#siena tumblr

[spicybees]

oc brainrot lately... they are my muses

[wandering-cemeteries]

Etruscan Sarcophagus (Ossuary?). Santa Maria della Scala in Siena, Italy.

[travelbinge]

By Sandi Lesmana

Siena, Tuscany, Italy

[wandering-italy]

Old brick building, Siena

Dec. 2019

[vforvaggelis]

Καθεδρικός της Σιένα

Siena cathedral, Italy

[schmedterlingfreud]

Palio di Siena -- The "Scossi" Revenge 🐎 For context: a "scosso" is a horse from which the rider has fallen. In the Palio di Siena, a horse can win even without his rider, because is the horse that represents the Contrada.

[jh-newman-opn]

rosary novena day 29 : sorrowful mysteries

meditation for tonight was on the reciprocal nature of the Passion. Jesus enters into our suffering, and invites us into His, thus effectively re-presenting our own suffering back to us in sanctified form.

It occurred to me at the monastery that mortification as a practice is not about punishing yourself or causing yourself pain because ""that's what you deserve"" in some nebulous sense, or in order to dissociate from the flesh in some hideously gnostic sense, but has to be done with love. An analogy would be a parent shaving their head for their child undergoing chemotherapy, or abstaining from cake because your partner's on a diet, or a pregnant woman delaying treatment for cancer until she can deliver the child safely. Mary practices mortification during the Passion by staying with her Son despite the incredible distress it must have caused her to watch Him be tortured, when Peter and the other disciples couldn't bear it and turned away.

This highlights the fundamental issue with penal substitution and other christologies that present the Passion as punishment rather than love. If Jesus is doing nothing but taking punishment on Himself, the only thing we gain by meditating on it is guilt for what we deserve, and a habit of suffering for its own sake. The Passion is Jesus taking our suffering onto Himself, not because we are so damnable and rotten that we all deserve to be tortured to death, but because we were already suffering, and when you truly love someone, you can't bear to see them suffer alone. Like Mary can't bear to leave Jesus in His suffering, Jesus does not leave us in ours, but enters it, participates in it, and says to us: my love is greater than your pain. In turn, we are invited to love Him more than we fear our own pain.

Catherine of Siena says, it was not nails that held our Lord to the Cross, but His love. The Passion is Christ's great act of mortification for love of us. Compassion, is co-suffering; suffering with.

Simon of Cyrene, and the carrying of the cross illustrates the principle. We are meant to bear our sufferings with Jesus, mutually taking up each other's crosses. Not avoiding suffering altogether, but suffering with and for the one you love.

In a way, I think you could say that Jesus' entire earthly life was His Passion. God suffered the whole mortifying ordeal of being human for love of you. Fulton Sheen has a good sermon on this called Kenosis, in which he explains that God condescending to become human is somewhat comparable to a human condescending to become a dog whilst maintaining a fully human understanding of maths, philosophy, and your capabilities as a human. Suddenly you have to sit and heel and eat out of a bowl on the floor and shit in the garden and all the while knowing the etiquette for meals with several sets of cutlery and what it was like to operate in the world as an adult human person with a job and a bank account and the capacity to talk about the Nicomachean Ethics. And the difference between a human and a dog is infinitely smaller than the great chasmic void between us and God. The only explanation for it is God's incredible love for us, that He would suffer all the little indignities of the human life cycle, culminating in every possible humiliation and agony, just to help us to carry the burden of it all as we go through our little existences.

[cellabella-illuminates]

Happy April, everyone!

St. Catherine of Siena's feast day is April 29th - if you have anyone in your life who is a fan of this Doctor of the Church, you could gift them this print on her feast day because I finally put them in my shop!

About my illustration and print as well as a little about St. Catherine of Siena:

This is a 5” x 7”  limited edition giclée print (ten editions) on Epson Somerset Velvet - 255 gsm, certified archival paper. Each print is signed, titled, and numbered. Also, the halo on each print is hand-painted with gold gouache, giving each print a unique reflective quality. Shipping and archival picture-framing tips are included.

St. Catherine of Siena, a third-order Dominican from the 14th century, is one of the first female saints named a Doctor of the Church; patron saint of Europe, Italy, journalists, mediators, and people ridiculed for their faith.

In this image, Saint Catherine is standing between Italy and France (Italy is behind her and France is in front of her). She is holding a crucifix in her right hand, as well as a pink rose and a lily, symbols of love and purity. She is extending her left hand toward the border of France (and the viewer) calling the Pope back to Rome. 

This is referencing the time during which the Pope had left Rome for the French city of Avignon, which had resulted in a crisis within the Church called the Great Schism of the West, in which multiple men backed by different kings claimed the papacy. Through her letters, Catherine persuaded Pope Gregory XI to return to Rome from France, persuading also other rulers to recognize the true pope. In addition to calling the Pope back to Rome, she was essential for diplomatic missions to negotiate a peace with Florence. St. Catherine had a gift for telling men to get off their asses and bringing peace. In my illustration, she is reaching out to the viewer, looking directly at them, reminding them of the same thing: get up and do what the Lord has called you to do.

On her head is a crown of thorns, symbolizing a vision she had five years before her death in which Christ offered her a golden crown, symbolizing earthly riches, or a crown of thorns, symbolizing the glory of heaven through suffering in this life (St. Catherine chose the latter). She is also shown with the stigmata on her hands, which she also received in a mystical vision five years before her death.

[federicagiordanophotography]

[cogumellow]

convento rosa // valladolid, mexico // december 2021 // ©

[festeringbleedingheart]

enemy approaches Phoenix the Diabolic Paladin (HP 450/500) Siena the Vengeful Detective (HP 350/350) > attack > act > item > flee

[wandering-jana]

Moody December day in Siena, Italy.

Check out my second visit to Siena:

[travelbinge]

By James Attree

Siena, Tuscany, Italy

[wandering-italy]

Views of Siena.

Either taken in 2016 or 2019.

[pacingthroughouthemptiness]

Beware of mirror(s)

[bestmothertournament]

Propaganda Under Cut:

Siena (Mother of Nuka): Siena trusts Nuka using her to help decisions and knowing that she will inherit the world. Siena tries (largely unsuccessfully) to stop Nuka from stealing.

Ellie Reed (Mother of Adam): Recommended by evie7common. Helps both versions of her boys come to terms with the death of their father.