Santa Serafina

Italians celebrate two days each year that are special for them individually: one is their birthday, and the other is their saint's day. For those of you who do not know, every Catholic saint has a day of the year that is celebrated as his or her "day" and everyone with that saint's name is also celebrated that day. Today, for example, it's the day for Saints Isaac and Laura the Martyr. I know because all Italian calendars have the saints written on each day.

Last Sunday was the special day for Saint Seraphim. My husband's maternal grandmother was named Serafina (the female version of the name in Italian). Italian tradition (no longer respected by everyone)requires that children be named after their grandparents, so the firstborn son takes the name of his father's father. The firstborn daughter takes the name of her father's mother. The second son takes the name of his mother's father and the second daughter takes her mother's mother's name. Further children can be named somewhat more creatively.

My sister-in-law is, therefore, named Serafina and she has several cousins with the same name. They all have nicknames because Serafina is considered an old-fashioned name, so we have Serì, Fiorella, Nella, Nellì, etc. And it can get confusing when lots of people in the family have the same name!
In honour of her grandmother, and as a convenient excuse to gather the family together (it seems like we only get together for funerals recently!) my sister-in-law organised a special mass in her mother's home. My mother-in-law is no longer very mobile and doesn't get out to mass anymore, so the mass combined with a family reunion was a nice treat for her.

These photos are of the beautiful altar that my sister-in-law prepared on the dining-room table.

Back to Church

Today was the first Sunday of the "catechistic year." This means the period of the year in which children attend catechism. It starts in October and ends in early June.

My family is Catholic, but not particularly devout. A great many Italians (though certainly not all) care that their children receive all the key sacraments: baptism, first communion and confirmation, even if they do not themselves attend church regularly, or, in many cases, at all. We attend for the length of the catechistic year...and then go on religious vacation.

One day while I was visiting a friend, the local priest stopped by to bless her house. He asked why he hadn't seen her at mass. She explained that she was a believer, but not an attender of mass. I chipped in that my family are believers, but only seasonal attenders...during the catechistic year.

I'm not sure if that makes us hypocrites...or just religiously lazy?