Religious Events: Popular Faith
(From notes written by Mario Gramegna)
In the traditions of the people, a point of reference is religiosity, not only for its connection with worship practices but also in the more specific field of spirituality. It represents a phenomenon of life and faith, sometimes experienced together with liturgy, but very often in an alternative dialectic with official worship, with very primitive feelings of reference to the sacred and the mystery of God. In Molise, religiosity is an integral part of peasant culture and directly refers to the world of feelings experienced collectively, never elaborated by systems of thought, but spontaneous and therefore deeply rooted in sensitivity and the subconscious. For this reason, certain traditions still resist and oppose some attempts at erasure or radical changes.
At an anthropological level, popular religiosity is rooted in the great mysteries and moments of human existence: the sense of life and death, illnesses and misfortunes, joys and celebrations, birth, growth, marriage, the memory of the deceased, the rhythm of time and seasons, the harvest of the fruits of the earth. These celebratory rhythms of existence have been consecrated by Christian feasts and ordered in an evangelical sense to the praise of God and the expression of solidarity. But also the devotion to saints, as intercessors of graces and miracles, manifests itself in typical forms, expressed in pilgrimages to shrines, village festivals, processions, ex-votos, and the veneration of images.
The success of popular religiosity lies particularly in the expressive nature of the celebratory rites, born spontaneously and found in all cultures, handed down with the strength of atavistic customs, which repeat and trace continuity in collective memory. These characteristics are also found in Molise, but very often it is also noted that at certain times, the people, dissatisfied with the celebratory forms of a liturgy that is too distant, sometimes incomprehensible and excessively clericalized, have developed paraliturgical forms more in harmony with their feelings. Consider, for example, certain popular representations of Christmas and the Passion, the legends of patron saints, and popular rites and manifestations of pagan origin.
Therefore, popular religious festivals represent important events for scholars to recognize different elements of archaic religiosity that Catholicism has integrated for a more evident characterization of the popular imprint. The very word "festival" (from the archaic Latin "festum") indicates the meaning of public joy as a collective cultural fact. With the advent of consumer civilization, many behavioral aspects of the festival have changed, making it the most important moment in the economy of consumption, because in it the aspects of play and daily enjoyment prevail. Festival committees have been replaced by public institutions that, depending on their ideology, prioritize the less religious aspect.
In traditional society, popular religious festivals had the function of renewing time, also as a moment of purification for the predominance of aspects of what fell within the concept of the "sacred". Existence was once marked by the calendar cycle of the festivals of patron saints and the most beloved saints up to the major solemnities, such as Christmas and Easter. There was no separation between religious and civil aspects, and moments of solidarity were mainly sought without needing entities or associations to encourage people to gather.
For centuries, the cult of Saint Anthony the Abbot has embodied one of the most vivid and intensely participated expressions of popular religiosity. His annual recurrence, falling in the middle of the winter period and within the New Year festivities, is characterized by intense ritualization practices aimed at responding to the existential needs of the agricultural and pastoral world. A world entirely aimed at seeking supernatural protections to ensure the realization of expectations of well-being, security, and continuity of life. And although the transformation of economic-productive systems has made this world no longer in need of traditional symbolic-ritual measures, it continues to see in the figure of Saint Anthony the divine mediator capable of absorbing present crises and giving rural communities the possibility of recognizing themselves as historical, identity, and patrimonial entities.
(From notes written by Mario Gramegna)
In the traditions of the people, a point of reference is religiosity, not only for its connection with worship practices but also in the more specific field of spirituality. It represents a phenomenon of life and faith, sometimes experienced together with liturgy, but very often in an alternative dialectic with official worship, with very primitive feelings of reference to the sacred and the mystery of God. In Molise, religiosity is an integral part of peasant culture and directly refers to the world of feelings experienced collectively, never elaborated by systems of thought, but spontaneous and therefore deeply rooted in sensitivity and the subconscious. For this reason, certain traditions still resist and oppose some attempts at erasure or radical changes.
At an anthropological level, popular religiosity is rooted in the great mysteries and moments of human existence: the sense of life and death, illnesses and misfortunes, joys and celebrations, birth, growth, marriage, the memory of the deceased, the rhythm of time and seasons, the harvest of the fruits of the earth. These celebratory rhythms of existence have been consecrated by Christian feasts and ordered in an evangelical sense to the praise of God and the expression of solidarity. But also the devotion to saints, as intercessors of graces and miracles, manifests itself in typical forms, expressed in pilgrimages to shrines, village festivals, processions, ex-votos, and the veneration of images.
The success of popular religiosity lies particularly in the expressive nature of the celebratory rites, born spontaneously and found in all cultures, handed down with the strength of atavistic customs, which repeat and trace continuity in collective memory. These characteristics are also found in Molise, but very often it is also noted that at certain times, the people, dissatisfied with the celebratory forms of a liturgy that is too distant, sometimes incomprehensible and excessively clericalized, have developed paraliturgical forms more in harmony with their feelings. Consider, for example, certain popular representations of Christmas and the Passion, the legends of patron saints, and popular rites and manifestations of pagan origin.
Therefore, popular religious festivals represent important events for scholars to recognize different elements of archaic religiosity that Catholicism has integrated for a more evident characterization of the popular imprint. The very word "festival" (from the archaic Latin "festum") indicates the meaning of public joy as a collective cultural fact. With the advent of consumer civilization, many behavioral aspects of the festival have changed, making it the most important moment in the economy of consumption, because in it the aspects of play and daily enjoyment prevail. Festival committees have been replaced by public institutions that, depending on their ideology, prioritize the less religious aspect.
In traditional society, popular religious festivals had the function of renewing time, also as a moment of purification for the predominance of aspects of what fell within the concept of the "sacred". Existence was once marked by the calendar cycle of the festivals of patron saints and the most beloved saints up to the major solemnities, such as Christmas and Easter. There was no separation between religious and civil aspects, and moments of solidarity were mainly sought without needing entities or associations to encourage people to gather.
For centuries, the cult of Saint Anthony the Abbot has embodied one of the most vivid and intensely participated expressions of popular religiosity. His annual recurrence, falling in the middle of the winter period and within the New Year festivities, is characterized by intense ritualization practices aimed at responding to the existential needs of the agricultural and pastoral world. A world entirely aimed at seeking supernatural protections to ensure the realization of expectations of well-being, security, and continuity of life. And although the transformation of economic-productive systems has made this world no longer in need of traditional symbolic-ritual measures, it continues to see in the figure of Saint Anthony the divine mediator capable of absorbing present crises and giving rural communities the possibility of recognizing themselves as historical, identity, and patrimonial entities.