering” (Is.
14:11).
All the kings of the nations lie in glory, each in his own tomb;
but you are cast out, away from your sepulcher, like a loathed untimely
birth (Is. 14:18-19).
So we’re talking about a human king—at least in the literal sense of the text.
How did this passage get connected with the devil?
Some of the early Church Fathers took it that way.
They compared the pride that the king of Babylon displays in the passage—“I
will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will make myself like the Most
High” (Is. 14:14)—with the pride of the devil.
They also compared the fall of the king of Babylon to Jesus' statement that he
“saw Satan fall like lightning” (Luke 10:18)—though in context that passage
refers to the defeat of the devil in the ministry in which the apostles had just
engaged.
It is legitimate to use the spiritual sense of this text as an application to the
devil, but many people have lost sight of the literal sense of the text, which
applies to the human king of Babylon.
Worse, in the popular mind, “Lucifer” has simply become a name for the
devil, and that causes problems when people who are familiar with only this
use encounter other uses of the term—as in the Latin liturgy.
Is this just a Catholic interpretation?
No. In fact, the Protestant Reformers Luther and Calvin acknowledged it.
Luther wrote:
12. How you are fallen from heaven, Lucifer! This is not said of the angel who
once was thrown out of heaven but of the king of Babylon, and it is
figurative language. Isaiah becomes a disciple of Calliope and in like manner
laughs at the king. Heylel  [the Hebrew word used in the text] denotes the
morning star, called Lucifer and the son of Dawn. “Heaven” is where we are
with our heads, and that is obviously above the ground, just as that most
powerful and extremely magnificent king was once above, but now his lamp
is extinguished (Luther’s Works 16:140; Preface to the Prophet Isaiah, ch. 14).
Calvin was quite hostile to the application of this passage to the devil, writing:
12.  How art thou fallen from heaven! Isaiah proceeds with the discourse which
he had formerly begun as personating the dead, and concludes that the
tyrant differs in no respect from other men, though his object was to lead
men to believe that he was some god. He employs an elegant metaphor, by
comparing him to Lucifer, and calls him the Son of the Dawn; and that on
account of his splendor and brightness with which he shone above
others. The exposition of this passage, which some have given, as if it
referred to Satan, has arisen from ignorance; for the context plainly
shows that these statements must be understood in reference to the
king of the Babylonians. But when passages of Scripture are taken up at
random, and no attention is paid to the context, we need not wonder that
mistakes of this kind frequently arise. Yet it was an instance of very gross
ignorance, to imagine that Lucifer was the king of devils, and that the Prophet
gave him this name. But as these inventions have no probability whatever, let
us pass by them as useless fables (Commentary on Isaiah at 14:12).
So what have anti-Catholics claimed about the Easter Vigil liturgy?
Some have claimed that “the pope’s deacon” invoked Lucifer and described
Jesus as the devil’s Son.
This claim is based on translating part of the Easter Vigil liturgy this way:
Flaming Lucifer who finds mankind; 
I say O Lucifer, who will never be defeated. 
Christ is your Son, who came back from Hell; 
shed his peaceful light and is alive and reigns in the world without end.