[PHOTO] Our Mother Mary in blue, Our Lady of Lebanon Maronite Church (1515 Queen Street West)

I was walking last weekend west past Our Lady of Lebanon Maronite Church, in the west of the neighbourhood of Parkdale, when I saw this statue of the Virgin Mary. I had wanted to take a photo of the tatue, framed so nicely by the window behind it and with a coat painted in an earnest sky blue, for aesthetic reasons. I also recalled the old tradition of asking the Virgin Mary to intercede with Christ for mercy in–for instance–times of plague.

This image has turned out to become one of my most popular photos on Instagram, largely because of apparently Lebanese users finding the image via hashtags.