A Cataclysmic Transformation of My Mind, Heart and Soul

My daughter sent me the following email while she was at Middlebury College studying for a Masters in Italian:

Ciao Mamma,

Can you put into words how Dr. Trovato’s Italian literature class changed you? You can see the point that I am trying to make below .... If his class is an example of this, please explain to me how in your own words ...

NO RUSH ... if and when you have time .... (You can also just tell me on the phone too ...)

Love, Tori

We have all heard stories about how after someone read a quote, met someone, read a book, took a course, and other opportunities when people came into contact with information, from that point forward, a metamorphosis happened in someone’s life. Quotes have resonated with individuals and often times an individual will make that particular quote their personal mantra from there on out. There are people who read a book and it is after reading that book that an individual’s life is transformed. Examples about how one nugget of knowledge or know-how altered one’s reality are multitudinous. My Mom tells the story of how she was in Dr. Trovato’s Italian literature class at Northwestern University and she viewed Italian literature as well as life in general different after this class. This teacher taught this class in such a way that it profoundly affected my Mom’s life.     .......    My Mom explains it as:

 Wow, this is quite a daunting question but I will try to respond. When I was taking a course on the Divine Comedy for the third time at age 33 after being married with three children and in the midst of two aging and ailing parents, my father who would soon have a stroke that would paralyze him on the 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 and 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 more perfectly. 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 Famiglial 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 faith and Scripture and above all, from my Papa and Mamma’s love that now I fully know reflected God’s sacrificial and perfect love for us. In its perfect form human love is connected to divine love. I have learned through my intimate relationship with God to naturally extend that same love to my fellowman which has brought and continues to bring me harmony, peace and joy in my life. God is Love and we are made to love as He loves us.

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, family 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, in my reconversion to my Catholic faith and

in living my faith not just in words but in charitable deeds toward the ones I love but also toward anyone who crosses my path of my BELLA VITA!

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

My attraction with Italy's beloved "Pinocchio"

I have always had a fondness and affiliation with the character of Pinocchio.  As I was maturing through my faith, my formal education, and through my experiences of parenting, I was discovering the beauty of the story of Pinocchio by Carlo Lorenzini. Let me explain a little more clearly how I came to love Pinocchio so much. As a high school Italian teacher I chose to use a beginning reader in Italian II, an abridged version of the Italian novel by Carlo Collodi entitled “Le Avventure di Pinocchio.”  As I was  using this text in my high school curriculum in the teaching of Italian, I was learning more about my faith as a catechist, I was learning strategies to improve students’ reading comprehension through my degree as a reading specialist, and I was learning so much about children as a mother of three beautiful children. For over twenty years I used the reader of Pinocchio in my high school curriculum and I created a learning scenario for the teaching of  “Le Avventure di Pinocchio” that became very popular in my teaching circles among my colleagues. I gave many presentations in school districts, at state and national foreign language conventions as well as at various workshops of the AATI, AATF, and other foreign language organizations.  My enthusiasm and passion for the teaching of Pinocchio was known by those who knew me and by my students. Though I enjoyed teaching so many other cultural topics in the Italian curriculum, the teaching of “The Adventures of Pinocchio” was my favorite didactic unit to teach in the teaching of Italian because every time that I would teach the unit I would appreciate some new aspect of Pinocchio that connected with increased knowledge of my faith and Scripture, with improved reading strategies in the foreign language classroom and with increased wisdom as a parent of three children.

So, let’s begin by saying that Carlo Collodi (Lorenzini) was the author and creator of Pinocchio, the wooden boy puppet who came to life only after many trials and tribulations that taught him ultimately how to love sacrificially as God loves us. Roberto Benigni, the great Italian actor and comedian realized his dream of co-writing, directing, and starring in the film version of “Pinocchio,” based on the original fable of Carlo Collodi. The film was well received in Europe but in the United States, it was not appreciated because Americans had been raised on Walt Disney’s heavily edited and sanitized version of Pinocchio. I would always be very satisfied at the completion of teaching my Pinocchio unit because my American students would enthusiastically show a preference for Roberto Benigni’s film over Walt Disney

ps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZdRMed2jC0
Remember Pinocchio? Not Disney's version but this one or Roberto Benigni's? I just resaw this for the umptheenth time and I always loved watching it and teaching it to my students: The little puppet who worked to become a real boy! Actually, my students would always learn that beyond the fond Disney story they knew, they realized that the original story by Lorenzini was a very profound story because it has to do with what it means to be human and what we are made for...CARITAS or Sacrificial Love! I just read Anthony DeStefano's book, A TravellGuide to Life and he states what I always taught about Pinocchio when we read the abridged version of The Adventures of Pinocchio that the story has to do with free will and what it means to be an authentically human being. In other words, Pinocchio learns how to love through Christian biblical overtones. What is interesting is that DeStefano also says that we, today are living the Pinocchio story in reverse. That is to say that instead of becoming children of God and becoming real, loving and free human beings, we spend our lives trying to become puppets. I think he is right! I have always been a non-conformist and my parents and Pinocchio taught me this very important mantra of my life...not to follow the current, but to follow your heart and your intellect just as Dante did in the Divine Comedy. This never gets old for me.LOL Love it

The Importance of the Past for Hope

The importance of the Past

Education today tends to ignore the past and focuses on the present. G.K. Chesterton states that modern historians have not given us a reliable version of the story of civilization. Modern historians called revisionists change the past and reinterpret it according to their own preconceptions and biases toward theology, religion and in particular toward the Catholic Church. I have seen it with my own eyes as a college professor for the last ten years. Curriculums purposefully and deliberately exclude God, religious works, or any topic or book that reflect or present the catholic faith, the Catholic Church, catholic social teachings or catholic prominent figures so as to only represent the agendas of education today. What are the agendas of our day? They are, in essence to present only a secular view of the world historically. The omission or disinformation of history of this kind disfigures and intentionally but subtly falsifies the rudiments of the history of civilization, specifically Western Civilization. Why? Because the intent is to vilify all that the Catholic Church and Christianity have positively contributed to Western Civilization because that would mean that we acknowledge that there is only one God, Creator of Heaven and Earth and that we are made in His image and likeness.

Revisionist historians according to G. K. Chesterton want to only present scientific and factual aspects of history without understanding the facts culturally or within the chronological time they represents. By cultural facts, G. K. Chesterton means the legends and traditions that assist in the interpretation of history especially if little evidence is available in written form. Without the study of oral history the recounting of history is false according to Chesterton.

I agree with G. K. Chesterton when he states that “All Roads Lead to Rome.” I have amassed much information about Rome after a half century of studying and teaching the Italian language, its culture and its civilization. I agree with Chesterton that “All Roads come from Rome” or in other words that our modern civilization comes from Roman civilization. As the Roman Empire dissolved into chaos, its Church took its place and produced some of its greatest leaders and its greatest contributions of all time.

Having studied the Middles Ages in Spain, France and in Italy in particular, I can unequivocally concur with Chesterton who says that the Catholic Church single-handedly brought the Medieval Ages out of Darkness into the Light. Not only were the barbarians conquered but in many cases they were converted. By the end of the 5^th century, most of the non-Roman peoples settled in the West were adopting Roman customs and Christian belief. Intermarriage with established Roman families, the acquisition of Imperial titles, and finally, conversion to Christianity assisted a process of acculturation among their leaders, for instance as in the case of Clovis, the Frank. Generally speaking, when modern historians describe the Medieval Ages as cruel, they just want to denigrate the Catholic Church as cruel and barbaric. They ignore the fact that it was the Catholic Church that fought off the barbarians and in a more amazing way, converted them. They ignore the more striking fact that they have been the cruel ones who want to destroy the Catholic Church and disregard all that we borrowed from the Catholic Church that is humane and good for society. It was the Church that founded hospitals, orphanages and universities. It was the Church that fed the poor and defended the weak. It was the Catholic Church that rejected the modern, atheistic culture in the 20^th century that tortured and killed more people than the rest of history combined. In my next blog I will write about a plethora of contributions that came from the Middle Ages and from Christianity.