Depth of Faith (and Buona Pasqua!)

I know that this probably isn't the blog that you were expecting, but I've been thinking a lot about something for the couple days, and wanted to make some comments about it. More about my spring break is coming soon.

On Friday, I decided to take the train to Assisi for a little bit. Assisi is famous for being the home of St. Francis, and in fact the Basilica of St. Francis is the main attraction of the city. It is made up of two separate churches, one built on top of the other. I had been really looking forward to seeing the famous fresco cycle depicting the life of St. Francis in the upper church, which definitely did not disappoint. There was a Good Friday service beginning in the lower church, so I was only able to see half of it at the time. I spent a hour or two wandering up the main street, getting gelato, sitting in a piazza listening to a street musician and doing some sketching. I also wandered into another couple of churches along the way.

Finally, I headed back down to the train station early, with the intention of stopping by the lower church of the basilica again to see if the service was done so that I could see the rest of the church. Sure enough, the procession out was taking place just as I entered, so I hung around. I was watching the police and friars putting the church back into it's usual order after mass, when suddenly the priest appears directing four other men who were carrying a statue of the dead Christ on a bed, with a canopy of blood red velvet. After the statue was set in front of the altar, people started lining up to approach the statue. I become completely enthralled by watching these people and their rituals, many would kiss the feet and then the chest, some would cross the statue and then themselves, some would touch the wound in the side, and others just got down on their knees next to the bed and prayed. I don't think that I've ever been to a church on Good Friday before, and I wasn't sure if this was a usual practice, or fairly unique.

To be completely honest, I was literally brought to tears while watching this, without really a good explanation. I was raised going to Catholic Church, but to be honest, over the past couple of years I have found myself growing more distant from Catholicism and some of their beliefs and practices that I don't entirely agree with. Every so often I feel like I couldn't even be considered a true Christian. I would consider myself to be a spiritual person, but not necessarily religious. So the fact that I was so spellbound by what was taking place and emotionally affected by it was very strange.

At the time, I thought maybe I was just tired from the long train ride, and overly emotional in the first place because of being away from home at Easter time. But after a few days of thought, I think it was more of a feeling of envy. I could see how deep the faith was of some of those people lined up at the statue, and it reminded me of the depth of faith of other people that I know. I'll admit that I have always craved being able to unconditionally believe in something, or more importantly trust in something or someone. I've been struggling with that feeling for a while, of never fully trusting anything or anyone. Maybe they just come across that way, but it seems to me that people who have some kind of higher or spiritual being that they absolutely believe in, have that level of trust. Yet, you need to have that absolute level of trust to really believe in something also - it's a never ending circle. It's something that I just don't understand.

I'm reminded of a quote that I always found fascinating from Star Trek (what else?!). I think that it always stuck with me because I never really understood it: "That's the thing about faith. If you don't have it you can't understand it, and if you do - no explanation is necessary."

I'm not sure why I'm writing this all out here, I guess that I've just been really trying to sort everything out that I felt like if I wrote it down for others, maybe it would make more sense to me.



On a different note, I want to say Buona Pasqua to everyone - Happy Easter! It surprises a lot of people, but Easter has always been one of my favorite days of the year, and because I was missing out this year I've definitely been feeling homesick. I really wish that I could be at Busia and Jaja's to help get all of the food ready to take to blessing, laugh at everyone being showered with water inside St. Agnes during morning mass, and enjoy polish sausage with my entire family. So I woke up early this morning, and was still feeling really down. Therefore, I decided to go walk around the city a bit and get a cream pastry before heading over to the Piazza del Duomo to watch the "Scoppio del Carro" Easter celebration. I still ended up getting there much early then I planned, and people were just starting to line up along the fence so I ended up literally right one the fence line with a really great view (and a long wait - but there was a girl next to me that I talked to for a while).

The Scoppio del Carro (also known as the exploding of the cart) is a tradition in Florence that has been taking place for over 300 years. A huge, tall, and colorful cart called the Brindellone is laced with all kinds of fireworks and pulled through the streets of Florence by white oxen. It is escorted by drummers, flag bearers, and over a hundred other costumed performers. The parade stops directly in front of the cathedral, where Easter mass is held. The cart is then connected to a white dove shaped rocket hanging above the alter inside the cathedral by a wire. During the service, the dove is ignited and flies across the wire, igniting a show of fireworks on the cart that lasts 10-15 minutes. Obviously it was in fairly close quarters, nothing over a lake. But they had amazing sparklers, bangs going off, and even smoke colored red, white, and purple. Like me, any pyro would have appreciated the display! The force also propels the dove back, and if it makes it all the way back to the alter (which it did!) it is supposed to be a good omen for the coming year.

Late tonight, all of the SNC students got together for an Easter dinner. It was so nice to really have more of a good, home cooked meal! Sarah made a delicious ham, potatoes, asparagus, and an amazing berry lemon cheese pie for dessert. It was really nice to be able to sit around a table with people on Easter, and the mean game of spoons afterward wasn't a bad way to have some fun! (I do just have to comment that once I got all four cards first, yet when I went to grab the first spoon I knocked it away on accident - therefore, I ended up being the one without a spoon! Still not sure how that happened but it was pretty funny.)

I put more photos up of Assisi and the Scoppio del Carro. I've been trying to add a video on Flickr also, one of the dove hitting the cart, but it always seems to get stuck at "99% complete" when loading. Oh well...