Brood of Vipers

In group Lectio Divina, we were discussing John the Baptist calling the Pharisees and Saducees "Brood of Vipers."  Vipers meaning poisonous snakes.  This led to Father Rocco telling us a story of when he went to visit his mother's birthplace of Cuocollo, Italy.  The town is in the mountains of northern Italy.  In fact, it was one of the last holdouts to fall to the Romans and then one of the last to fall to the barbarian hordes.  In fact, there is still a mix of pagan and Christian customs and traditions.  The higher up the mountains you go, the more you leave the Christians.  Whether high or low, the place has a lot of snakes, and they are a mix of poisonous and non.  They're pretty big, too.

A perfect example of the mix of the pagan and Christian, or the profane with the sacred, is the Festival of the Snakes.  In pagan times, the pagans worshipped the goddess Angizia.  She offered protection from the snake bites. 

When the Christians came the snakes were still there and the people still wanted protection.  The village priest, Dominic Abate offered Masses and devotions for protection.  After he died and became a saint, the festival began.  A statue of San Dominico Abate of Cuoculo is carried through the village covered with snakes.  Before the festival, the villagers capture the nonvenomous snakes to be carried in the festival.  The snakes are freed back into the wild, after the festival.  

A Thing to be Grasped

 During Lent, I've been going to Father Rocco's Lectio Divina.  It's good even though it's not Dominican.  Today, we chose Philippians 2: 6.  There were five of us, plus Father Rocco.  Each of us had a different translation.  It was an interesting interpretation.  Which do you prefer?

Jesus, who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped...

...a thing to be stolen...

...something to be seized...

...something held fast...

...something to be exploited for personal gain...

An argument could be made for all of them.  They do mean something different, though.

By the way, Philippians 2: 6-11 is an ancient hymn. It is known as a hymn to Christ.