Dear Readers,
As December, the month we celebrate Christmas begins, and the first “Wars on Christmas” start by taking Christ out of Christmas in public pronouncements, and private companies are urged to greet their customers with the more generic Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas, I thought I would share this story, sent to me by my pen-pal Mario Avignone, long-time columnist for Fra Noi, (Petals from Roseland) and historian of St. Anthony of Padua Church, in Chicago, Illinois.
“Many parishioners enjoyed the story of Baby Jesus missing from the Christmas Crib in front of our altar on Christmas morning many years ago.
The following is only a story that the late Father Joe Chiminello and I shared.Years ago, when Father Joe was pastor of our parish, he had a beautiful manger scene set up in front of the old church altar. It was a beautiful manger with figures of the first Christmas, imported from Italy. “It cost us a lot of money for the nativity scene imported from Italy”, Father Joe said.
On Christmas morning, Father Joe, between Masses, went into the church to say some prayers in front of the imported crib. He was shocked to see the Baby Jesus gone. He looked everywhere in the church, but could not find the beautiful little imported Baby Jesus. He phones the Kensington Police Station, (then located at 115 Street and Prairie Avenue) and talked to Commander Tom O’Brien and reported that the Baby Jesus was missing; that someone had stolen it.
Commander O’Brien and his best detectives rushed to the church. Judge Alexander Napoli heard of the Baby Jesus missing from the crib in St. Anthony Church and he rushed to help find it. Someone phoned Alderman Dominic Lupo and reported that the baby statue of Jesus in St. Anthony Church was stolen. He, too, looked all over the church, but could not find it.
As Father Chiminello, Chief Tom O’Brien, Judge Napoli, and Alderman Lupo were in a huddle trying to figure out who would steal the Baby Jesus, a little six year old boy came walking into the church and down the main aisle with a little red wagon. In the little red wagon was the statue of Baby Jesus! Father Chiminello, Alderman Lupo, Judge Napoli, and Police Chief O’Brien all rushed to the little boy pulling the little red wagon. They asked the little boy why he stole the Baby Jesus statue from the Nativity Crib.
The little boy replied, “I didn’t steal Baby Jesus. I prayed to Jesus last night for a little red wagon for my Christmas present, and when I woke up this morning, the little red wagon was under the tree. I wanted to give Baby Jesus the first ride in my little red wagon.”
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“Grazie” to Jo D’Alessandro, our long-time subscriber in Sacramento, California, for sending me the Italian lyrics to be sung to Silent Night music, from “Sharing our Diversity” The Italian American, which she helped develop, years ago, for the Sacramento City Unified School District.
Santa Notte (Silent Night)
Dolce Natal, Santo Natal
Che silenzio intorno c’è
Nasce in terra il Bambino Gesù
E nel ciel si fa luce lassù.
Nato è il Salvatore
Nasce il Bambino Gesù“Silent Night” was first heard on Christmas Eve in Austria. Learning that there would be no music, the new pastor, Father Mohr, despaired. How dismal his first Christmas service would be. He wandered among the snow-laced pines in the hills, pondering. And then… there came to him the words of a poem. He asked the church organist to compose a melody to accompany the poem on his guitar. It was finished just in time. That Christmas Eve in 1818, the people of Oberndorf, Austria heard for the first time the words “Stille Nacht, Heil’ge Nacht” and in English “Silent Night, Holy Night.”
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Congratulations: The N.S.A.F. (National Sicilian American Foundation) founded in 1997, in the San Francisco Bay Area, will be celebrating its 10th anniversary this month. It seems that N.S.A.F. founder and president, Frank Bonfiglio, comes by his leadership skills genetically, for his great-grandfather Sebastiano Bonfiglio was the beloved longtime mayor of San Marco, Erice County, province of Trapani and although he died in 1922, a statue to the beloved mayor was finally dedicated in 1957, after more than three decades of bureaucratic delay.
Erice, a splendid town, with very ancient origins is perched on top of Monte San Giuliano, on the island of Sicily. Laid out on a triangular plan, the town has preserved its medieval character, with fine city walls, beautifully paved streets, stone houses with decorated doorways, small squares and open spaces with numerous churches, including the medieval Chiesa Matrice, many of which have recently become venues for scientific and cultural activities.
Among them the Centro di Cultura Scientifica Ettore Majorana. This center, founded in the early 1960s to honor the brilliant Sicilian scientist who died in mysterious circumstances before World War II, runs courses and conferences on subjects ranging from medicine to mathematical logic. The center makes use of abandoned buildings such as the former convents of San Domenico, San Francesco and San Rocco.
But, despite the medieval treasures in Erice, it was the book “Bitter Almonds”, by Maria Grammatico and Mary Taylor Simeti, published by William Morrow and Co. N.Y. in 1994, that put Erice on the map, especially with worldwide tourists who have been reading and cooking from Mary Taylor Simeti’s book “Pomp and Sustenance”, Celebrating Twenty-five centuries of Sicilian food, for over two decades.
“Bitter Almonds”, Recollections and Recipes from a Sicilian Girlhood, is the true story of a woman’s extraordinary courage, and a gift from the past of an almost lost tradition.
In the early 1950s, Maria Grammatico and her sister were sent by their widowed, impoverished mother to a cloistered orphanage run by an order of lay Franciscan nuns in Erice. It was a spare, harsh existence, but here Maria learned to prepare the beautifully handcrafted pastries that were sold to customers outside the convent walls.At the age of twenty-two, Maria left the convent with no personal possessions, minimal schooling, and no skills other than the knowledge acquired during a childhood spent making pastries for other people’s celebrations.
Today Maria is the successful owner of her own pastry shop in Erice, a mecca for travelers from the world over.Her counters are piled high with biscotti, tarts, cakes, and jams: Genovesi, Cuscinetti, Palline al Cioccolato, Panzarotti, Marmellata di Cotogne, Rosolio alle Erbe, Torta Divina, and Cassata Siciliana. A special case displays the handcrafted marzipan confections for which she is famous: almond paste transformed into colorful fruits and vegetables, fleecy paschal lambs, and flowered and beribboned hearts. Maria’s shop is located on Via Vittorio Emanuele 14, in Erice.
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Spotted on a sanitation truck: “Happy Hauladays”.
Posted on the door of a festively decorated gift shop in a Chicago suburb: “Please Open Before Christmas!”
10631 Vinedale Street, Sun Valley, CA 91352 - Phone (818) 767-3413 - Fax: (818) 767-1410
