Religion Should Live a Little: What We Can Learn from Italian Harlem

In The Madonna of 115th Street, Robert Orsi gives a masterful exposition of the lively celebrations and struggles of immigrant Italian families in Harlem from 1880 to 1950.  Specifically, he emphasizes that religion and figures of devotion were not vague examples of moral conduct, but served instead as tangible forces, guides, and companions through every tribulation and joy in life.

And those Italian Catholics know how to party—with style.

Each year, on July 16th, Harlem celebrated the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.  The neighborhood’s streets and corridors would buzz with excitement in days of anticipation; guests arrived, the aroma of meals wafted through the air, parties would be held late into the night, all culminating in a day of liturgical celebration on the 16th.  Streets would fill as the masses processed with a statue of the Virgin Mary towards the Church, while the faithful carried symbolic offerings and tokens of their devotion.

This was a faith utterly foreign to many American Christians, both literally and figuratively. Rather than private morals and weekly observances, the Italian immigrants possessed a popular religious fervor that, in Orsi’s words, “sought the streets to express itself.”  For them, faith and religious devotion formed a fundamental facet of human experience; it soothed struggles and amplified joys in every situation, whether in the Church, the home, or the public square.  Moreover, these public expressions were unabashed in their identity, passion, and purpose.

Whether at the Lord’s Table, the dinner table, or the street corner, their religion was not merely observed, it was lived.  Confronting the modern dichotomy of secular and sacred, we should take note and learn from these intrepid souls of Harlem, who passionately owned their religious identity in a world of change and passive conformity.