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 13th
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).
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