San Gennaro

The strangest thing happened to me one night when I was listening to my daughter describe details of a trip with her grandmother (my mother) to New York City.  As she talked about their stroll through Little Italy, a flood of tsunami proportion hit me.  Suddenly, I was transported back to a time in my life when I travelled to New York in September each year for business.  While on those trips, a dear Catholic friend and I would walk the streets during the Feast of San Gennaro and enjoy the festivities that brought Little Italy to life during that time of year.

I haven’t thought about those trips in years.  But this is the strange part- not once did I ever ask my Catholic friend about the identity of San Gennaro or the reason for this huge, 11-day long celebration.  You would think I would at least have been curious enough to wonder about the meaning of it all.  Instead, I wandered through the festival enjoying the atmosphere but totally clueless about what was taking place around me.  I find this to be the case too often in my life, quite frankly.  I don’t ask the whos, whats and whys of important dates, celebrations, or even daily rituals.  I know I have missed out on deeper, more meaningful experiences because of this tendency.

Even though the Feast of San Gennaro has come and gone this year, it is not too late to ask some whos, whats and whys before year’s end.  Here are some of the things I’m going to be considering over the coming weeks:

Why is Advent chosen as the beginning of the Church’s liturgical calendar, even though it occurs near the end of the calendar year?

If Jesus was born in a desert, why is it considered the “ultimate” to have a white Christmas?

What crazy fool came up with the magic elf idea (you moms know what I am talking about)?

Who was Saint Nicholas, why was he so jolly, and what caused him to morph into Santa Claus?

Why are there 12 days of Christmas, not 3 or 6 or some other number? Follow-up thought: has anyone really ever seen a partridge in a pear tree?

What am I going to do differently this year so that I am not in need of “exhaustion rehab” by the time Christmas has come and gone?

By the way, San Gennaro is the patron saint of Naples.  The first feast in NYC took place on September 19, 1926 when newly arrived immigrants from Naples settled on Mulberry Street.  This religious festival has attracted so many contributors that the organizers’ philanthropic arm has been able to donate over $1.8mm to worthy causes in the tri-state area.  No other public festival donates more to charity.

And Bill Bennett has written an excellent book on St. Nicholas, which I am reading this December.  Look for The True Saint Nicholas- Why He Matters To Christmas at your local bookstore.  

Happy questioning to you and yours!

Chick “B”