Baaria

While visiting my mother in California (to celebrate her 91st birthday today), I joined her and some of her friends last night at a movie sponsored by the local Italian-American Club. The 2½ hour movie (in Italian, with English subtitles) was named Baaria, Sicilian dialect for Bagheria, the Sicilian town, which is the setting for the film. It depicts a half-century plus of local life as experienced through a particular family (especially the middle generation represented by Peppino and his wife Mannina).

Three generations of the family are portrayed,but the (grand)father and (grand)son are sort of bookends for the life and times of the middle generation, represented by Peppino. There are evocative scenes from Peppino's father's youth in the 1910s, a reminder that Peppino (and everyone else) lives and moves within a framework created and deeply constrained by the past. Peppino's personal (individual and family) life is inextricably entwined with that larger story. That said, Peppino's personal story begins - highly symbolically - in a classroom in 1930s Italy, where official portraits of King and Duce with a crucifix between them stare down from the schoolroom wall. 

The film walks Peppino through his poor and skinny childhood, through the  traumas of war, liberation by the Allies, and the 1946 Referendum, through his own ideological identification with the Communists and his modest career as a Communist Party functionary - all set agains the background of social and political change, dramatized by the changing face of the city itself. (In addition to English subtitles, the film featured super-titles, with the Director's scene-by-scene commentary, including commentary on the changes in the cityscape and how they are portrayed in the film).

Young communist though he may have been, Peppino pursued and won a woman, Mannina, of slightly better social standing, whose family had had higher hopes for her. Peppino's and Mannina's love last - and triumph - through such adversities (and Peppino's lack of significant success politically and economically). Peppino's communist ideals never find fulfillment (and there are hints of ideological disillusionment). Instead, Peppino find personal meaning and fulfillment in his family and learns to celebrate his ability to relate to others in ways which relativize political categories.

The film faithfully captures the tragic story of Sicily and the resilient dynamism of its people. It successfully sets the particular political pathologies of the 20th century - in all their transience - amid the unchanging human story of life, labor, love, and death, continuing from generation to generation through the abiding realities of family and friendship.

Pentecost Sunday

Until modern times, Pentecost was observed very grandly as one of the greatest festivals of the Church’s calendar, on a par with Easter. It had an octave equal to Easter’s and even had its own Saturday morning vigil (complete with a blessing of baptismal water like at Easter). At one time, Kings and Queens were expected to wear their crowns publicly on Pentecost. About all that’s left of that now in Europe is a 3-day holiday weekend. And here in the US we don’t even have that!

“Pentecost” is a Greek word referring to the 50^th day – originally the 50^th day after Passover. Its Hebrew name, Shavuot, means “weeks,” a reference to the week of seven weeks that began with Passover. It originated as a kind of thanksgiving festival for the late spring, early summer harvest. Whereas at Passover, seven weeks earlier, only unleavened bread had been used, at Pentecost ordinary bread was offered in the form of fully leavened loaves. It was to celebrate this festival that devout Jews from every nation under heaven came as pilgrims to Jerusalem, in the familiar story we just heard from the Acts of the Apostles.

By then (by New Testament times), Pentecost had become a commemoration of the covenant at Mount Sinai, the giving of the 10 commandments, which (according to Exodus) had happened just about seven weeks after the exodus from Egypt.  Just as summer fulfills the promise of spring, the covenant at Mount Sinai fulfilled the promise of Israelite nationhood of which the exodus had been but the beginning. Likewise, the coming of the Holy Spirit fulfilled the promise of the resurrection, transforming the disciples from fearful followers of a now absent Jesus into faith-filled witnesses out to transform the whole world.

In our calendar, Pentecost marks the transition from Easter to Ordinary Time, the time of fulfillment, the time of the Church, when the promise of Christ’s resurrection should be reflected in our ordinary lives. As his Church, we worship the Risen Lord, now ascended to heaven and seated at his Father’s right hand. Meanwhile, as his Church here on earth, we continue Christ’s work in the world.

Years ago, when we were preparing for Confirmation, we memorized the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. We call them the gifts of the Holy Spirit, because we don’t produce them on our own. They are given to us – to transform us into true children of God and to enable us to live in a new way. The results of that transformation, the visible effects we experience of the Holy Spirit active in our lives are what we call the fruits of the Holy Spirit (which we also memorized).

That’s how the promise of the resurrection is fulfilled and expresses its effect in our ordinary lives. Pentecost is our annual observance of what happens weekly with the transition from Sunday to Monday. From our Sunday celebration around the unleavened bread which has become the body of our Risen Lord, we are sent forth, to renew the face of the earth as the Risen Christ’s permanent presence in the leavened bread of our daily lives in the world.

Homily for Pentecost Sunday, St. Anne’s Church, Walnut Creek, CA, May 19, 2013.

DC Scandal Time - Again

"Washington just loves scandals; they’re ever so much more exciting than the daily grind of legislation—if there is any—and the tit-for-tat between the president and the congressional Republicans over the budget was becoming tedious. Faux outrage is a specialty here." So writes political commentator Elizabeth Drew - at http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2013/may/18/why-obama-is-not-nixon/.

The key words in her analysis are, I think, "legislation - if there is any." In our contemporary political comedy theater, legislation has largely become impossible - except on those rare occasions when a particularly powerful lobby of the rich and privileged can count on a comparably sympathetic hearing from virtually all sides (e.g., the recent fracas over the sequestration's effect on air travel). In the absence of legislation - indeed, of any serious desire to legislate - scandal(what Drew righty labels "faux outrage") takes over. This is, of course,made to order for our dysfunctional media, which is notoriously incapable of (and perhaps not very interested in) helping citizens to thread their way through important public policy issues, but is very good at harping on the sorts of trivia that excite members of the  inside-the-Beltway club.

So gun regulation fails, immigration reform stalls, inequality is on the increase, etc., while we wallow in trivia stoked by grandstanding politicians and media elites. And on and on it goes!

Preparing for Pentecost

The days between Ascension and Pentecost, during which the disciples waited in prayer and expectation for the coming of the Holy Spirit, are often referred to as the Church’s first “novena.”  This custom of heightened prayer for the gifts of the Holy Spirit during the days preceding Pentecost has continued in the Church up until modern times. In the 18th century, the founder of the Redemptorists, St. Alphonsus Liguori (1696-1787), so famous for his Stations of the Cross, composed a novena to the Holy Spirit. In the 20th century, Paulist Monsignor John J. Burke (1875-1936), who was General Secretary of the national Catholic Welfare Conference (predecessor of the current United States Conference of Catholic Bishops), likewise composed a popular novena to the Holy Spirit in 1925.  

There are, of course, several possible ways of approaching Pentecost. The Roman Liturgy of Paul VI (now known as the "Ordinary Form" of the Roman Rite) reduced Pentecost somewhat from being a feast on a par with Easter (with an Octave equal to Easter's) to a one-day affair marking the close of a 50-day Easter season. That approach is not without merit. As the parallelism between the Jewish and Christian spring seasonal festivals suggests, the promise of the resurrection at Easter in fulfilled for the Church in the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, just as for Israel the exodus from Egypt found its fulfillment in the covenant at Mount Sinai. Nor was reducing the Easter season from 56 days to 50 any great loss. (However, the abolition of the Ember Days was truly a loss, but that is another issue).

On the other hand, the more traditional emphasis on Pentecost primarily as "the Birthday of the Church" had a lot going for it. The liturgy may anticipate the eternal heavenly liturgy, but it is in the present present an earthly experience of the pilgrim Church journeying in the world. One of the challenges of the liturgy is to empower people to continue Christ's life like and work in the world as his Church - animated and empowered by the presence and action of the Holy Spirit. Surely that theme deserves more attention than it sometimes gets. And what better occasion than Pentecost not just to close the Easter season but to highlight the ongoing activity of the Holy Spirit in  the "ordinary" life of the Church.

In his "Notes on the Holy Spirit" from the 1870s-1880s, Paulist Founder Isaac Hecker wrote:

“The work of the Holy Ghost began on the day of Pentecost, when He descended visibly to the Apostles and disciples. It is in this dispensation we live, and when He reigns on earth, the work of the Holy Spirit will be finished. When is realized the petition of the Saviour, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” 
                                                            

Through the Holy Spirit the world was called out of chaos.
                                      

Through Him the patriarchs and prophets were inspired.
                                               

Through Him the way to the Incarnation was prepared.
                                            

Through Him the Church was established.
                                                                

Through Him every Christian soul is regenerated.
                                                          

Through Him all things receive their perfection and are glorified.
                                     

Through the Holy Spirit the martyrs received the strength to sustain triumphantly their sufferings.
                                                                                                                                  

Through Him the apostles of nations were filled with zeal and power to convert nations.
                                                                                                                        

Through Him the innumerable litany of the Saints were sanctified.

Through the Holy Spirit we receive all that is Holy, Good, True and Beautiful.

Sanctity is the result of the primary or immediate action of the Holy Spirit in the individual soul and its faithful correspondence with this inspiration.”                                 

Knowing Things

Last Sunday's New York Times had a pointed column by Frank Bruni, "America the Clueless," about how widespread in our society is ignorance about the most basic political facts. Bruni worries about the practical ramifications of this seeming triumph of ignorance over knowledge for the viability of democratic citizenship. "A clueless electorate is a corruptible one," he concludes, an electorate "that seems ill poised to make the smartest, best call" about complicated issues like health care reform, for example.

Ignorance, of course, can have many causes. One cause, surely, has to do with how much or how little people are actually taught. It used to be, for example that elementary school students studied such subjects as geography, history, and civics - socially valuable information for citizens in a democracy, a common core of knowledge about the world, some of which was remembered in adulthood and informed people's mature worldview

Bruni's remarks reminded me of Tony Judt's critique of what he called "progressive" history teaching. In Judt's post-war British his childhood as in my American one - we were both born in the same year 1948 - "history was a bunch of information. You learned it in an organized serial way - usually along a chronological timeline. The purpose of this exercise was to provide children with a mental map - stretching back across time - of the world they inhabited. Those who insisted that this approach was uncritical were not wrong. But it has proven a grave error to replace data-laden history with the intuition that the pat was a set of lies and prejudices in need of correction ..." Fashionable alternative approaches to teaching history, Judt argued, "sow confusion rather than insight, and confusion is the enemy of knowledge. Before anyone - whether child or graduate student - can engage the past, they have to know what happened, in what order and with what outcome. Instead we have raised two generations of citizens completely bereft of common references. As a result they can contribute little to the governance of their society." (Thinking the Twentieth Century, 2012, pp. 265-266).

And just look at the result!