The town of Serra San Bruno was created around the Charterhouse founded by Saint Bruno in 1090 in the Saint Mary of the Tower valley. It was the second house belonging to his order, after the main one built in Grenoble. He eventually had moved to Calabria on request of the Pope Urban II and here he died on the 6th of October 1101. In 1783 a violent earthquake destroyed many of the buildings in the region, killing thousands of people as well. This church was built subsequently (the inscription says 1795) and contains some of the statues which were previously inside the Charterhouse.

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There is a legend surrounding this piece of column. The version I know says that when Saint Paul landed in Reggio he was allowed to speak as long as a candle would have burned on this stone.When the candle finished the column itself started to burn. Not a short speech...
There is an inscription close to the shrine:

Ave columna nobilis,
electro et auro ditior
illaque Mosis ignea
columna fortunatior
quod ore Paulus praedicat
te fulgurante comprobat
te conflagrante Rhegium
Christi fidem complectitur
ergo columna rhegia
hebreos ut Israelitica
in terrae opima transtulit
tu nos in astra ducito

Hail noble column,
more precious than amber and gold,
more blessed by the
destiny than the wooden column of Moses
what Paul preaches with his mouth,
you brightly prove,
with you, burning, Reggio embraces the faith in Christ.
So column of Reggio (this is a play on words: it could be "royal" as well),
as the Israelitic (staff) lead the Hebrews in a rich land,
lead us to the stars.

My translation. Sorry for the mistakes.

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Reggio Calabria was founded as a Greek colony of Khalkis in the in the second half of the VIII century before Christ. It became a Roman municipium in the first century b.C.
The diocese was founded in the first century a.D.; Saint Paul visited the city in his fourth journey, after he had been in Malta and Syracuse. The sentence that can be read on the arch of the door is from the Acts (28,13: περιελόντες κατηντήσαμεν εἰς Ῥήγιον ). The cathedral was almost destroyed in the last earthquake (1908) and rebuilt afterwards.

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Here I am again. This side is Calabria, the other is Sicily. The sunshine is not a special effect.
Being with people who love you it's pleasant, I am even managing to relax.
Everybody seems to have a mobile phone embedded in their hands down here.
I owe some apologies to my readers: I had to solve some technical problem so I could not post anything during the previous days (the connection at Christmas was impossible).

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Although I still have to close my baggage, on Friday I will be flying to the south of Italy to my parents' home, for my very well deserved holydays.
As a consequence of that this blog will have some disruption, given the modest technical means that I will be able to use. My English will probably get worse in those days, I'll try to maintain it basically understandable and I may write some word in Italian.
It's Christmas: if you are Catholic, please remember to participate to the Sacraments as well as the Mass; if you are not, try at least to be generous in giving alms, as the Ecclesiasticus recommends.
Please remember me and my family in your prayers as I will pray for you and your families as well.

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Still the broch in Abbey St. Bathans. The days are becoming shorter, and winter is approaching.

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I'm adding CatholicUK to the list of fellow bloggers. He is a physicist, I hope he will post his ideas on the relationship between modern science and Catholicism.

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Princes Street as seen from Calton Hill. Even if it's almost winter it's a great view.

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I don't know what it is (A meteo station? a camera? an antenna? whatever else?) It may be only temporary, but it certainly spoils the monument. It is visible at great distance (I noticed it from the Bridge). They have also put two genrators and 4 antennas on Calton Hill. Fortunately there weren't many tourists today.

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The monument was intended to have been a memorial to the Scots who died in the Napoleonic Wars. It was supposed to be a copy of the Partenon, in Athens. The foundation stone was laid on 27th of October 1822. I took this picture today before the sky started to be covered by dark clouds.

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I'm adding a new link to the list of fellow bloggers : The Shrine of the Holy Whapping "Catholic nerds at the university of Notre Dame".

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Or "On visiting an unknown land".
It has been some while that I had not watched a Disney film. The reason is that after The Lion King, I decided that Disney had become too commercial and I decided that Pixar had better ideas and was able to develop them in a better structured way.
Yesterday, I watched the Chronicles of Narnia and I have to say that they are recovering some of their ancient spirit. I haven't read the book, so I am not able to judge the quality of the adaptation (you may want to have a look at Laodicea on the subject). However as it is, it looks a good story for children. As usual, it is a maturation plot: growing up in a difficult world. To be more precise: the underlying theme is about discovering that, while you are trying to solve your personal problematics, you are involved in a story that is bigger than you were expecting and you are required to assume a role that, although will be challenging, it will make you discover what you are.
From the technical point of view, the editing, sometimes, is not fluent. Special effects are remarkable, however they had to face a problem that everybody has to face after the Lord of The Rings: how to produce epic battle scenes without the same budget. I think their solution was focusing on the behaviour of specific characters rather than showing collective clashes. The technique should be refined, but it looks to me that the distribution of the special effects in the story is quite balanced. The animals are modeled very well. Sometimes you have the impression that a character is not fully developed.
And then there is the lion. I had not thought to the story of Samson in Christological terms, before. Well, you learn something new every day:

"Out of the eater came what is eaten,
and out of the strong came what is sweet." (Judges 14,14)

Rich in British symbology, Scottish people would be happy to find a unicorn as well as the lion.
It reminded me a book that I read many years ago (they are really many, now) by Michael Ende.

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Well not yet, still an image taken last year. However, today on Princes Street it snowed, just for few seconds.

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I'm just recovering from one of those annual ritual gatherings called Christmas Parties, and already thinking that similar experiences will have to follow soon in Italy (Ouch!)...
From the fact that I enjoyed the food I should deduce that I am gradually becoming Scottish (Ich!).
After the dinner we had a Quiz, quite unusual activity in this Country, I have been told.
Now, it has been a while that I have been thinking about the different approach of Italian and British people to religion, and the fact that among the question there was not ANY religios question on ANY religion made me think about it even more.
Not that I am that expert on the topic, per carita'.
Italians become detached from their religious belief mainly because of anticlericalism. Political (left or right) anticlericalism. It seems to me that British people, nowadays, tend to be detached from the very idea that the religious phenomenon has some meaning and usefulness (no doubt many consider it a compulsive obsessive behaviour). Certainly somebody uses it as a pretext for racial hatred, but for the majority of people the sky is just another Window.
Some time ago I read this book by Felicitas Goodman. The approach that she has on the subject is extremely unusual (I would say shocking) for people with a Western backgroud: in her classification she does not consider at all theology and focuses mainly on the environmental factors and physiological aspects of the religious phenomenon in its generality. The book tells how different religions (and yes, it speaks about Catholicism as well) have achieved techniques to introduce the faihful to alternate realities (without the use of drugs, of course, and in a socially acceptable fashion).
As Italian, born in the south, I see in the British society a widespread tendency in merging irrational, unreasonable, and supernatural. The book should contribute in establishing the right distances between them. As a Catholic I was struck by the description of rituals of other religions and their effects on the participants.
Personally, I think there is a serious difference between exalting this kind of experiences and pretending that they have never existed, and having the categories to see the extrema helps in finding the right path.

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I am not sure what kind of animal is this sculpture representing (a dog? and which kind of dog?). I have some hypothesis on its function, though. It is guarding an access point between internal areas of the Castle. I have no difficulty in thinking that similar beasts (which were expressely designed to be unreal), had to contribute to create the idea that the path undertaken was lofty and solemn. As the Ecclesiasticus is.

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...because it's full of thorns. Like my life.

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So, Paramount Pictures has bought Dreamworks.

Viacom, which owns Paramount, has agreed to pay $1.6bn (£914m; 1.36bn euros) in a deal that doubles Paramount's film library.

It also secures the talents of one of the most famous filmmakers in the world, ET director Steven Spielberg.

Paramount paid more than $1bn in cash and has taken over the company's debt, which was more than $500m. (BBC)

In the future Spielberg will be free to direct films like his previous "Schindler's list" and "Saving private Ryan", hopefully.
Umm, what about Icon Productions...?

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At this time of the year, Edinburgh it's much more fascinating during the night than the day. The city is preparing itself to receive the many tourists who will be travelling here for Christmas.

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The big wheel close to the monument dedicated to Walter Scott. I apologize with my readers, but this week-end I've been quite busy making myself and my flat ready for Christmas.

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This book by Eileen Reeves, (which I hope I'll have the time to read entirely some day...), asserts that the doctrine of immaculacy of Mary's conception was accompanied by representations known as Tota Pulchra type (some appropriate prayer posted on Laodicea by Boeciana), in which the Mother of God was surrounded by icons attesting her immaculacy.
The icons were actually Bible references (ibidem): "closed garden, a sealed fountain" (Song of Songs 4:12), "Tower of David" (Song of Songs 4,4); "radiant as the sun, beautiful as the moon" (Song of Songs 4,10); "a spring of running water" (Songs of songs 4,15); "a lily of the valley" (Song of Songs 2,1); "a flower among thorns" (Songs of Songs 2,2); "a dove" (Song of Songs 6,9); "Jacob's ladder" (Genesis 28,12); "a spotless mirror" (Ecclesiastes 7,26); "a cedar of Lebanon, a mountain cypress" (Ecclesiasticus 24,13); "a majestic palm, a beautiful olive tree" (Ecclesiasticus 24,14) and, finally the Domus Domini, the temple of Solomon (3 Kings 6).

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Brochs are stone building with a circular structure. The tall ones are conical and the external wall is usually composed by two concentric layers. Within the width of the wall there are cells reacheable directly by the ground floor or through stairs which may have been used, also, to reach higher parts of the same building.

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I find often myself thinking about this prayer of Charles de Foucauld.
I think the following sentence is striking; well, at least it is for me:

Let only your will be done in me,
and in all your creatures -
I wish no more than this, O Lord.

The prayer of the Lord is quite generic on this point ("Thy Will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven"), this prayer puts you in the position of asking for the will of the Lord to become reality in the life of other people as well as yours.
The point is that you don't know what such will is for them (only God knows...), but you ask that they search it...

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This is a private house in Edinburgh, so no more details. This week-end they hold a Charity event for the Birth resource centre and the Parish of St. Elizabeth, Oudtshoorn, R.S.A.
Now, Robet Louis Stevenson wrote a letter in defense of Father Damien, a catholic missionary of the Congregation of sacred hearts of Jesus and Mary who dedicated his life in service of the lepers of Molokai, who had been slandered by....

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I owe some apologies to Barbara Fiorentini: I haven't been reporting any Italian Catholic news for some time. I immediately amend my fault.
Pope Benedict has chosen the theme for the next (40th) World Day of Social Communications which will be held on the 28th of May 2006 : "Media: network of communication, communion, co-operation"
The list of italian Catholic sites has reached 10000 entries.
The "Associazione Webmaster Cattolici" has as a purpose:

- to promote formative, educational and cultural activities, by means of Internet or anything related to computer sciences, according to the principles of Christian morality and the magisterium of the Catholic Church;

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Old photo. Just to say that I found a new book by Painton Cowen on Rose Window ("The rose window: splendour and symbol") and I would be grateful to anyone who could provide a thorough review of it.

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Interesting philosophical insights at la nouvelle theologie. Will a debate follow?

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