August 10th, the night of San Lorenzo 2021/07/20

August 10th is the night of San Lorenzo, also called the night of shooting stars or the tears of San Lorenzo.

It is an astronomic event that from a scientific point of view it has nothing to do with real stars.

What we call shooting stars are actually rocky space debris of a comet that travels at about 10 kilometers per second. When they enter Earth’s orbit in contact with the atmosphere, they start to burn due to friction creating a luminous rain that can be seen by the naked eye.

Since the end of July, comet Swift-Tuttle has made a periodic circle around the Sun and we see its debris in contact with our atmosphere. It is also called the Perseids swarm, name that comes from Perseus in which the radiant is located, i.e. a point from which all trails seem to arrive.

But, what does San Lorenzo have to do with this? On the 10th of August this Christian martyr was killed in 258 A.D. by the Roman emperor Valeriano during the persecutions. Also, cardinals, bishops and Pope Sixtus II were murdered and the believe that the Perseids swarm represented the shed tears during the martyrdom was born…

Make a wish...

The tradition of expressing a wish refers precisely to the interpretation of the term “wish”.

For Christians, the expressed wish when seeing a ‘shooting star’ gave them hope that the petition would come true thanks to the saint’s intercession. Gaius Julius Caesar in his ‘De Bello Gallico’ calls the soldiers who waited beneath the stars for their disappeared peers after the battle desirous as they hoped to see them still alive.

According to the etymological interpretation, the word wish from latin de-sidus (star) that means “stop contemplating the stars with auspicious purposes”. Even the custom of the sailors that, wishing to get back home, they entrusted the star’s guide, may have produced the association between the stars and the wishes.

With the hope for a clear sky, between the 10th and 12th of August, also try to look up to the sky, preferably after 10 pm.

You never know, if you are lucky you may see some shooting stars and express your most secret wishes… but remember not to tell them to anybody.