DAME OF MAGISTRAL GRACE MARY A.D. PETRINO
On October 18, 2014, AMHS member and former 1st VPPrograms Mary A.D. Petrino was invested as a Dame of Magistral Grace into the Order of St. John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta. Mary was invested by the leadership of the Federal Association USA and His Excellency, Archbishop William E. Lori, STD, Archbishop of Baltimore and a Conventual Chaplain of the Order. Mary’s sponsors were Bertha Braddock, DM and Elizabeth Scheuren, DM.
Father Andrew Fisher was also invested as a Magistral Chaplain of the Order that same day. Mary and her husband, Jeff, were honored at the Annual Dinner later that night, where they were photographed with His Excellency, Archbishop Timothy Broglio, JCD, who is also a Conventual Chaplain of the Order. (submitted by Mary A.D. Petrino; photos by Nick Crettier)
REMEMBRANCES OF LA MADONNA DELLA DIFESA
We would like to share with you an email that was sent by one of our associate members, Ronald Ciarlo, who resides in Cranston, Rhode Island, has family origins in Molise, and has been a member of AMHS since 2005! Mr. Ciarlo wrote to us in response to the article that appeared in the November issue of the Notiziario, regarding a visit by Maria, Lucio, and Edvige D’Andrea with representatives of the Molisani nel Mondo in Montreal. Mr. Ciarlo, thank you for allowing us to share your message with our membership!
Dear Ms. D’Andrea,
I enjoyed your article about the trip to Montreal this past August. Your article brought back many dear memories I have of Montreal. My wife and I stayed at the Fairmont Queen Elisabeth in downtown Montreal and we would take a cab for our trips to Little Italy (“La Petite Italie”) on Boulevard St. Laurent. We visited 2 restaurants, Il Pomodoro and another one whose name I cannot recall but I remember my meals in both of them. Ingredients were fresh - no heavy- 6 handed spicing - and portions were fine. The tomato sauce in both places was mild and luscious, and the veal in one of the restaurants was tender and cooked in a mild tomato sauce in which all the flavors could be appreciated. No one food item overpowered another. It was, to me, Italian cooking at its best.
It was the food of Italy 2014. We had lunch at a fellow ripese’s home and his wife made homemade cavatelli alla ripese with a meat ragù of veal, pork, and lamb. What was amazing was that Italian was being spoken in the home, and not the dialect of the region. I just wrapped myself up in the culture. Another highlight of the trip was when we made our way to the pastry shop on Rue Dante (I believe the name is Aliato), right across the street from the church of La Madonna della Difesa. The sfogliatelle from that pastry shop were out of this world.
The crust was not greasy, but crunchy, and the filling was mystifying (it was based on the traditional yellow semolina filling, with bits of dried fruit woven in), that was sweet but not too sweet, so that you could taste the vanilla and orange flavoring. That sfogliatelle was a piece of heaven. We had the honor of attending the feast of La Madonna della Difesa and marching in the procession. It brought back childhood memories of marching in the same-named procession at Our Lady of Grace Church in Johnston, Rhode Island. I knew I was home with the devotees in the procession and to hear them speaking Italian - it was 1965 again in Johnston. I did not hear the old hymns of Evviva Maria and hymns dedicated to the Madonna della Difesa “Sulla Falda Sorridente”. I told my wife that this is the way the Feast was like in Johnston when I was growing up. You see, my paternal family is from Ripabottoni, province of Campobasso. The devotion to La Madonna della Difesa was started in Casacalenda, the next town over from Ripabottoni.
This is why I am a devotee of La Madonna della Difesa. I grew up with the devotion to that particular Madonna and every September buses of other devotees would descend upon the Church for the mass and procession very close to what took place that August of 2014 in Montreal. Unfortunately, time takes its toll on all things mortal, people die, so do feast celebrations or at least they become reduced to fit the American Parish Fare Model. Montreal is lucky to have a fairly young Italian immigration model but if you talk to the native Italians of Montreal they say that the population of original migrants is dwindling at a good rate. Many of the Italian parishes offer services in French, Italian, English, and Spanish.
When my wife and I attended the Difesa Feast at the Church, everyone had a seat and the devotees in the procession numbered more closely to about 50 or 60 and the average age was about 50. So as you see the face of the Molisano immigrant in Montreal is also starting to change. I say enjoy every last morsel of the situation as I did and I hope to make one more trip to Montreal to taste the Italian flavor of the city before I become too old to enjoy it.
Saluti cordiali,
Ronald Ciarlo, member of AMHS