Palermo and "legalita"

During the day that we recently spent in Palermo, the local television news reported an event in favour of "legalita". In the context of the influence of the mafia in Sicily, this idea that the "rule of law" is something to be valued has a very serious meaning.

However, at the time we visited, Palermo was in the midst of a crisis - over the collection, or, more accurately, the non-collection of its rubbish. I couldn't work out from the news coverage the reasons for this, but it was so severe that in some places the piles of rubbish in the street had been simply set alight as the only way of removing them. Volunteers and civil defence personnel were being brought in from all over Sicily to help collect the rubbish.

Negotiating the traffic in Palermo is also quite an interesting experience. Palermo city centre suffered from serious bombardment during the Second World War, and was never really re-built properly. It is a maze of narrow, often one way, streets, laid out in a square grid pattern, with the direction of traffic flow alternating between one street and the next. It took a little while to realise that the street on the map really was the narrow turning, barely the width of a car. I proudly managed to drive to within a couple of blocks of our hotel .... and then was completely stymied by the one way system (well, one way streets, system suggests a degree of planning that probably wasn't really there). Whilst consulting the map, I asked Zero to read me the name of a street that I couldn't see from the driver's side of the car....

Ah, bless.

We eventually gave up on the one way streets, parked up, and walked to the hotel. I explained at reception that we hadn't been able to find our way to the hotel with the car because of the one way streets. We were promptly given directions to the hotel from where we had parked the car - directions that involved driving the wrong way along no less than two one way streets. The added explanation was to the effect that "everyone does what they want".

However, it would be quite wrong to think that Palermo's traffic is utterly lawless. There is a kind of lawfulness about it - exemplified by the fact that, during all our meanderings up and down the one way streets, never did we come across a street blocked by a parked car. It's just that there isn't much connection between the lawfulness as practised and the official rules of the road - and once you realise that, everything works out fine.

I really was proud of being able to drive a car into the centre of Palermo, park it in the cortile at our hotel, and drive it back out again to the airport ... without a scratch.

Pentecost Mass in Syracuse, Sicily

We had the rather nice experience of attending Mass for Pentecost Sunday at a Marian Shrine, the Shrine of Our Lady of Tears in Syracuse. Following the links under "History" from the home page will lead you to pages telling the events of the lachrymation, events which have received the approval of the meeting of the Bishops of Sicily:

The Sicilian Episcopate, presided by Ernesto Card. Ruffini on December 12, 1953 declared the Lachrymation of Mary in Syracuse authentic: “The reality of the lachrymation cannot be put into doubt.”

“The Bishops of Sicily, reunited for the customary Conference in Bagheria (Palermo), after hearing the full report of His Excellency Ettore Baranzini, Archbishop of Syracuse, about the “lachrymation” of the image of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, repeatedly happening in the days of 29, 30, 31 August and 1 September of this year, in Syracuse (11 Via degli Orti St.) and having examined attentively the relative testimonies of the original documents, have unanimously concluded that the reality of the lachrymation cannot be put into doubt.

“They hope that this manifestation of our heavenly Mother stir all to healthy penance and to a more lively devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, encouraging the urgent building of a Shrine to perpetuate the memory of the miracle.”

The architecture of the shrine reminds an English visitor of a certain Cathedral in Liverpool, known as "Paddy's wigwam", but I do think the comparison is unfair (to the shrine in Syracuse, that is). Do follow the links from this page of the shrine website to get a full idea of what the shrine is like. The vertical glass windows between each concrete upright produces a very effective lighting of the space of the upper shrine, there being no artificial lighting of the main area of the congregation during the day time.

The shrine is visited by pilgrimage groups - one parish group from Messina was there for the Mass we attended. We were treated to an instructive homily during Mass - Pentecost as the giving of the new law of love in our hearts (the Jewish feast with which it coincides is that marking the gift of the tablets of the law to Moses); the tongues in which all people could understand the preaching of the apostles being that of a divine language of love (contrasted to the division of tongues represented by the tower of Babel); the flames and wind representing a new presence of God (cf the burning bush of the Old Testament); the sending out of the Church on a mission of evangelisation (compared to the Jewish people making their journey out from Egypt towards the promised land); this Holy Spirit is also received by us in Baptism and Confirmation so we are called to live out today all of these implications of Pentecost; this we do in the company of Mary, and following her example, that points always to her Son, and, in Him, to the Father and the Spirit.

PS: Compared to most other Churches in Sicily, this one has a very big architectural advantage, even if one is inclined to dislike concrete as a building material. That advantage is its complete lack of baroque style ....