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...