For some
reason I’ve had a lot of contact with French culture the past few months: I saw
a few films by French director Jacques Demy (“The Umbrellas of Cherbourg”, “A
Room in the City”), and I’ve begun reading a novel by Balzac for the writing
class I’m teaching.
On top
of that, I’ve been reading a hagiography of St. Francis of Paola, and it turns
out that he’s the patron saint of the town that my one (French) colleague comes
from.
I texted
him and asked him if he was from that town and if so did he know St. Francis of
Paola, and he texted back –
Of course I am and of course I
do!
- which,
by the way, sounds like he was translating “bien sur” as “of course” when it’s
probably better as “darn right”.
Although
I rarely run into him, I saw him like the very next day at the library, and I
talked to him some more about the saint and what’s known of him in his town.
He said
that everyone knows that he saved the town from some plague, and that once a year
there’s a big “gravade” (=saint’s procession?) where they walk with a statue of
him around town.
He said
it’s mostly hyper-Catholic families who do that, so although he learned about
the saint in school and knew people he went, he himself never participated in
the procession, even just going to watch it.
No comments:
Post a Comment