Saints for dinner?

Yes!! this is what I was thinking of in these very busy days...Which Saints shall I invite for supper if I had my own place and what would I cook? (Ok I know both my sisters would recommend me to get some catering... but it's not the point here!). I would certainly invite Saint Francis of Assisi. They say he was really fond of some biscuits called “MUSTACCIOLI”; I've never made them but it shouldn't be too difficult.
As second guest I should call Saint Catherina of Genoa, it shouldn't be difficult to cook for her neither; as far as we know she lived for more than nine years eating just the Holy Eucharist and no other food @ all.
As third guest I would invite br.Christophe Lebreton. He's one of the seven martyrs who were killed in Thibirine, Algeria in 1996. He's written a masterpiece of theology and I would dare say a very touching dialog between a soul and its Creator; anyway he was a Trappist of the strict observance and he would be my perfect guest. I would have so many questions on the diary he'd left us but most of all he's used to the silence so that he might not complain too much of my cooking and he's a martyr…

For anyone who would be interested in these saints' meals @ my home, I mean, in their writings they all have left us something worth to read.
Saint Francis' writings published in many different languages, they cover different topics and are of great theology though this saint did not study - LUCKY HIM!
Saint Catherine is known for having written "Dialogues of the Soul and Body", and the "Treatise on Purgatory"; both worth reading, but don't tell her I've just read the second one in case you'll meet up @ my place for dinner, ok let's say for some tea...
Christophe Lebreton, as I've already said he's left us his private diary called "il soffio del dono"; I'm sure it's published in French but don't know about English.

Ok, which saint would you invite for dinner and what would you cook?

summer 2005

sorry I'm a bit late; but thanks to Veritas I've now decided it's time to share a deep experience I'd had in summer 2005.
What's happened that summer? All the young friars of Frascati were organising theri pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, but I did not feel like to go. I had to do something else, something different that would have touched me more, that would have proved my faith. It happened that I was told about a bunch of friars living amongst the gypsies and others who did not live in a friary but kept moving on the road. IT WAS DEFINITELY WHAT I WAS LOOKING FOR! I got in touch with them and I was invited to spend few weeks with the Rom and then in the street with the homeless.
Eventually I left Frascati, just after a couple of hours I was in a very hot Florence invaded by tourists who were staring at me as if I were another city attraction or a Jedi knight just come out from the last episode of Star Wars...


you see, it's quite easy to get confused with the habit...

Anyhow, I did not have any money @ all with me but I manage to arrive to the gypsies site. As soon as I stepped into the camp about a hundred and fifty dirty and over-exited kids run towards me – I had no time to run away – they kept my back bag, open it and said “nothing interesting in here”… lucky me I thought. I lived with them for about three weeks and got to know their life style, and a bit of their culture. Beside the general believe that they’re dirty I would say that the grown up are really clean, they clean their shacks every day and have showers even twice per day. It’s only the kids who are filthy but I mean, I would challenge any mum to keep her baby clean if he/she lives outside in the camp for 12 hours per day…

To make a very long story short I ended up in the street with the homeless. I felt like a member of a Church who does not open the doors and say “come in all of you, and you’ll find joy and rest in the Church of God” but rather to a Church that cares for everyone and is not afraid to leave everything to reach the last ones in the society. Sharing the pavement with the homeless it’s been a chance not only to live in poverty, but to SHARE POVERTY with those ones who haven’t chosen it for their lives. We were used to spend the whole morning praying in a church of the city, then we would move to serve food in some canteen for homeless and eat together with them. I met X who was a Muslim and was very much touched by our presence with them, then there was Y, an old man who gave us some of his food as he thought we did not have enough and was sure the street was to hard for us; quite right actually…
This is the poverty some of us is called to live. Jesus said “whoever does this to anyone of my brothers it does it to ME”. We can live this truth in two ways. We can serve “our brothers” and serve Jesus through them or, and it is how I feel, is to follow Jesus and live that “ME”. So that in true poverty I become a brother for all who would serve me and one day Jesus might say to them “Come here, all of you, because I was naked and you dressed me, I was hungry and you’ve given me food, I was thirsty and you gave me to drink” and they would answer “when did we do all that?” and Jesus “when you met an almost crazy friar who pretended to be good and poor and believed to walk following my footprints and he was without food, and a shelter in the street - and his guardian angel could not keep up with all the mess he was doing - and you’d helped him, and he was hitchhiking and you gave him a lift…”

Aphorism

“We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while usually others judge us by what we have already done”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I don't know anything about this fellow... but I like this aphorism;
and I hope not to scandalize anyone with this second one:

PICK or PICKED?

it's a vital question sometimes... and the time has come again...

as soon as I finished my exams in June I read a fantasy thrilogy called "Cronache del mondo emerso". The author is an Italian young lady, just 28 years old, who's got very good writing skills yet sometimes the atmosphere she creates is a bit too dreary and dark for my very personal taste; yet the story is really well written and I would say it's something ORIGINAL, which is not given for granted nowadays.

My summer second book is one I was really longing for, I'm talking about "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows". J.K.R. has impressed me again; beside the amount of publicity and marketing that is now involvig H.P. books I do have to say she's a great writer. I'm sure she'll be a "classic", she's given a new push to the whole fantasy story tellers. After John Ronald Reuel Tolkien she's invented a totally new world, great stuff indeed!

but now, what can I read? For my "a bit more sirius" reading I'm on Romano Guardini right now. I bet he's one of the greatest thinkers and theologians of the last century; I’m reading “introduzione alla preghiera”; and I would recommend it to anyone who’s ever asked him/herself about prayers and praying. Here there's a pic of him:


Ok, but back to the title. I want to get a relaxing book now and it's a great task indeed. I've already been to the library twice this week and come out empty hands. I move through the shelves from children books to fantasy then I meet the romance to end up in philosophy and history department... The quest is, do I choose the book or it "calls" me? I mean, when I get a book I "feel" something with it, I can never be sure whether I said “it's you!” or it wanted me to make its characters living through my reading... ok too much Harry Potter in here, isn't it? But yes, I think it's like, in H.P. world, when a wizard chooses its wand…

Anyway, if you have anything in mind I shall read just drop me a line. I know my blog is your best reading but I can't spend the rest of the summer reading my own stuff... can I?

Back home

Ok, holidays are nothing but a good memory now; a very good memory. I would say that I did have some rest but I didn't. Actually, when I was @ my sister's I did have some relaxing time, which I mainly spent swimming in the sea - I wish I could live in water - but then I went to my parents' and my three little nephews were there too, peace less time...
I came back to Frascati on the 4th August but I had to leave the day after with scout. I did have one of my best time ever! We worked in a hermitage and we did work hard! The scouts were absolutely fantastic. @ the end of this working experience we moved to Camaldoli where we spent a couple of days @ the end of which we greeted ten scouts who ended their experience in the clan and had to move on either to become educators for other scouts or to offer their service somewhere else. I had actually to say goodbye to all of them as I won't be in Frascati next year. I know Francis did not want the friars to bind their hearts to nothing but God, but I actually did it with all these scouts. BP was used to say that the scouts should live a better world than the one they'd found, I don't know whether they'll do it, but I'm sure they made me a little better person with all the affection they've always given me.

And now few pics of my holidays:
oPS: it looks as if I can't upload images right now... I'll do as soon as I sort out this problem.
Ciao from sunny rome
freddie