How To Cut Indian Dress

GERMANO Pattari

are twenty-five years after the death of Don Germano Pattaro, a priest who I met long ago. I had mentioned in a short article published in the weekly local Pinerolo, which I reproduce here, with a note.

Germano Pattaro was a Venetian priest of extraordinary intellectual power. " know that my job is to think. ... I can not help but Sometimes my head is as a sounding board. Everything is mixed with echoes of unknown and unexpected fringe fantasy. I feel cheerful and stupid. Ideally, I would say ". His theological imagination led him to work hard to ecumenism. From the Sixties is present everywhere there is to weave new thoughts with the very people who had expected.

intellectual figure" ecclesiastical " companies involved in culture without adjectives. musicologist and musician. I remember one night tr ascorsa bathrobe to the destinies of so-called contemporary music.

In the book [ S. Canzi Cappellari, F. Fabris Ciccola (Editor), ON THE BORDER. The last years of Don Germano Pattaro , EDB, Bologna, 2001] ; is a compilation of letters written by Sister Pattaro Franca Stefanelli witness and a participant of the latter. A severe form of pancreatitis, the poisons the last fifteen years, between treatments and surgeries. "But I do not like the cross, I love your love on the cross " no condescension to a spirituality of suffering " Losing (to stay in the Cross) is not for our loyalty or our salvation. For the sake of others instead. Lost, ignored, forgotten, not included, so as to be a place of grace for many who do not know and whom God calls to him, into the path to oblivion open secret that the Father in Christ asks of us. Not that this will become worth, love, pain, masochism. To enter, on the contrary, in peace. Free us from ourselves and from our problem for us " .

The company , the Church, as it is called Pattaro , saw in him above all the brilliant orator and communicator, it seems now. These letters we however, return a man who fully assumes the fact of being on the border and from this position as himself, the history, the lives of everyone, where " the bad taste of God kills our geometric assumption. We want things perfect , order, fine, no surprises, balanced, well. It comes down on the absurd imbalance of the Cross, where God seems dying for the wrong account " . not satisfied with an explanation of life, knows that there are tensions within us that are opposed and can not settle, if not in fiction. At certain times of convalescence goes to the mountain: " refugees are at peak, eagle's nest. Roosting. Stone steps. Arrival and stay inside the density vibrant height. Fermo. Sitting inside my brain and my heart. Elsewhere. Everything here and elsewhere. The men are not concerned. An escape? I do not know. I would say the Mass, up here. Just because Grace becomes mercy of land in every direction. Calvary does not have this height. Sale only four spans, because they see Christ planted over. Quite the Tabor. But Christ is nell'immondezzaio of Golgotha. It is not the place of the Mass Mountain. The Mountain is a luxury for the eyes made of stone. The Mass is where is Christ in the middle, inside, the hardness of the existence dull drab, dirty and troubled. I am pagan: I'm fine up here. Borghese I like the quiet and elegant space innocent. Godo with intensity. Everyone has his own where he is called out of Ur. Doing the math. "

This book can be read in different ways, wrapped up another one. The first is to distill a theology that is confronted continually with the living God who is hidden. The second allows you to obtain an apprenticeship at the death that does not occur, secular, religious refuge and compassion. The third, more difficult, but transparent, is to recognize the deep love that has bound the priest and the nun who accompanied him for ten years until his death, September 27, 1986. If the word love have our ears to the richness of meaning that goes into it: " You will have to help me detach myself from my books too ... Promise me you will help me to die ... I can say to you all. I live every moment, thanking and praising God for this gift to you and help you find just the confidence, looking like Jesus on the cross see all. keep these things because I have no one to tell her. You do 'so that all around me after my death will be silent "

On November 4, 1975 it concluded a letter to Sister Franca:

" Hello, Franca, My house is not empty. And 'empty when there is none. And' when I'm full. The flowers I can even imagine. I've had so many and there are always many. well cared for, because the body is a gift that must be respected. E 'for the resurrection and not death. Be whole. Every so often got drunk and make a cantatina. riditi Look in the mirror and back. Do not be always busy. The ridiculous always gives our measure, otherwise it becomes 'fanatichetti.' Enjoy everything and make good sleep. The Lord bless you and make you happy forever. "