WHERE ON EARTH IS GOD?

“Wherefore the Messinese, taking stock of this terrible and monstrous calamity, chose to leave the city rather than stay there to die…Some went to the city of Catania, believing the the Blessed Virgin Agatha of Catania would deliver them from this illness…for “we believe,” they said, “that with the arrival of the relics, the city of Messina will be completely delivered from this sickness.”

- Michele da Piazza, Chronicle (1347-1361). Aberth, Source 24

“On Monday, July 21, a proclamation made in the city [of Damascus] invited the population to fast for three days; they were further asked to go on the fourth day, a friday, to the Mosque of the Foot in order to humbly beseech God to take away this plague. Most of the Damascenes fasted, several passed the night in the mosque indulging in acts of devotion, conforming to the tradition of Ramadan.”

- Imād Al-Dīn Abū ‘L-Fidā Ismāil b. Umar Ibn Kathīr, The Beginning and End: On History (1350-1351). Aberth, Source 28

The thirteenth-century shrine of the third-century martyr St. Agatha of Catania (right) is still carried through the town each year on the day of the saint’s feast (5 February), drawing hundreds of pilgrims and visitors to the town (below)