Faith Of Our Fathers

On February 2nd eight years ago I woke up very early and caught a bus from where I was staying in downtown Genoa to the city’s train station. The train took me along the beautiful Ligurian coast of northern Italy, though I could not see it well since the sun had not fully risen yet. I got off the train in the town of Bogliasco. Outside the station I spotted a small van with the same logo as the public transportation ticket I had purchased in Genoa. Three of us boarded the van and the driver led us through a three mile climb up the mountains on a windy road that oftentimes became a narrow one lane path. The journey ended in a quiet piazza by a church with a baroque façade and a delicate, rose and yellow bell tower. I was right on time for 8am Mass in Pieve Ligure.

I grabbed three thin candles from the stack of candles lying on top of a small table by the door. Mass at the country parish was sparsely attended. The priest blessed the candles and gave a brief homily on the presentation of Jesus in the temple.

During Mass I observed the faithful, pious elderly ladies. Only God had the privilege of knowing the prayers their lips mouthed during the consecration. More than one had a rosary in hand and fervently prayed it. As I knelt after receiving communion I thought, “In this very same church, almost 140 years ago, my great-great-great grandmother Maria Migone prayed just like these women. She prayed for the safety of her four sons as they sailed from Genoa to a better life in South America. She would never see her sons again.”

After Mass I introduced myself to Don Andrea, I had already spoken with him over the phone. He invited me across the street to have some coffee. He greeted everyone at the café by name and introduced me. Soon we were met at the café by Fiorella, the lady who would take me to the parish archives.

I spent the whole morning exploring the baptismal, marriage and death records of the parish. As I uncovered the past, a sense of belonging to the small town, in particular its parish church, increased deep within me. Records confirmed that ever since the late 1600s generations of my ancestors were baptized, married and buried at this parish church in Pieve Ligure. The same faith that led them to pray at San Michele parish had led me that morning to San Michele parish to pray. The same faith I profess today and pass on to others somehow already existed in this beautiful town centuries ago, and it reached me by means of my family, from one generation to the next.

October 26, 1783 baptismal record of Antonio Migone, my great great great great grandfather, written by the priest who baptized him.

When Don Andrea introduced me to some of the daily Mass attendees one of the ladies said, “I am sure one of your ancestors prayed right here to have a priest in the family, and here you are!” “Maybe so,” I thought, but immediately all doubt disappeared from my mind. “Yes, I am sure of it,” I said, “it must have been so.”

Modern building on the site where my great great grandfather Emmanuele Migone lived before going to Peru in 1872 with his wife Paola Crovetto. He was later followed by his brothers Luigi, Antonio and Eugenio.

View of the Mediterranean from where my great great grandfather lived

Faith of our Fathers