Saints Alive!

[Terrance]

Saints and  Martyrs again: 

In this chapter  we have St. Francis   St.
Fina, St. Hercules,  St. Joan of Arc (these are all
significant). 

We have Mary-- mother of Jesus, St. Joseph--father of Jesus. 

We have Virginal Vocabulary. These are positive
juxtaposition to the the proliferation of Vs in the
stecilized/historical narrative. Indulgence, O Salutaris
Hostia, Corporal, Maria Annunciation, Rosary, Mercy, Fina,
Joan of Arc, the Josephines, San Gennaro... 


Benny figures that he is the disembodied object of a
corporal work of mercy.

Of course I am thinking as a paranoid, a positive
paranoia being a perquisite to undertaking any serious
analysis of the sublime  complexities surrounding religious
thought in the great traditions.  Roman  Catholicism is the
most important one
in this novel. 

Yes Dave I agree, I don't like the goings on here either. 

Don't want to debate theology either. However, the argument,
often simply accepted at face value,  that P does not have
respect for, great respect for, the  religious way of life
by which most people in the world not only live but
understand the world --elaborate, beautiful,
complicated, systems that simply can not be reduced to
analogies including fetishistic lambs and scapegoats--is
false. 


As I have stated previously, there is simply no  evidence
that P is anti-christian or
anti-Catholic. Those that vilify  the christian tradition or
any other religious system here, do so with their own words
and thoughts. 

Chapter six begins with Benny's thoughts about his
relationship with Fina. He figures, at first (now this sends
us back to his day of yo-yoing the Shuttle, the day that
Kook and friends woke him up, the day that Fina tugged him
into her family "miraculously." And some of these "at first"
days are inserted into the "current" calendar of the Benny
narrative. We know that one of P's important sources for
these Benny years (55-56) is the NY Times and that on
Thursday, 15th March 1956 (Ides of March) Benny goes to the
Feast of San' Ercole dei Rinoceronti in Little Italy. But
first we get Benny's thought about Fina. He figured at
first that she was like other woman, she happened to him by
accident and he was to her only a disembodied Object of a
corporal work of mercy. He figures, at first, that he is
simply an Object (later he will say that the object he has
in mind is the Rosary.  


A Feast for all the Senses: NYC's The Feast of San Gennaro

http://gonyc.about.com/travel/gonyc/library/weekly/aa091100.htm?PM=59_0104_T


San Gennaro, patron saint of Naples [decapitated for his
faith near Pozzuoli September 19, 305] has two feast days:
the first Saturday in May and September 19. 

Legend: if 2 vials of Gennaro's blood liquefy on feast days,
Neapolitans will have good luck. 

http://members.aol.com/nonstopny/italiano/januariu.htm

On March 19th, Italian-Americans in NYC commemorate
a joyful holiday dedicated to St. Joseph, the patron saint
of family life, hand-labor, and carpenters.  [In Italy, this
feast is their Father's Day.] Since this holy day is
celebrated in NYC rather privately in Italian homes and
neighborhoods, and since there is no
Italian-American parade associated with it [unlike in
October on Columbus Day],
these traditional Mediterranean customs are almost invisible
to outsiders.  

The tradition of a St. Joseph's Day began when there was a
severe drought in Sicily in the middle ages. In desperation,
people asked St. Joseph, their patron, to intervene. They
promised, if rain came,  they would
prepare a big feast in his honor.  The tradition says these
prayers were answered with rainy weather.


(O Saving Host). 

                 The first line of the penultimate stanza of
the hymn, "Verbum supernum prodiens", composed by St.Thomas
Aquinas for the Hour of Lauds in the Office of the Feast of
Corpus Christi.