La Speranza: 2026

Monday, June 15, 2026

Two Great Announcements about Italy

I have two great announcements about Italy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcG0_oa30mQLinks to an external site.

To all my Italophiles!

Italy counts 55 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the most of any country in the world! You can discover all the sites with pictures and locations on the map!

Secondly, Italian Food is considered the best in the world according to Unesco this year!

Italian cooking, between sustainability and biocultural diversityLinks to an external site.

With this decision, Italy becomes the first country ever to have its entire cuisine added to the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list. Deservedly so, the most famous food and variety in the world and first to win this award by Unesco. It is a testament to its people and the food they produce with passion and tradizione!

This must be the reason I love making all of my Mamma's traditional and holiday recipes throughout the year! It gives me such great joy to see the excitement and anticipation for these family traditional dishes in my ten grandchilden each year. These festivities for me is all about giving joy and sharing with family, all for the glory of God!

Evviva La Cucina Italiana! ! Tantissimi Auguri all'Italia!

Buon Divertimento! Enjoy!

Where Beauty is Everywhere!

As I told my Italian 1020 class this spring, I just discovered a series of documentaries on Seeking Beauty in Italy by the famous Hollywood actor, David Henrie. I really like the series which absolutely captures the excitement when we encounter beauty that is awe-inspiring! Since we were studying the "Rinascimento Italiano," I appropriately chose the episode on Firenze, the cradle of the Renaissance for them. I am suggesting this series to my colleagues and lovers of Italy and of Beauty to watch this magnificent series! Beauty must be cultivated, studied and experienced. If we prepare ourselves correctly to see Beauty, we will draw our soul toward God's grace and the divine. Masters like Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo believed that art perfects nature and in so doing, they brought a sensation of heavenly beauty into our earthly existence at least for fleeting moments of time.

Buon Divertimento!

https://ondemand.ewtn.com/Home/Play/en/SEB26003Links to an external site.

The Nanny State

I am repulsed by the recent legislation in New York wanting to change “Father” and “Mother” to the ridiculous terms of “non-gestating parent” and “gestating parent”! I am reminded by G. K. Chesterton's predictions on the topic of the "nanny state" with socialist/communist underpinnings. Here is an article by Dale Ahlquist, an expert on G. K. Chesterton who expounds on this imminent threat continually resurfacing in our country by the insane Left. "Through all of human history, from the ancient world to the modern, the family is the basic brick of civilization. It is what builds not only the four walls of the home but also the walls that protect the city. To destroy the family is to destroy the society, and redefining the family is in essence destroying it." (Dale Ahlquist) I remember the famous quote of Chesterton that says it all......."Once abolish the God and the State becomes the God."

Dale Ahlquist is a famed American author and president and a co-founder of the American Chesterton Society and publisher of its magazine, Gilbert. Here is an article in which he expounds on G.K. Chesterton's predictions on the "Nanny State" a century ago. I think all that he said is coming true!

https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/the-challenge-of-defending-the-normal

Let me know what you think.

Sunday, February 1, 2026

I 40 GIORNI DEL TERRORE ( The 40 Days of Terror) by Mauro Tonino

This book is my family's tragic story. Books like this one is very difficult for me to read time and time again but they need to be told and retold so we will always remember. ll Giorno del Ricordo is now celebrated on February 10 in order to commemorate the victims of the " foibe" ( mass graves) by the Yugoslavian-Communist regime of Tito.

February 10 is Giorno del Ricordo (Day of Remembrance) in Italy, a national holiday finally established in 2004 to commemorate the victims of the foibe ( mass graves) massacres and the Istrian–Dalmatian exodus after World War II. It honors the 300,000 of Italians forced to flee their homes in Istria, Rijeka (Fiume), and Dalmatia as my family did, by the grace of God, flee alive, just like in the story of "The Sound of Music" but hundreds of thousands did not.

February 10, the Day of Remembrance, in Italy is very important to me, as a refugee from Fiume

(presently Rijeka), who was given the privilege to come to America, the Land of the Free!

I 40 GIORNI DEL TERRORE

di Mauro Tonino (Autore)

25 aprile 1945. La guerra è finita ma non per tutti gli italiani. Lungo il Confine Orientale, terre di cultura e identità italiane da oltre un millennio vengono invase dall'orda dei partigiani comunisti slavi agli ordini di Josip Broz detto "Tito". Il solo fatto di essere italiani è un elemento sufficiente per essere scaraventati in una forra carsica. Un destino funesto che accomuna migliaia di italiani di Istria e Dalmazia e gli abitanti delle città di Fiume, Zara, Pola, Trieste e Gorizia. I " 40 giorni del terrore di Mauro Tonino suggella quello che è accaduto proprio a Gorizia per mano di infoibatori comunisti, grazie a documenti inediti portati alla luce dagli archivi della Farnesina.

https://www.ibs.it/40-giorni-del.../e/9791280132475...