by Fr. Richard Gennaro Cipolla
Epiphany Parish, Tampa
Rome is a city I know well and love. It has been one of the blessings of my life to organize and lead tours of Italy for small groups from my parishes, for friends, and for the many students I have taught. There are places and things that one must see in Rome like St Peter’s basilica and the other major basilicas, the catacombs, the Pantheon and so forth. But in addition to the must-sees, I always take my groups to the Palazzo Doria-Pamphili, one of the great and noble palazzi built by families of great wealth and power, all of whom collected great art.
The Doria-Pamphili family still lives in a small part of the palace—a mere 15 rooms. The rest of the palace now displays the paintings and the sculptures that they collected of 300 years. The most famous of their collection of paintings is the portrait of the Pamphili family member who became Pope Innocent X, painted by the Spanish artist Velasquez. Once you have seen in this painting the eyes of Innocent X, you never forget them. And you know that he did not suffer fools gladly.
But I always take my groups to view a painting in this palazzo that is not nearly as famous. It is by the artist Caravaggio, who became famous for his later paintings with their drama and use of chiaroscuro. This is an early Caravaggio, and the subject is the Flight to Egypt. The scene depicts a pause of the Holy Family on their way to Egypt to escape the murderous wrath of King Herod. To the right Mary is bending over the baby Jesus who is asleep on her lap. To the left in the foreground is the figure of Joseph holding a sheet of music for an angel who is playing a lullaby on a violin for the sleeping baby Jesus. Joseph stands there holding the music sheet with a look of a man doing what he knows he should be doing at this particular time and place, a look of determination and peace. That was one of many moments in his life in which he fulfilled his singular vocation to be the guardian of his wife, Mary, and her Son. And he did this in the silence of obedience in love, and he understood as no other man has ever known the virtue of obligo.
I learned the meaning of that Italian word obligo from my father Severino. He came to this country at age 14 from Southern Italy, a place devastated by World War I. He cut hair in a barber shop until he became a policeman on the Providence Police Force in Rhode Island. Often, after supper—we ate supper not dinner—he would get up from the table, and put on his coat and hat—men always wore hats in those days when they went out. My mother would ask: Sam, where are you going? The answer: To a wake. My mother: Whose wake is it? My father: My friend Mike’s cousin. My mother: Why are you going to a wake for someone you never knew? My father: I have to go because Mike is my friend. My mother would roll her eyes and go do the dishes.
Every Christmas morning my brother and I had to go with my father to make a round of visits. One of these was to Billy and Teresa Rao, my parents’ best man and maid of honor at their wedding. We stayed for only 15 minutes, enough time for my father and Billy to have a shot of sweet vermouth. When we go back into the car, I asked my father: Daddy, why do we have to the Rao’s every Christmas morning? His answer: Because they stood up for me and your mother at our wedding. That phrase “stand up for” was an English translation of the phrase in Italian for agreeing to be a best man and maid of honor. I did not understand what all this meant.
Do you know when I finally understood that obligo is linked to an act of love? It was many years later after my father died, when by the grace of God I became, against all odds, a Catholic priest, and it happened that I was the celebrant of the Traditional Good Friday Liturgy that particular year. At the time for the Veneration of the Cross, as is the custom, I took off my shoes and socks to begin the threefold approach to the Cross laying at the foot of the altar. And as I knelt to kiss the Cross in adoration, I finally understood what St. Joseph and my father understood in the silence of their hearts: that obligo is what one takes on in personal sacrifice in response to love, and not love in general but personal love based on the love of God for us in the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross, the Sacrifice of God for me. Oh, my friends, as we approach Holy Week, let us ask St. Joseph for his prayers that we may live lives that reflect the love of God in Jesus Christ, and to have the courage to undertake and put into practice
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