Happy winter solstice to all of you readers. The photo above is one Steve took in 2013 a day or so after the winter solstice, at the Pantheon in Rome. We were visiting the Pantheon around noontime on that day.
The photo below is one we took of the basilica of St. Francis in Assisi a few days before the solstice. I see a parable here, in the juxtaposition of these two photos.
O Oriens,splendor lucis aeternae, et sol justitiae:veni, et illumina sedentes in tenebris, et umbra mortis.