May you be blessed with many bambinos...

Sant'Anna was the grandmother of Jesus and I guess the saint that I must call upon when I am in excrutiating pain from labor...read on....

"Saint Anne or Anna is known by tradition as the mother of The Virgin Mary. According to the non-canonical Gospel of James, Anna and her husband Joachim, after years of childlessness, were visited by an angel who told them that they would conceive a child. Anna promised to dedicate the child to God's service. Joachim and Anna brought Mary to live in the Second Temple when Mary was about three years old. St. Anne is a patron saint of Quebec and Brittany, and patroness of women in labor and miners.

The story is similar to the story of Samuel whose mother had also been childless and was named Hannah. The story was not accepted in the Western church until the 13th century although, in the Eastern church, dedications to Saint Anna date to the 6th century. In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, Anna is ascribed the title Forbear of God.

In Western iconography, Anna may be recognised by her depiction in red robe and green mantle, often holding a book. Images may also be found depicting Anna holding a small Mary who in turn holds an infant Christ — more elaborate carved statuettes open up to reveal Mary inside Anna with Christ in turn inside her. Such trinitarian representations mirror similar depictions of God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, and were sometimes produced as pairs.

In the 4th century, and then much later in the 15th century, a belief arose that Mary was born of Anna by virgin birth. This was denied as an error by the Vatican in 1677. However, it is held that Mary's was an Immaculate Conception.

Her feast day is 26 July (Western calendar) and 25 July (Eastern calendar)."

Sant'Anna

Mimmo has catechism class tonight at Sant'Anna. This makes me laugh for a variety of reasons...

Padre Carmine, who grew up with Mimmo, is officiating our ceremony and last week when we went to talk to him, he gave Mimmo a little book to study for his first lesson tonight. Last night Mimmo asked me, where is that little book? Um, where you left it...in the car. I think he's hoping Padre Carmine will cut him some slack, but I not-so-secretly am hoping Padre Carmine will ring his ass...It's the "goody-two-shoes" in me, I know...When I was in 1st grade, my teacher, Mrs. Primrose (yes, that was really her name, and it fit her to a T) said in my report card comments "Lisa is very conscientious." I remember, being 6 and *really* wanting to understand what "conscientious" was. I obviously learned it by grade 5, where I made it to the finals in the speech contest with my speech "My best friend is my conscience" (The theme was write about who your best friend is). Oh my god, WHO was I? You'd think that it was ME who grew up catholic...

Well, my Mimmo was the opposite of me growing up..he was the "bad boy", the "sgrignato" as they called him and he grew up to be an adult who has some major beef with the Catholic church. But, my Mimmo is also a "politico"...a die-hard della sinistra (leftist) and it took a very corrupt right-wing mayor for Mimmo to get married in the Catholic church. Meaning that if we wanted to do a civil ceremony only the mayor could marry us and Mimmo would've rather gotten married in the Catholic church then have Franco Iannunzi marry us. So, as much as his mother may hope that it was divine inspiration or that Mimmo was touched and led by the hand of God, it came down to political vs. religious beliefs. That's ok, she can't read English, so she'll never read my blog...she can think what she wants and hey who knows, maybe she's right? Maybe it's Sant'Anna that led him afterall...

I am thrilled that we're getting married in the church of Sant'Anna for a variety of reasons. First, because it's in Bacoli, which is my home. Bacoli is where I came to live by myself before I fell in with any of these Montesi. Mimmo is from Monte di Procida and there's a bit of a rivalry between the 2 towns and I'm always proud to be Bacolesi...the Montesi (ok, excluding my husband) are a bit more closed and old-fashioned then the Bacolesi who are much more open and fun. Plus, Sant'Anna is right down the street from my favorite DVD woman, Pina, who was my own kind of saint during the winter that I moved to Bacoli and found salvation in renting lots and lots of movies. I also am happy to be getting married there because it's a beautiful church and Padre Carmine is really cool and hey, if you're gonna have an italian wedding, you need to get married by a Padre Carmine, no?

So, I, still having a bit of the "goody-2-shoes" in me instinctively, wanted to find out who is/was this Sant'Anna. Padre Carmine, my mom & Mimmo's mom would be proud...she's a saint in both the Catholic Church and Orthodox Church...read the next blog entry above...

Lo Sposo e La Sposa

2 in the morning when you're La Sposa

Mimmo's sleeping and I'm wide awake...

Today he brought up the honeymoon...luna di miele...and where do we want to go? It's quite interesting to live in a country that is a popular honeymoon destination - Rome, Florence, Venice, Amalfi, Capri - all within our reach and so where does my italian future husband want to go? Well, Norway, of course! What?! I began googling tonight just to see what I came up with and found this quite funny:

"Origin of the Honeymoon Tradition

Today, the tradition of a honeymoon following nuptials has, long way from its original meaning. Today's "happy ending" to the wedding event is a far cry from its much different beginnings. The word honeymoon has its roots in the Norse word "hjunottsmanathr" which was anything but blissful. Northern European history describes the abduction of a bride from neighboring village. It was imperative, that the abductor, the husband to be, take his bride to be into hiding for period of time. His friends assured his and her safe keeping and kept their whereabouts unknown. Once the bride's family gave up their search, the bride groom returned to his people. This folkloric explanation presumably is the origin of today's honeymoon, for its original meaning meant hiding.

The Scandinavian word for honeymoon is derived, in part, from an ancient Northern European custom in which newlyweds, for the first month of their married life, drank a daily cup of honeyed wine called mead. The ancient practices of kidnaping of bride and drinking the honeyed wine date back to the history of Atilla, king of the Asiatic Huns from A.D. 433 to A.D. 453.

So that leaves us with the question of where the "moon" in the word "honeymoon" originates. One piece of folklore relates that the origin of the word moon comes from a cynical inference. To the Northern Europeans the terms referred to the body's monthly cycle and, its combination with honey, suggested that not all moon's of married life were as sweet as the first. British prose writers and poets, in the 16th and 17th centuries, often made use of the Nordic interpretation of honeymoon as a waxing and waning of marital affection.

Certainly we have, long way and there is a vast difference between the original meaning of honeymoon and its present-day connotation. The newer version is, of course, the more pleasant one!"

Oh me, oh my. Was Mimmo on to something here? Will we be drinking honeyed wine for a month of hiding in the fjords???

Here we go....

La Sposa is "the bride" in Italian. And for me, making La Sposa is an attempt to find humor, empty out all my thoughts and anxieties, share photos, and really just release the fact that I am becoming "that bride". You know the bride I'm talking about. The one you thought you'd never become. The one you witnessed in your sister's wedding or cousin's wedding or heard stories about at your sister's wedding or your cousin's wedding. Dear lord, yes, THAT BRIDE! And, it is quite a shock to find yourself becoming HER, but damn...I'll just let her out here in all her glory because well, hopefully, you only become La Sposa once...so, I hearby christen her stay for the next few months...let the good times roll....