Sunday 2 July 2017

Happy Festa di San Marziale to all my Calabrese friends!

I had the opportunity today to celebrate mass at Saint Michael and Saint Anthony parish on the occasion of the feast of San Marziale Martire. He's the patron saint of Isca sullo Ionio in Calabria. This was the 50th anniversary of the feast in Montreal, and my chance to discover it. Several blocks of Saint Viateur were closed off for a street festival, and after the mass there was a traditional Italian procession with the image of the saint through the neighbourhood.

Unfortunately I had to leave shortly after the mass itself, but it was an honour to be there -- as well as a chance to practice my Italian, as pretty much all of the mass was in that language! They originally offered to let me preside in English, but I was happy to give it my best shot. I may have wound up inventing my own dialect along the way, but hopefully I didn't do too much of an injustice to the language of Dante. In my experience, though, the Italian people are very forgiving for linguistic errors, and just love it when you try. To my Italian, and especially my Calabrese friends -- alla prossima!

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