The Emergence of Italian Pentecostalism: Affectivity and Aesthetic Worship Practices
Italian Pentecostals invoke female imagery through songs and sermons. In a study of Sicilian Pentecostalism, Salvatore Cucchiari records an extract of an Italian sermon:
How marvelous that look of Christ’s must have been. He was looking at the man, not with hostility, not with severity, but with a look full of grace. A look … like that of a mother at her child, a defenseless small child. She will never look at it with a severe or cruel look. She will look upon it with all her love.[42]
Here, not simply God, but the person of Jesus Christ is depicted through use of feminine language as a mother protecting her children. The phrase “full of grace” is a reference to the Hail Mary, the most common of Catholic prayers. Jesus is thereby described in terms consonant with the most venerated female saint. Reference to Jesus as an emotionally vulnerable person is common in Sicily according to Cucchiari. There Jesus is depicted as someone who does not “act or feel in a characteristically Mediterranean male way.” ‘Spirit’ in Italian, as in other gendered languages is ordinarily feminine. It is no surprise then that the religious roles women are most active in, prophecy and healing, are commonly identified with the work of the Spirit. The centrality of the Spirit keeps patriarchal tendencies at bay and opens the door to mutuality and an egalitarian soteriology. According to Cucchiari Pentecostals worship a “cross-gendered” God. Redefinition of the divine family translates into a new image of the earthly family. The traditional structure of the Italian household, according to which the father is the authority figure and the mother is the emotional center, is suspended and both parents are allowed to exhibit male and female qualities.[43]
Pentecostalism has redefined Italian understanding of gender, imbibing worship with a primal, affective spirituality. This is comprehended in the freedom of women to worship and express themselves in the Spirit who distributes the divine gifts without partiality. The feminine imagery of Italian Pentecostal worship evokes an aesthetic sensibility of equity and mutuality.
For Italian communities outside their native land where distance from kin has created alienation and disaffection, the Pentecostal movement supplements an emotional closeness. The affectivity inherent in Pentecostalism transfers the emotional affinity of the Italian household to the spiritual community. This element can be seen in salutations conveying a fraternal bond. Italian-American Pentecostals commonly address one another in the faith community with greetings communicating spiritual siblinghood such as fratelli (brother) and sorelli (sister). Another noteworthy expression is the kiss of peace (pache). This form of greeting contains a universal sense of love and affection, extending a gesture normally reserved for romantic or familial intimacy to the worshipping community.[44]
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