Blog | Stories of Miracles

From Maria Famá,
Italian (Sicilian) American Poet

on Mar 20, 2016

Dear Mariolina, Al Tacconelli urged me to write to you about my father’s experience of a holy card during WWII on the frontline in France. My father’s name was Rosario and he was devoted to La Madonna del Rosario, sometimes called La Madonna di Pompeii. In 1939, my father left Sicily for the USA when his father called his sons to America where he’d become a citizen. My grandmother and aunt remained in Sicily all through the war. Still learning English, my father was drafted into the army and was in the Normandy invasion. My father had met my mother, Francesca Guaetta, when he was taken to visit other paesani here in Philadelphia, They married in 1948. My mother, still a teenager in high school, wrote to my father all through the war as did her own mother, Domenica Bongiovanni Guaetta. In September 1944, my father’s onomastico on October 7 was approaching and my...

From Al Tacconelli,
Italian American Poet and Painter

on Mar 19, 2016

The role of immaginette in my life began when I was young. I remember seeing holy cards tucked on picture frames––pictures of angels stomping on the fiery heads of sinners, Saint Rita receiving the stigmata, Asian babies being baptized by angels and missionary nuns, and all the others which I’ve forgotten. These holy cards have been lost over time, but I still have three cards; the one just mentioned about Asian babies, and Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception––printed 1911 in Italy. These managed to survive. I have them tucked in a special book beside my bed. I feel comforted knowing they were handled by my mother and grandmother. In the movie Moon Struck there is a great line––an Italian American character says to an American man; “I know what I come from.” These words ring true for me in the decades since childhood. Many times I saw Nonna kneeing at the...

From the Road

on Sep 1, 2015

From Dave Bartholomae, Theorist and Scholar of Composition Studiesand Joyce Bartholomae, Professor (and Lover) of (Anything) SpanishThis first of these images comes from a small church in Banos, a mountain town. The story we heard is that these were originally painted on the walls by different artists, then in the 30s some hired a painter to copy / replace them all in a single size and style. You’ll see that the miracles feature bridge building, volcanoes and floods.This second series comes from the Basilica de la Merced. The Mercedarios was the order that had the power during the period of independence. Unfortunately, the photos don’t show the captions—all very short.They tell the stories of appearances of the Virgin, all at key moments in the history of Ecuador—from the conquistadores, to the founding of the city, to independence and during periods of epidemic, volcanoes and...

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