A Poor Imitation

I celebrated my fifth Christmas in Italy this past December. It was certainly the most normal one after COVID.  Still, I was struck by several Italian holiday traditions.

For instance, I was somewhat familiar with the incoherent yet widespread tradition of eating lentils on New Year’s Eve, right around midnight. However, for the first time I heard that this is a tradition because “lentils bring good luck and wealth for the New Year.” The philosopher in me immediately raised two objections to this thought.

First, if God were to choose and designate a certain vegetable to bring the consumer fortune, I cannot imagine that vegetable would be the lowly lentil. Second, if the tradition were true, there should be no poverty and extremely good luck for all Italians everywhere. But, as even the most traditional Italian would admit, this is simply not the case.

Christmas Songs

Likewise, for the first time I witnessed a few Christmas concerts which filled the streets with music. Again, however, the philosopher in me questioned the selection of songs.

For instance, the song “The Little Drummer Boy” has always interested me.  The idea that any banging on a drum, by a poorly trained shepherd more inclined simply to make loud noise, might bring joy to a newborn (who would probably like to sleep) and his parents (who would probably like him to sleep as well) has always seemed rather absurd.

But over and above the song selections, I was surprised that many of the songs performed were either in English, or translated from English into Italian.

It’s not that there aren’t Italian Christmas tunes; there are many.  Saint Alphonsus Liguori wrote a great many of them. However, apparently there is some attractive force to songs in English that makes them particularly appealing to the Italian ear.

That being said, and without disparaging the efforts of the children, teachers, and other singers, I must admit that such imitations fell short of the American dream. This failure took place in two ways.

A Musical Failure

First, there are simply some consonant and vowel sounds that are not typical of Italian, but that are ordinary in English. Hence, any average Italian (because professionals usually receive coaching to produce these sounds) belting out English songs is likely to mis-pronounce the lyrics. For an entirely Italian audience, this is not a big deal, but, as a native English speaker, I was greatly amused by such phrases as: “ah one-ah ‘orse open sleigh” instead of “a one-horse open sleigh” and “deck da ‘alls with something mumbled of ‘olly” instead of “deck the halls with boughs of holly.”

Second, and even more complicated, were the English songs translated into Italian. I would never have dreamed of hearing “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas” in Italian. Rather than a song full of glad tidings, as it is in the English, it became an oddly melodramatic and emotional Italian ode. Here are the English lyrics, with the Italian version translated into English for comparison.

“It’s Christmas, suffer no more, no more, no more, no more!”  Wow.

Original vs. Imitation

The point is not to be like the Grinch, complaining about every little thing related to Christmas. On the contrary, I greatly enjoyed the concerts and the Christmas spirit. However, my point is that the original is always much better than the imitation. The original is what the author or songwriter intended. The imitation might be a good effort, or a nice try, but it fails to be true to that intention and that aim.

We can say something similar about holiness. In his introduction to “Saints Are Not Sad,” F. J. Sheed makes the following observation (pgs. 10-11) when asked why a person would be interested in reading the lives of the saints:

“What has the reader to gain from meeting the saints in such large numbers? Two things—relief from monotony, and contact with vitality. First, relief from monotony: men are in their essential personality irreducibly diverse: but sin blots out the distinctions and reduces the diversity: sin drains out the color of the man (which is his own and inimitable) and replaces it with the color of sin which is a common property: all sinners look less like themselves and more like one another. Saints are intensely themselves. Second, contact with vitality: sin, being a following of the line of least resistance, inevitably lessens vitality: it takes no more vitality to go with the stream of inclination than with any other stream: but to go against, as the saint does, demands immense vitality. If by chance you think saints are saints because they lack the energy for sin, meet forty of them and see.”

Sin is monotony and laziness; it is a cheap imitation of the life that God offers us through grace and the future that could be ours.

The Master of (cheap) Imitation

The devil is the great imitator. He tries to mimic God, promising a share in what limited control and power he has. Yet, consider: the devil cannot create, but only manipulate.

The devil does not give things of substance, but rather only of appearance. He cannot give grace, but he can take it away. The devil imitates: it’s the best (or worst, if you will) that he can do.

Two Sorts of Imitations

Sometimes the devil’s imitations are bold and outrageous, like temptations to sin. When we think about it, there is nothing hollower and more self-defeating than sin. Rather than accept the life of grace and all the gifts that God has given us to achieve our happiness, we reject them.  Moreover, we actively use those gifts against Him and against our true happiness.

The glaring contradiction in this should seem to us like missing words or notes in a song.  Something is not right.  The song is out of key or out of tune with what we are called to be as Christians.

Other times, the devil is more subtle. He silently changes the meanings of words, or covers his deceits with a veneer of tolerance or non-judgmental attitudes. This is certainly a quieter temptation, one that falls in line with what Sheed calls the “lack of vitality.” It’s easy to go with the tide. The tide will carry you out or in, depending on what it’s doing. To resist is difficult.

Conclusion

The life that Satan and sin offer us is a very poor imitation of what Christ wants for us. Jesus  “came so that [we] might have life and have it more abundantly.” Holiness is an abundant life.  It is a life lived as God meant for us to live it.

A life of sin is a life of poor imitation, where every sinner is like the next. Perhaps this is what Blessed Carlo Acutis meant in the phrase attributed to him: “We are all born originals, but many of us die as photocopies.” We start off as originals, as God intended, but many end up as cheap imitations.

As we begin Ordinary Time, let us try to make it anything but ordinary and boring, but rather vibrant and full of life.

[1] Taken from https://blogs.transparent.com/italian/bianco-natale/