| St Biagio (Blaise), Maranello, Italy |
Many decades ago when I was a protestant teenager I lived in Italy while going to school in Padua and Venice. The people I stayed with, Carlo and Ann, were friends of my parents from Florida. Ann was from Tampa and had met Carlo at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. They married, lived and worked in Orlando a few years, then went to Italy where Carlo had received a research grant at the University of Padua. I was a teenager and less than happy with my school so my parents arranged for me to go to university in Italy and stay with Carlo and Ann. It was a glorious time although if I had been Catholic then I might have gleaned more from the experience. However, I look back and see how God has his hand in the course of our lives, sometimes even in the tiniest details. This is the story of the Black Lace Mantilla.
