Lex Ian with his class adviser, Ms. Linn Antonette, and classmates in a recognition ceremony. Today, I am forever a proud stage-mom photo-documenting pieces of his successes.
2 MISERERE NOBIS In the tender light of a Vatican morning, when tulips, climbing snow, and indigoletta flowers were in bloom, heaven itself had drawn Pope Franciscus's last breath. It was 7:35 a.m. in the Casa Santa Marta, when the Pope slipped out from this corporeal world to immortality. As how he planned his internment, he seemed to have never forgotten what he once said: we are dust of the earth. Miserando atque Eligendo In the name of the Most Holy Trinity. Amen. As I sense the approaching twilight of my earthly life, and with firm hope in eternal life, I wish to set out my final wishes solely regarding the place of my burial. Throughout my life, and during my ministry as a priest and bishop, I have always entrusted myself to the Mother of Our Lord, the Blessed Virgin Mary. For this reason, I ask that my mortal remains rest - awaiting the day of the Resurrection - in the Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major. I wish my final earthly journey to end precisely in this ancient...
Reflection and Photography | Violeta Gloria | Instagram: @violetvisuals “Someday, when white hairs crown my head and my skin completely lost its youth, I hope to look myself in the mirror and see the face of a museum eclipsed with the memory that once every year, the street is a stage of multiculturalism, pluralism, and multi-ethnicity.” It all began in the cathedral. When the symbolic image of Saint Michael the archangel was carried out of the church, the trumpets, drums and bugles burst into an energy driving the faithful in a slow cadence of processional movement with vivacious chants and dances. From above, the streets appeared as if all people of the city left their homes, converged from divergent places accentuated with colorful banderitas—these triangular flaglets strung together to evoke a vibrant and joyful community spirit. The main thoroughfare echoed with the rhythm of drums and the lilting melodies of indigenous chants, beckoning people from all walk...
1 Santa Maria Pope Franciscus. (Image from the Vatican Media) I didn’t come here for a miracle. I came because the world outside had grown loud, too fast, too brittle. And here, in this space carved by centuries and steady hands, everything slowed. Here was a faith thick with gold and blood and quiet endurance. A place that remembered what I had almost forgotten: that beauty, when it’s honest, can heal. From the front yard of Ambasciata d'Argentina in Rome, the view of Santa Maria Maggiore rose as an ancient monument -- enormous, elegant, and quietly. Not flashy, not loud—just there, immense and prominent. Tourists thought it is an archive of aesthetic and cultural history. A spatial entity with an outward inscription carved into the facade in translation: "the famous image of the Mother of God was moved from the middle of the basilica to a more splendid seat." History expressed its built during the pontificate of Liberius (352-366) and rebuilt or renovated by Pope Si...