by Dianne Hales

On my first Easter in Rome in the Jubilee year of 2000, I joined the throngs jammed into the massive piazza of St. Peter's basilica. Pope John Paul II, bent with age, extended Easter greetings in dozens of languages, including Italian. "Buona Pasqua!" the Roman family next to me shouted in return. Just beginning my Italian studies, I traced the roots of Pasqua back to 1342, when it appeared in a reference to the feast commemorating the Jews' liberation from Egyptian slavery. Lamb or "paschal" blood marked the doors of Hebrew families exiled in Egypt and spared their first-born sons. Somewhere in time Pasqua became synonymous with the Christian celebration of Easter.

During Holy Week (la Settimana Santa), I also learned the Italian names of the days my Catholic family had long celebrated. On la Domenica delle Palme (Palm Sunday), I waved a cross made of palm fronds and joined in the chorus of "Osannas." On Giovedì Santo (Holy Thursday) at la Messa dell'Ultima Cena (the Mass of the Last Supper), I watched as a pastor, in a gesture of humility, recreated Christ's bathing of the feet of the Apostles by washing the feet of twelve parishioners.

Read more

Fonte: L'italo-Americano