My Italian Childhood

As a little girl I was treated like a princess by my loving Italian father and mother. I felt like the center of their world. They made me feel immensely loved and so secure. My world was protected from ugliness, violence, or sadness. My parents truly gave me a beautiful, good, and protected childhood. Though I did not have much materialism such as toys, trendy clothing, vacations, and other pleasurable children's activities, I nonetheless, have extraordinary warm, fuzzy, and beautiful memories of my  Italian childhood in America. I will always cherish these childhood memories with nostalgia because I literally had no anxieties or worries because my parents loved me so much and provided so generously for all of my needs. I must say however, that although I was always put on a pedestal by my dear, loving parents, I was also disciplined by them with great love which eradicated the possibility of my ever getting too spoiled. I felt utterly safe, utterly loved and utterly taken care of because Papa and Mamma were always present in my daily life during my entire youth. My father worked every day from Monday to Friday but he always came home by 5:00 pm and we always had dinner together. My mother never had a job outside of the home and lovingly took care of my every need as a child, adolescent, and young adult.. She prepared three meals a day for us and never missed a day except the day when in my freshman year of high school, she abruptly found out that her beloved father in Italy had passed away whom she had not seen since our coming to America in 1956. When I was in elementary school at St. Tarcissus I remember coming home for lunch every day from school followed by a totally delicious and nutritious home-cooked supper together with the family. Everything Mamma made was made from scratch from her soups, pastas,gnocchi, risotto, polenta, breads, pizzas, vegetable dishes, fish and meat dishes to desserts such as biscotti, plum dumplings or crepes. I marvel now at all the dishes that she lovingly and laboriously made for us every day. True Sacrifice! Even as a child, deep down I always honored, loved, and deeply respected my parents for the beautiful human beings that they were and for all of the sacrifices that I knew they had made for me. Yet,  I was incognizant of the fact that my Mamma was always  my role-model of true femininity,womanhood and motherhood that modern femininity would be telling me to renounce. Yes, I did go out into the attractive modern world and I did all the things my dear Mamma was not able to do but in the end, I always would hold dear to all that I learned from my exceptional Italian Mamma.  I learned more from her than from all of the knowledge I amassed from my college degrees.What I learned from Mamma, especially from her deeds rather than from her words, would ultimately mold me into the wife, the mother, and the woman I am today.  St. Francis told his followers to "preach at all times and if necessary, use words.....that describes my mother to the tee! I think that my dear mother and father through their foundation of their catholic faith tried to essentially emulate the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph who served each other and others with humanity and dignity. My parents tried valiantly to serve each other and to serve their children with humanity and dignity. I will forever be grateful to God for the blessing of having them as my parents!  Today at mass my dear husband and I heard the gospel of St. Paul in which he tells us to be slaves of the Lord and not to sin because in serving the Lord, we will truly be free. In thinking of my self'giving Mamma and Papa who served us with charity, I can better understand this very difficult concept of being slaves for the Lord.  Pope John Paul II in his encyclical on the dignity of woman states that "Christ, the "Servant of the Lord", will show all people the royal dignity of service, the dignity which is joined in the closest possible way to the vocation of every person."  This was most assuredly the vocation of my loving parents who are now deceased. May eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord. And let perpetual light shine upon them.  Rest in peace, Papa e Mamma. Vi voglio tanto bene e vi ringrazio di cuore!

Dante

“… I am one who takes note when inspired by love, and in the very way that it dictates within me, so I go shedding meaning.” Dante was nine years old when he first saw Beatrice Portinari, who was a few months younger than he and lived close to his home in Florence. From that moment, he wrote, “love ruled my soul.” Beatrice was to marry Simone de’ Baedi, a wealthy banker, and it is improbable that she ever knew of Dante’s admiration for her. As for Dante he married Gemma Donati, by whom he had four children. Nontheless, it was his platonic love for Beatrice…”the woman of my mind,” as he described her---which was to be the inspiration of his life and work. After her death in 1290 at the age of twenty-five, Dante composed the Vita nova , a collection of poems interlaced with commentary, in which he told the story of his ideal love.Most famous of these poems is the sonnet  “Tanto gentile e tanto onesto pare.”an excellent example of dolce stil nuovo poetry. Beatrice is portrayed not as a human being but as an angel whose presence on earth is a miracle. The love she inspires is a spiritual bliss, one conveyed to a man’s heart through his eyes, excluding even the remotest implication of physical contact.

T.S. Eliot praised Dante’s “visual imagination” and his gift for making the “spiritual visible.”

Not only does Dante create new poetic forms but he established the Italian language as a significant rival to Latin for the writers of his time. His influence on English writers extends all the way from the Middle Ages to the 20^th century.

Bella Fiume

Here is a song that a dear friend of mine, Francesco sent me entitled "Bella Fiume".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chNWkxuCU6E

 Fiume no longer exists and is called Rijeka but my heart now has recaptured it through so many ways in this tecnologically advanced modern world we live in but it was through my wonderful daughter and her graduate studies in this area of history that I have been truly able to relive my parents' past. At Middlebury and at U. of Chicago my daughter  found so many incredible documents. It has been such a deeply moving and nostalgic experience for me. It is amazing how I have come to find this treasure of my past that is called Fiume now that I am retired ( well, somewhat).  I was able to read a novel called "Il Vento di Terra Perduta" (The Wind of the Lost Land) that my daughter lent me and I cannot describe to you all the memories and emotions that it conjured up in me. Those who know me well know that I have always said that it is in giving that we receive ( which I say every day in San Francesco's prayer). It is so true. Through my daughter's studies I have uncovered my true identity.  When I hear my canzoni fiumane ( my song of the past in my fiumano dialect) I am home. I just wanted to share this song with you because it is so much a part of who and what I am all about. I am so thankful to my friend, Francesco for sharing this song with me and to my daughter for all of her arduous and passionate work in my Italian family's history. Francesco is my brother Enzo's friend who came to America with us after we became expatriated. I so very much want to go on the Adriatic cruise that sails every year to remember our lost lands and our lost Italian brothers and sisters who were tragically massacred during World War II. Maybe one day soon. The song deeply captures this people's love of life as we call it "Allegria" or "joie de vivre". My dear Mamma e Papa' continually taught me to love this beautiful life given to us by God, to be cheerful and strong, and to never lose SPERANZA! It has been a lesson for me that will be forever indelibly imprinted in my soul.

Sharing a nostalgic moment with those who know me well. La Vita E Bella!
PS Nel video si puo vedere il bellissimo palazzoe dintorni del passato della mia cara famiglia.

Dorina

Caritas

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 When I was taking a course on the Divine Comedy for the third time at age 33 after being married with three beautiful children and in the midst of two aging and ailing parents, my father who would soon have a stroke that would paralyze him on thr right side and my mother who was in the middle stages of Alzheimers, it was at this crossroad of my life that I was truly beginning to understand what Dante was saying in the greatest epic poem of all time, the Divina Commedia which would ultimately become for me a reflection of the Good News of Christ. My class was every Wednesday night and even though my dear father had just had his stroke and hospitalized, I felt the need to attend this class even more for my survival. I was working full-time teaching Italian as a high school teacher, raising three children with my dear husband, taking a grad class on Dante, taking care of my Mamma with Alzheimers on the weekends and suddenly having to contend with my dear Papa's debilitating stroke. People would often tell me to join a support group but my support or life line came from my faith, my family, and from the hopeful messages that I was receiving from Dr.Mastrobuono’s Dante Studies class ( which initially came from Dr. Trovato, my most favorite professor from Northwestern, my alma mater for my MA in Italian).  The love I experienced through my Catholic faith, my Italian family, and my study of Dante spelled out one, incontrovertible form and definition of love that was called CARITAS!  All these types of love were inextricably linked. The more I would imitate Christ’s love for us, the more I would become who I was meant to be. Through this beautiful lesson of what love really is, I found peace, joy, and HOPE in my life. Through my studies of Italian literature as an MA graduate student at Northwestern with Dr. Trovato and through my biblical studies as a catechist at my Catholic church, I clearly began to understand how Faith and Reason go hand in hand. The love I was going to have to give and continue to give in my life that would cause me to have an internal conversion was God’s sacrificial love or “Caritas”. I was going to have to place others before my own needs and wants.

My esteemed professors of the Divine Comedy reached me in a very personal, intellectual, and spiritual way that spoke to me in a very intimate way at that very challenging and difficult time in my life. I truly was becoming an adult capable of unremitting compassion ( caritas) and generous humanity at this time confronting the mortality of my parents’ as well as anticipating my own. This work of sublime poetry from the 13^th century was more relevant to me than any modern writing had ever been. It demonstrated that the human condition never changes and that morality never changes because at the core we are born to love and be loved as God so loved the world that He gave his only Son so that we may be saved and have life both here on this earthly kingdom of God as well as eternal life in heaven after we die. “Caritas” is what I so beautifully not just learned and understood but experienced so deeply in my mind, heart, and soul.  I truly learned how to love sacrificially and charitably. I experienced my parents’ love all my life and my husband’s and children’s love through our marital covenant but it was not until I experienced the suffering of my parents that  I truly learned how to love. Through  great literature and through magnanimous professors who could explain and exemplify spiritual love so beautifully and coherently to me was I finally able to understand as well as verbalize what love is.

I wish I could have more eloquently told my two esteemed professors how much their teachings of Dante meant to me, saving me in all senses of the word, changing me forever, and to this day, continuing to give me HOPE in a world that wants to give us despair.

Dr. Trovato’s son sums up so beautifully what his father was to him and to students like myself.

“yes, my dad was many things to many people, and to me he was a moral beacon. a guide by which i could look into the darkness and see the light shining bright and continuously pointing in the right direction. today his light shines bright on the horizon. it is there for all of the people he touched throughout his life. it is there for us.”

I heard Dr. Trovato give one of his last lectures on Dante in the twilight of his life and soon after he died in 2009 but his teachings on Dante and anecdotal stories of his own life will always nourish my heart, mind, and soul. He will always be one of the greatest mentors and most loving human beings I have ever known. How privileged and blessed was I to have had Dr. Trovato as my Italian Professor. He was a beacon of God’s light that emanated from his face, from his teachings, and from his deeds as a good and humble human being. He lived what he taught and what he taught was beautiful, good, and true. What I pieced together was Scripture, Faith, Reason, and Familial Love in a masterful literary work whose central theme of “Caritas” would change me forever .

Someone else who truly enlightened me on Dante was Pope Benedict  XVI. Herewith  attached is a preface he wrote for his encyclical, Deus Caritas Est. It says so eloquently what  I have intuited from  my experiences of Caritas ( God is Love) through my sufferings and joys that came and continue to come through loving others as Christ loves us. Perfectly!  I can only love perfectly by loving Christ and loving others as I love Him.  In this way we can love God, know Him, and serve Him by serving our fellow man, especially the poor, the disenfranchised, and the persecuted in our world. In this way we are truly free, at peace, and in harmony with God’s plan for us.

I cannot possibly put into a few pages all of my spiritual and philosophical thoughts, insights, messages, and discoveries that profoundly affected me from my study of Dante with Dr. Trovato and Dr. Mastrobuono. I would also like to say that my vast appreciation for my Dante studies could not have maturated without the maturation of my Catholic Faith and Scripture.  

In the following preface of Pope Benedict’s Encyclical, Deus Caritas Est ( God Is Love) he begins to  speak of Dante in his encyclical  on the theme of Love in a way that expresses in words  so perfectly what I know or have intuited so perfectly in my heart. I would encourage everyone to read this preface and encyclical to begin the reading of the Divine Comedy. I encourage you because the vision and comprehension of “Caritas” will transform you as it transformed me. I was able to see God’s luminous face and God’s  charitable heart through this long journey of faith and Dante studies.

“The strength of "Caritas" depends on the strength of faith of all its members and collaborators.  

The spectacle of suffering man touches our heart. But charitable commitment has a meaning that goes well beyond mere philanthropy. God himself pushes us in our interior to alleviate misery. In this way, in a word, we take him to the suffering world.  

The more we take him consciously and clearly as gift, the more effectively will our love change the world and awaken hope, a hope that goes beyond death.”

( Pope Benedict XVI)

( This writing today is another example of HOPE that I continually discovered and continue to discover in my studies of Italian).

http://www.crossroadsinitiative.com/library_article/867/Why_Love_is_the_Theme___Benedict_XVI.html