ANST - FW: Musing on September 21st -- Light 'em if You Got'em

[j'lynn yeates]

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- -----Original Message-----
From: Ellsworth Weaver [mailto:astroweaver at yahoo.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 21, 2000 12:13
To: 2thpix at surfari.net
Subject: Musing on September 21st -- Light ‘em if You Got’em


Dear Folk,

Today we cautiously celebrate the birthday of a mystic, a preacher, a
church reformer, a politician, a prophet, a convicted heretic, and
generally not a guy you would invite to a birthday party. On
September
21, 1452, Girolamo Savonarola was born.

Savonarola was delivered to a noble family at Ferrara, Italy. He
seemed
to have a calling to the Church and entered the Dominican order
(remember Dominic Guzman who said "Kill them all, God will know His
own"?) in Bologna in the year 1474.  There is talk about his
infatuation with a very haughty Florentine gal whose spurning him
made
him give up the love of women. Sigh. His first preaching gig in
Florence (1484) was less than a sell-out. He took his show on the
road
for some polishing. At the convent at Brescia he wowed the nuns with
his impassioned pleas. The nuns did not get many roadshows and
Girolamo
had this wonderfully large nose and sensual lips.

Sensing the time was right in 1489, he took it back to Florence. He
got
to stand up in the pulpit at San Marco and do his James Brown best. I
mean he talked about sin (he was agin’ it) and apostasy (made him
apoplectic). He got down on all those folks who were painting
themselves and looking at paintings of naked nymphs. That,
incidentally, included almost all of Florence at the time.

Florence had been flowering under Lorenzo the Magnificent. Art and
literature had gone through what we now call the humanist revival.
Greek myths were being recalled and vividly portrayed. There was a
sense of spring, prima vera, in the air. Artists like Michelangelo
and
Sandro Botticelli were capturing it exactly. Music, sculpture, dance,
painting, love, lust, la dolce vita, you know, were being exhibited
everywhere.  Savonarola saw all of this as the temptings of a very
real
worldly spirit, Satan. The Medicis were necessarily a tad worried
about
this guy who was raining on their parade. Interestingly enough, when
Lorenzo lay dying in 1492 he invited Fra. Savonarola to visit him and
to hear his last confession. Wouldn’t you like to have been an
Italian-speaking fly on that wall?

In 1493 when the Dominican order in Tuscany (upper Italy) was being
reformed, the pope approved Savonarola as the first Vicar-General.
That
may have been the position of power that tipped the balance for him.
He
got a tad political. He predicted that Florence would fall into
misery
and bondage if it did not mend its ways. Sure enough, Florence stayed
sinful and France led by Charles VIII marched into town in 1494.
Savonarola’s prophecies seemed to be fulfilled. Florence became
enemy-occupied territory. But this led to the restoration of the
city,
in part through Savonarola’s efforts. He persuaded the French king
not
to destroy the city and he helped to reorganize its government as a
republic. His political party, the Weepers, became the controlling
force in the new republic of Florence after the French were forced to
leave.

Savonarola became pretty darned popular around town. He was able to
use
his influence to create a sort of welfare system to care for the poor
and the sick in that city of splendor. He also did everything he
could
to encourage education, science, and the arts. Of course his slant on
things was from what he thought Christianity should be doing.

Much like the later Puritans in England, Savonarola’s people believed
that God was not well served by folks wearing designer jeans, driving
SUVs while talking on cell phones, sipping double mochas, and surfing
the Internet for porn. Well, not exactly his words but you get the
drift. Savonarola called for a collection of all these worldly
distractions and made of them "bonfires of the vanities." That’s
right,
they burned Frederick’s of Hollywood corsets, Bottecelli paintings,
Versacci knockoffs, autographed pictures of Sarah Michelle Gellar,
twenty-sided D&D dice, books with Fabio on their covers, Guess jeans,
whole Mary Kay makeup collections, you name it, in fifteen story
bonfires. Looked like Texas A&M around homecoming.

Now worse yet, Savonarola turned his sharp eyes upon the Catholic
Church, itself. He started talking bad about the Borgia pope and all
of
the vanities which were rampant in Rome. Since he had predicted the
invasion of Florence, folks had been saying that Savonarola was some
sort of a prophet. He did nothing much to disabuse his followers of
that notion. This led to Rome asking him to put in a guest appearance
on the Papal Late Show to answer charges of heresy in 1495.
Savonarola
said he would pass on the invite because Rome was part of Hell and
the
pope, no offense, was in league with the Devil. The pope said he
understood and that Savonarola should just lay off preaching for
awhile. What do you think he did? Yep! His message: "The Church is in
sin; The Church will be scourged; It will happen soon."

Such preaching and disregard for respect could only lead to one
place.
On the way, in 1497, the Pope Alexander VI excommunicated him. Even
so,
Savonarola nursed the monks during an outbreak of the plague in
Florence. He had a second bonfire of the vanities in 1498 which went
astray. The Florentines were getting tired of having their houses
ransacked by mobs. Even the Franciscans  led by a Franciscan
preacher,
Francesco da Pugliacame came down against him. There was scheduled a
Dominicans vs. Franciscans trial by fire in April 1498  but it never
came off. Shucks. The Florentines were about through with Savonarola
and arrested him.

He was brought to trial for falsely claiming to have seen visions,
and
uttered prophecies, for religious error, and for sedition. Under
torture he made said some things which he afterwards denied. He was
declared guilty and the sentence was confirmed by Rome. On May 23,
1498, this remarkable man and two of his Dominican disciples were
hanged until almost dead and then burned at the stake, still
professing
their adherence to the Church.

A poet mourned:
Charity is extinct,
Love of God is no more.
All are lukewarm;
And without living faith. . .
Alas! the Saint is dead!
Alas! O Lord! Alas!
Thou hast taken our Prophet
And drawn him to thyself.

"The only good thing which we owe to Plato and Aristotle is that they
brought forward many arguments which we can use against the heretics.
Yet they and other philosophers are now in Hell. An old woman knows
more about the Faith than Plato." Girolano Savonarola

What have we learned? Never disrespect a Borgia? Folks are made
terribly uncomfortable by others telling them they are sinning?
Haughty
girls can cause really strange things? "He who says sinning ain't
fun,
hasn't sinned lately"? Billy Graham said that.  Live by the bonfire,
die by the same? How about "An old woman knows more about the Faith
than Plato"? Amen to that.

If you are out there practicing apostasy, scourging a Church, or just
scurrying away from folks with whips and want to forward these
missives
to others, gratias! Do remember to keep my name, sig., and secret
watermark attached.

Not burning my Sarah Michelle Gellar photos no matter what,
J. Ellsworth Weaver

SCA – Sir Balthazar of Endor
AS – Polyphemus Theognis
TRV – Sebastian Yeats


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