August 15, 2015

Siena. October, 1984


I'm pretty sure it's Siena. And I'm also pretty sure that none of these individuals is Mary. But I meet so many saints, it's hard to remember. Whatever. Today is the feast of the Assumption, the commemoration of the BVM's bodily rise into heaven. It's only been a feast day (a holy day of obligation, if you please) since World War II, when Catholics petitioned Pope Pius XII to honor the bodily loss resulting from heavy wartime casualties. Establishing this feast day was his way of doing that. This is also the day that many old-school Italian-Americans head to the sea, believing that the Blessed Virgin puts a cure in the water each August 15. I sometimes dip a toe in.

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