Life lessons I learned from my beloved Pinocchio by Carlo Lorenzini

The story of Pinocchio is about a wooden puppet carved by a friendly and lonely man called Geppetto .  Pinocchio, the naughty, wooden puppet made out of pine comes alive but has to learn how to love in order to become fully human.  The Blue Fairy, La Fata Azzurra who represents the supernatural realm brings the wooden puppet to life because Geppetto loves children and never had a son of his own. The Blue Fairy tells Pinocchio that he cannot become a real boy until he proves his worthiness. A talking cricket, Il Grillo,Parlante accompanies Pinocchio as his conscience, telling him right from wrong and warning him that his bad decisions and actions have severe consequences.

Pinocchio learns many lessons through all his mischievousness. The first lesson we learn as readers is that Geppetto is a very loving father who sacrifices for his beloved son by selling his only jacket to provide a schoolbook for Pinocchio. Here  is the first example of sacrificial love that we witness in this supposedly innocuous children's tale. In each adventure or chapter of Pinocchio there is temptation, remorse, forgiveness, redemption and salvation. The adventures of Pinocchio teach him how to become human or in other words, teach him how to truly love and  he learns to truly love through the noble actions of his self-sacrificing father, Geppetto and through the compassionate actions of his supernatural mother through the character of the Blue Fairy. One could say that Pinocchio is on a real journey on life's road to learn about Caritas (Sacrificial Love) , the same love that is the central theme in Dante's Divine Comedy as he journeys through hell, purgatory, and heaven in order to also ultimately learn how to love sacrificially or perfectly. Italians read Pinocchio as children and as older students they read Dante's Divine Comedy yet the overarching theme in both of these great works is how to love perfectly.

So many of the deadly sins are supplanted in the character of Pinocchio and as I observed my own children growing up, I would always humorously point out to my students how my own children would act just like Pinocchio with his naïveté, with his innocence and with his concupiscence.

I find then a law, that when I have a will to do good, evil is present with me. For I am delighted with the law of God, according to the inward man: but I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind, and captivating me in the law of sin, that is in my members. Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? (Romans 7:21-25)

"Christ by His death redeemed mankind from sin and its bondage. In baptism the guilt of original sin is wiped out and the soul is cleansed and justified again by the infusion of sanctifying grace. But freedom from concupiscence is not restored to man, any more than immortality; abundant grace, however, is given him, by which he may obtain the victory over rebellious sense and deserve life everlasting."

(Catholic Encyclopedia)

 Sin is a condition in which we fail to grow in a fully human way. Pinocchio's negative behavior turns him always to himself and his own selfish needs and thus, his vices or sins, if you will, are  "deadly" because they take him from life to death or in eschatological terms, they could conceivably take him from eternal life to eternal damnation. Pinocchio's choices turn him away from his fullest humanity. Pinocchio has a free will that allows him to continually fail and to learn from his errors. He is continually restless and unsatisfied as he tests the muddy, tempting waters of life. Saint Augustine in his Confessions tells us that "God made us for Himself and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee." Dante, in his Divine Comedy from the Middle Ages, organized the Mount of Purgatory into seven terraces which beginning with pride, the sinful mounted to expiate their sins and learn of their opposing virtues.  For example, the sinful in pride learn how to be humble or the sinful in sloth learn how to be charitable. Pinocchio learns with his intellect and his heart the same type of lessons that transform vice into virtue. The old monastic writers knew instinctively that to turn away from the isolation of self and to turn toward the other is to Love! It is better to give than to receive as Saint Francis of Assisi demonstrated so passionately in the way he lived his life which was totally Christocentric. He saw Jesus Christ in everyone and everything that God made in Creation. Pinocchio sees Christ in the paternal love that he unconditionally receives from his temporal father, Geppetto who always forgives his beloved Prodigal Son when he goes astray as well as seeing Christ in the maternal love that he unconditionally receives from the supernatural mother of the Blue Fairy who also forgives him when he errs from the straight and narrow path. She also helps to comfort him when he is suffering, encourages him even when she knows he is deviating from the right path and patiently waits to bring him home when he has lost his way. Pinocchio fears both his  natural father and supernatural mother but it is a good,filial fear that increases his hope in being transformed into a human being and ultimately, with temperance to avoid sin, and have perpetual life. 

Alla prossima ( Until next time) Tante belle cose to my Pinocchiophiles!

Family

The foundation of Italy is not its constitution but La Famiglia. Growing up Italian even when all of our relatives were far away in Italy while we were new immigrants in the United States, we never felt alone. As a child I always always felt safe and protected in the refuge of our home with my Papa and Mamma and five siblings.  The unification of Italy after the decline of the Roman Empire occurred after many centuries of exterior as well as interior invasions of the Italian boot. Perhaps this is why Italians are so self-sufficient and hopeful. They had to fend for themselves from the decline of the Roman Empire to 1870 when Italy was finally united. This social and political movement was called the Risorgimento meaning Resurgence that unified all of the regions of Italy into one single state of the Kingdom of Italy. The Italian film, Il Gattopardo made in 1963 helped me to understand the positive and negative effects that the unification of Italy had on Italian society. Throughout Italy’s tumultuous centuries of changing conditions, the only unchanging fundamental institution inevitably became the family. 

My parents taught me to always defend, honor and respect the family. I learned to love and respect the family because my parents loved and respected us so much.  My Italian parents throughout my childhood and also into womanhood always treated me as a precious human being with great worth, dignity and whose needs were of paramount importance to them. I felt like a Regina ( Queen) and infact, they called me La Regina Dorina because my Papa had a little poetic verse put on a cake which he brought to the hospital when I was born which read, “E nata la Regina, la chiameremo Dorina." From that moment on I always felt immensely loved. It seemed like the world stopped for my parents when we children were in their midst. It was truly self-sacrificing love that emanated from an imitation of God’s triune love, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and from an imitation of the triune love in the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. From divine to human, all these models affected how our Mamma and Papa loved us, educated us and respected us. And now as a parent and grandparent I try to continue to educate, respect and love my children and my grandchildren in the same way.

It saddens and frightens me how the basic unit of society which is the family is being weakened, devalued and even mocked. To think that a woman who is helping to destroy the sacredness of human life, the family and marriage between a man and a woman is now running for President of the United States. It should not surprise me since our country helped to elect an African-American President who in just two terms of office has decimated the nucleus of society which is the family that traditionally consisted of Father, Mother and children. After 43 years of sacramental marriage, my husband and I know that mankind's purpose on this earth is to love unconditionally in relationship as God does and that through marriage and the family we can fulfill this inherent need in the most sublime way.

I had the privilege and honor of being in the birthing room of one of my daughter's first child's entrance into this beautiful world with her beloved husband. I witnessed the most beautiful miracle....the miracle of LIFE! I will cherish this memory forever! It is with deep gratitude to Joseph's parents for letting me be a part of this most blessed event. People are searching for fool-proof evidence of God in this world. Well, my response to that would be to say that all you have to do is witness the beauty, wonder and awe of seeing new life enter this world. No words can fully describe what I saw, thought and felt in my heart, mind and soul!