Redemption in the Majella Mountains

By Ken Cancellara

Ken’s grandfather always inspired him, as a child, to respect and love the outdoors and to find in nature the introspection and refuge to allow every person to solve any of life’s vicissitudes. Recalling his grandfather’s philosophy, the author carries the reader through the mesmerizing beauty of the Majella mountains in the Abruzzi region of Central Italy. There Ken has the protagonist first find refuge, and ultimately, find redemption from the helter-skelter corporate life he left behind. These two existences, ambition and introspection, clash and confront each other so that the reader sees the unforgiving life of ambition lived by a grizzled corporate veteran pit itself against the newly-found introspective existence of a young man whose soul is forced to reawaken and leave behind the societal ladder to success in favor of the more simple, but much more satisfying, life of ethics and morality.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Jun 23, 2023
• ISBN: 9781649790279

Ken Cancellara

Ken is a well-known lawyer; former chairman and managing partner of CASSELS LLP, a large and prestigious Canadian law firm; a former senior executive of a large publicly-traded pharmaceutical company; author of two previously published novels, one of which, FINDING MARCO, received an Italian national literary award and has recently been converted to the motion picture FROM THE VINE. Ken has been prominent as a board member of a number of charitable organizations including Mens Sana, Vita, Humber River Hospital, Mount Sinai Hospital, Villa Charities. Ken is the former president of the National Congress of Italian Canadians-Ontario.

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About the Author

Ken is a well-known lawyer; former chairman and managing partner of CASSELS LLP, a large and prestigious Canadian law firm; a former senior executive of a large publicly-traded pharmaceutical company; author of two previously published novels, one of which, FINDING MARCO, received an Italian national literary award and has recently been converted to the motion picture FROM THE VINE. Ken has been prominent as a board member of a number of charitable organizations including Mens Sana, Vita, Humber River Hospital, Mount Sinai Hospital, Villa Charities. Ken is the former president of the National Congress of Italian Canadians-Ontario.

Dedication

To my wife Anita and my son Richard whose unwavering support and encouragement continually inspire me to become a better person and to share my thoughts with others.

Copyright Information ©

Ken Cancellara 2023

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Ordering Information

Quantity sales: Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

Cancellara, Ken

Redemption in the Majella Mountains

ISBN 9781649790262 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781649790255 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781649790279 (ePub e-book)

ISBN 9781649790248 (Audiobook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023901653

www.austinmacauley.com/us

First Published 2023

Austin Macauley Publishers LLC

40 Wall Street, 33rd Floor, Suite 3302

New York, NY 10005

USA

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Acknowledgment

To Austin Macauley Publishers for believing in my novel and providing ongoing advice toward its publishing. To the people of my hometown Acerenza, a small town in Southern Italy who taught me the pillars of ethics, simplicity and generosity. My grandfather whose tales, so simple and yet so profound, had been romanticized in this novel. To the people in the Majella of Abruzzo for inspiring me to attempt to describe the indescribable beauty of their region.

Prologue

The National Park of the Majella is visited by thousands of tourists because of its beauty and because of its isolation from the external world’s mechanization and schizophrenia.

The Majella is a land of contrasts that, thankfully, remains largely unexplored by tourism. Those who brave the trek south and west of seaside Pescara, do so not to see but to feel; not to explore but to experience. They venture inland from the Adriatic coast because they see the Majella as the great spiritual confessional, almost as God’s natural delegate to listen to people’s sins, to restore their faith in society and, more importantly, faith in themselves.

These modern-day pilgrims line up by the thousands to experience the spiritual sobriety offered by the Eremo di San Bartolomeo in Legio, a heritage literally carved out of pure rock, within the Majella’s Morrone Mountains. The entire area has an air of asceticism that elevates it as a godly place—a domus Christi—God’s abode on earth.

The Majella, with its dozens of hermitages, is, to its pilgrims, the largest outdoor Cathedral in the world. With its breathtaking mountain peaks serving as its altars, its hermitages as its confessional booths and its small, sparkling villages spread out on the sides of the mountains as its worshipers, the Majella offers a sense of internal serenity to all its adoring flock.

The Majella, however, does much more than instill peace to the soul. It offers forgiveness to all who need it, who seek it, who must have it for personal salvation.

The melody, sweet and almost angelic, of the cicadas reverberating in continuing echoes deflecting off the contours of the Majella’s rock-faces, serves as a current confirmation from God as His offer of forgiveness and absolution for the sinners.

Particularly at the hour of vesper, those seeking redemption always experience mysticism—God’s word—communicated through his disciples Monte Amaro, La Majelletta, Monte Acquaviva and the other adjoining peaks forming the spinal cord of the mountainous region.

It was within the heart of the Majella, within this theatre of peace and tranquility, that a transplanted young Canadian, turned spiritual pilgrim, sought personal redemption from his past and refuge for his future.

Part One

Chapter 1

At precisely 6 o’clock in the evening, Father Anselmo gave his usual signal to Nico, the keeper of the small chapel high up near the summit of Monte Amaro, the highest peak in the Majella Mountain region, situated in the heart of the Majella National Park and ensconced within the Abruzzi region of Central Italy.

The chapel had been standing for longer than anyone in the area could remember. It had originally been constructed by bands of marauding shepherds as their seasonal lodgings, called Tholos, where they herded their goats and sheep to graze high up on the side of the mountain. Like many others in the area, these shelters were cone-shaped, much like an inverted ice cream cone. They were built out of the rock from the falde—cliffs—which had been meticulously pointed, each in its right place, each supporting, and being supported, by its neighboring rocks sitting proudly without the aid of any binding material.

And yet, so securely were these structures placed that they had remained in place for longer than anyone could remember, successfully challenging earthquakes, avalanches and all other adverse climactic events Nature had thrown at them, without ever succumbing.

One of those Tholos was gifted by the shepherds to a pilgrim who was seeking a religious sanctuary in which he could live in isolation to dedicate his life to introspection and prayer. And thus, this Monte Amaro religious sanctuary was born. Over the decades, the single room was expanded on either side to create the current chapel with its main altar in the original structure and the pews for the faithful on either side, facing it.

On cue, Nicholas Motta, or Nico as he had come to be known in the area, grabbed the thick rope attached to the top of the single church bell and began swinging it wildly from side to side. The sharp, melodious sound of the bell echoed in the valley in waves, so that each individual ring multiplied tenfold into a full operatic musical score, as they bounced from mountain to mountain into a merger of continuous melody.

Within a minute or two from the first sound of Nico’s chimes, small groups of the faithful gathered half a kilometer below from the small town of Rocca, to get into formation and begin their climb up to the chapel, to celebrate the day just passed, through evening prayers.

It was a laborious ritual for these hearty and virtuous residents of Rocca to make their evening pilgrimage to the chapel. Teens mingled seamlessly with septuagenarians, as the column snaked its way up the mountain, for their twenty-five-minute hike to the top.

Within a short time after their departure from town, the human reptile became longer and less corpulent, as the fleet-footed youngsters at the front of the snake lengthened their lead. Meanwhile, for the remaining elderly believers a few meters back, they slowed their pace as the path became more vertical, and therefore more challenging. They distracted away their fatigue by pausing their trek now and then, and chatting among themselves on topics of little or no importance to the outside world, but of crucial interest to themselves. Once in a while, they would glance up longingly at the chapel only a few meters away, but seemingly in another dimension, as it hung vertiginously on the mountain-side, almost as if suspended in the heavens. This ritual had become not simply a religious duty for these believers, but had also become a social gathering, a time to chat about their lives.

The evening prayers were always brief and to the point. The longer service was saved for Sundays, in the main church down in the town, when the faithful had more time to devote to God. Evenings in the Majella turned to night quickly and these Roccanesi, as the town residents were called, needed their daily quick religious fix before doubling-back to town as the sun’s rays ended their own descent behind the surrounding peaks.

As the light began to grow dimmer, the friendly mountain path of earlier became mysterious and treacherous. Nico often wondered whether the faithful’s brief interlude with the Creator’s human representative was worth their physical effort. What possible sin could these simple and righteous people have committed to warrant their daily ritual? What secretive conduct could these otherwise gentle mountain-pilgrims be hiding that required daily cleansing? What forgiveness could they be seeking from the Almighty? Every evening, Nico asked himself these questions but never came up with a satisfactory answer.

On each such occasion, though, Nico unfailingly slipped into his own introspection and wondered whether these faithful mountaineers had somehow been installed as his own divine agents, to pray for forgiveness, not for themselves, but for Nico.

Could it be that this unassuming flock of worshipers were, in reality, devoting their daily prayers for someone who really needed them? Not so much for their own transgressions, however insignificant they may be, but for Nico’s personal redemption to absolve him from his conduct during the previous life he had led in Canada, a life from which he had furtively escaped to Rocca some two years earlier.

Chapter 2

Monte Amaro is among the highest peaks in the Majella Mountain range, half-way between the Italian Alps to the north and Italy’s toe to the extreme south, approximately half-way between the Adriatic Sea to the east and the Tyrrhenian Sea, to the west.

The Majella, as they are known to their adoring disciples are, both by folklore and history, reputed to be sacred and spiritual. They enjoy an aura of introspection and purity. Their isolation, topographical virginity and beauty are undoubtedly significant contributors to their reputation of sanctity.

The entire Majella Mountain range, including the surreal towns of Rocca and Abbateggio are permanently coddled by Mother Nature, as if to prevent them from falling precipitously into the valleys far below.

Even to a casual observer, the setting is, at once, both majestic and inviting. It is an ever-changing seasonal spectacle for the eye and nourishment for the soul. Monte Amaro, known as the Mother Mountain to the local Abruzzi, sits proudly overlooking its sister peaks to the north-east toward the city of Chieti and over the plains to the city of Pescara, on the shores of the Adriatic Sea.

As early as the thirteenth century and the centuries thereafter, the serpentine and often-impassable paths leading up the Majella mountains and down its valleys were carved out by monks and hermits seeking isolation and introspection. They built abbeys and sanctuaries into which they took refuge from the vicissitudes of daily life and to seek, and ultimately find, their own direct and personal contact with God.

In fact, in the year 1294, Father Pietro da Morrone who had, for decades, been a resident of isolated abbeys in the Majella, was installed as Pope Celestine V. The installation of Pope Celestine, as a former resident of the Majella, triggered an aura of spirituality and sanctity for the entire area and spun off these characteristics for the Majella that have survived to this very day.

The pull to the Majella magnet had been so irresistible for Father Pietro, however, that after only a few years as Pontifex Maximus, Pope Celestine renounced his papacy, preferring once again the personal refuge that only the Majella mountains could offer him. Hermit Father Pietro-turned-Pope Celestine-turned hermit, thus lived in isolation in the Majella until his death. He was canonized as St. Peter Celestine in 1313.

With this type of acquired sanctity, it is little wonder that the sky above the Majella is seen by multitudes of pilgrims as the portals to Heaven, and the most direct path to the Creator.

Although Nico’s father was a Lucanian by birth, born and raised in Acerenza, itself a wondrous town in the mountainous area of the Apennines within central Basilicata and itself the beneficiary of traditional folklore and ancient customs, he had often spoken to his son about the wonders of the Majella. It is little wonder that Nico, a born Canadian, would choose the Majella as his new home, as his refuge from the hyper-active life he had once led in Canada, and from which he had later escaped.

From the moment he had arrived, Nico had become fascinated by this region in central Italy. He had read about it and had done plenty of research. When it was time for him to leave his life behind and find a new home, the decision to take refuge in the Majella in Abruzzi was automatic and uncontested.

When the time came, Nico felt he needed the protection of the Sacred Mountain. He needed, as well, an infusion of the sanctity that only Monte Amaro and its sister mountain peaks could provide. Here, far away from corporate intrigue, far from personal greed and criminally-spiked ambition, away from regulatory investigations and criminal prosecutions, Monte Amaro welcomed and protected all who sought its safety mantle, without inquiry into the past, without hesitation, without distinction and without worrying about future conduct.

After receipt of notifications from the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice of the United States that he was under an active criminal investigation, Nico sought, and readily received, refugee status in the Majella, with all the peace of mind the mountains could offer and that he desperately needed at the time.

And so, Nico willingly traded in his corporate mantle, his portfolios and his bulging calendar of appointments for the simplicity that the Majella offered. He relinquished his ubiquitous cell phone for a piece of thick rope attached to a melodious church bell. He moved office from a tall Toronto skyscraper to a pew in a chapel over a thousand meters up in the sky.

Chapter 3

One evening after the usual prayer service, Nico sat alone outside the chapel on a large rock protruding over the side of Monte Amaro, staring down into the deep abyss below.

It was day’s end. The sun’s rays had long since retreated after their daily game of peekaboo among the mountain peaks.

Soon, it will be dark, Nico thought, almost philosophically. He had experienced how darkness envelops the valleys and all that they hold. A darkness so uninterrupted that it shrouded all in its path; so complete that nothing was distinguishable; so, possessing that its black mantle wrapped itself over everything, near and far, until all shapes melded into a black void. Even the moonlight, no matter its bright contrast from total darkness, could not penetrate the deep mysteries of the Majella. Darkness ruled this area at night. The moon and the stars brightened the heavens somewhat, but could not penetrate the mystery of Monte Amaro.

How could surroundings this friendly and inviting and majestic in daylight turn to such a fearful and foreboding place after dark? thought Nico as his mind wandered in and out of the mysteries that life itself represented.

Each day after the evening prayers, Nico usually sat on that same protruding rock where he could oversee the last of the Rocca faithful wind their way down to their homes. Nico sat there impassively waving at the daily pilgrims who had accepted him into their community and into their hearts. As each individual, or small groups, appeared and disappeared from view, Nico felt as if it was his personal responsibility to protect these humble people; to keep guard against the surrounding darkness until they were safe through the town portals of Rocca.

Such was the mutual attraction that had developed between himself and the Roccanesi. They had accepted Nico as one of their own. In turn, he felt it was his God-given duty to reciprocate their kindness toward him by praying for their safe descent from the chapel. Perhaps a small gesture, Nico thought. But to him and the Roccanesi, a significant one. A gesture that came directly from the heart.

And so, as each person started his descent, Nico always offered them a personalized greeting and his thanks for attending service. Precisely because of Nico’s thoughtfulness and generosity of spirit, these faithful worshipers looked to Nico as their virtual pastor, even more so than Father Anselmo, Rocca’s parish priest.

Stai attento alla discesa, Carla, e buona notte—be careful on your way down, Carla, and have a good night—he would comment repeatedly to each person as the human snake began its slide around the mountain on its downward descent, always ensuring that his personal greeting and salutation was linked individually to each by name.

For Nico, a young man barely thirty years of age, in the daytime the Majella represented the best and, at night, the worst in human existence. By day, the beauty and majesty of the mountains and valleys became for Nico a symbol of everything that was good in his own life, everything that he saw and experienced in those times of happiness. In the Majella, he felt close to Nature and, by extension, to Nature’s Creator. He was mesmerized by the silence and isolation of the Majella. He marveled at the beauty of the wildflowers, the purity of the waters gushing from the crevices in the massive rocks, the deep green forests climbing up the sides of the mountains. And he enjoyed seeing the fauna, composed of God’s creatures of every size and shape, that had their individual purposes and paths in life, much like humans. Each species existing for a reason, and each having its own specific method for survival. For Nico, these visual experiences created a collective beauty that defied description and that could only be felt in the deep recesses of the soul.

Often, Nico would follow the flight of an eagle or a falcon or a thousand varieties of other colorful feathers fluttering, all finding their own private directions in the sky’s highways, all heading to undefined destinations. On those occasions, he himself imagined flying upward through the sky’s portals that led to the Almighty. He felt an inexplicable purity of spirit. He felt one with God.

By contrast, at night all God’s creatures and all of Nature itself retreated in hiding. The mountains became foreboding and frightening, as if the black surroundings sought to pry open Nico’s thoughts and secrets from his previous life that he had kept hidden since his arrival in Rocca.

It was in the immensity of this black void that Nico invariably became more introspective, and more afraid. Shrouded in the blackness of the Majella, he reviewed analytically every detail of his past life and of his activities in America from which he had escaped, and which had caused the abandoning of his home and the life he had so carefully groomed for himself.

All of a sudden, one mistake, one miscalculation had forced him away from the privileged existence he had so carefully cultivated for himself. What would his friends and neighbors in his adopted Rocca think of him if they knew the secret that had forced Nico to find his refuge in the Majella? Would their innate generosity have allowed them to forgive his misdeeds and continue to accept him in their midst? Or would they ostracize him out of their community in order to preserve the purity and sanctity of the Majella and, by extension, their own innocence and morality?

And, quite apart from their reaction, would the sanctity of the Majella itself repel him and force him back to Toronto to face his personal demons?

This personal film documentary of these unanswered questions was played and replayed every day in Nico’s mind, and always in the darkness of the night when the Majella became his personal critic, his judge and jury and his unforgiving conscience.

It’s getting quite dark now, Father Anselmo benignly said on one such contemplative evening, startling Nico from his silent meditation. It’s also time for us to start our way down before even the little guidance that the moonlight is offering will be gone.

And with this, the benign Father Anselmo offered his hand to help Nico up and the two slowly took the well-worn path down to Rocca, moving deftly around the contours of the mountain. You remind me of my own youth in Divinity College, Father Anselmo whispered to the attentive Nico. But you need to have your philosophical distractions during the daytime when they are not aggravated and exaggerated by darkness. Father Anselmo continued, At night, every sound, every fear is multiplied far beyond reality.

I wish I had some control over the timing, Nico answered as they carefully stepped around rocks, roots and crevices to avoid the unstoppable tumble down the mountain to its basin, several hundred meters below.

Although it was Nico’s religious duty to confess all perceived misdeeds, and Father Anselmo’s duty to listen and forgive as God’s agent on earth, Nico had chosen not to divulge his past to him. And the kindly priest had not pried, preferring that Nico’s confession be voluntary and be disclosed when the time was right for Nico.

Chapter 4

For many more years than anyone could remember, Sunday mornings had been special for the Roccanesi.

It was customary that, immediately after the final blessings had been dispensed at dawn up in the Abbey, Father Anselmo, with Nico at his heels, would lead the procession of the faithful down the mountain to the main square of Rocca, to celebrate the Sunday Mass, precisely at 10 AM.

One couldn’t help but feel the sacredness of the event, as Nico’s church bells celebrated the Lord’s Day. Here, long-standing traditions had continued through the centuries, with little change. Sunday was still a day when one dressed in his finest, attended Mass to thank the Lord for his and his family’s experiences, ask forgiveness for whatever transgressions had been committed by him personally, and by mankind generally, during that brief span of the past six days. Most importantly, Sunday was a celebration of everything connected with family, friends and neighbors. It was a celebration of life itself and all its triumphs, with promises to rectify any deemed setbacks.

The Roccanesi were a simple people, steeped in tradition and generous to a fault. Their collective philosophy was humanistic: respect your fellow man; provide for him who needs help; be generous with your bounty, however modest it may be. Simple but profound dictates that, if generally followed, would invariably lead to a more secure way of life and to an existence that would help keep one’s mind clear of the complexities and turbulence of modern-day living. Such simple philosophy would reward them with a life devoid of stress and would keep the inner vessel, that which we call the soul, full to the brim. A further, and most important, reward for the believers was that such a sacred way of life would, they felt, lead to a life everlasting.

Every Sunday following Mass, and weather permitting, the Roccanesi would gather in their piazza. There, they mingled, they chatted, they exchanged greetings and pleasantries and wished one another well for the following week. They also ate the food they took turns in preparing, simple but delicious pot-luck meals exclusively prepared from the simple but bountiful ingredients they and their neighbors grew on the mountainside and in the valleys below. In the winter months, the high windchill accompanied by blizzards would force the celebrations into the town hall, around the corner from the municipal offices. Although these winter celebrations were somewhat more muted, they were no less meaningful. They would usually share along with their chats, freshly made pastries with a hot drink in hand. The full theatre of the gatherings and the Sunday celebrations in the piazza would need to await Nature’s cycle of renewal in early April.

For the Roccanesi, this delicious custom had continued without interruption from time immemorial, and had been assumed with pleasure and renewed commitment by succeeding generations. Over time, Rocca’s adjoining town of Abbateggio had been included in this Sunday celebration of life, with each of the two neighbors taking turns in hosting the Sunday feast.

Chapter 5

For Nico, there had been little adjustment after his move to Rocca. The winters there were as snowy as in Toronto and, at times, even colder. The high altitude of the highest peaks in the Majella guaranteed snow until late March and, in the higher altitudes, far beyond. It was not unusual for the valleys in the lower sides of the high mountains to be carpeted by large varieties of colorful flowers while, at 2000 meters and higher, snow lingered well into early summer.

Nonetheless, without pollution from a big city’s chaotic traffic, the Majella had a lasting purity and innocence, a beauty that was unfathomable in a North American megalopolis. It was the very combination of cold and snow that created a hearty and patient citizenry in Nico’s Canadian birthplace, where its people were accustomed to all that Nature could throw at them. A people that generally welcomed winter as a necessary component of Nature’s cycle and that not only learned to tolerate it, but actually to welcome its company and embrace its permanence.

The good people of the Majella, without Toronto’s modern infrastructure to ease the severity of the long Canadian winters, had also adapted to their difficult winter season. They faced winter head-on without Toronto’s modern props to ease the discomfort. They tolerated the season bravely and without complaint. But unlike their Toronto counterparts, by the end of March, they could already look forward to a change of seasons.

What Nico missed most from his homeland, however, was the daily hustle and bustle; that caffeinated energy that was palpable, that became interwoven into the very fabric of societal activities. The frenetic mornings trying to avoid traffic on the major arteries pouring into the city-center in order that there be time for the not-to-miss conference call; the juggling of the portable device lodged on a shoulder while flipping the pages of a presentation that would be starting in a few minutes; the swallowing of a quick sandwich at noon while watching three screens, each showing the behavior of a different world stock market somewhere on the globe.

And, at day’s end, one’s inevitably wondering where the day had gone without having fulfilled even a fraction of the items on the daily must do list that had been prepared that very morning, or by an assistant, the night before.

A life without stoppage had been Nico’s routine in Toronto. A life so busy that placed into oblivion the reality that a life without balance is a life not worth living. An existence so one-dimensional as to create a generation with niche expertise but without the outward interactions and the social skills that allow for inner fulfilment. An existence so devoid of personal reflection that it was nothing but a race to a never-to-be-reached finish line, a never-to-be-appeased ambition and a never-sufficient material reward.

From this standpoint, Nico’s transition to the Majella two years earlier had been anything but seamless. For months after his arrival, every activity in Abruzzi was a race against the clock for Nico. He didn’t walk from one destination to another, he jogged to it no matter how trivial the event. He created chores where none was required. He scheduled visits and appointments, social or otherwise, each precisely at twenty-minute intervals, as had been his custom in Toronto.

He scrutinized his cell phone incessantly, looking for messages that never came and that were never really expected. Especially in the beginning, he spent hours following the world’s major stock markets, even though there was nothing at stake either for himself or for clients he no longer serviced. This had been a forced umbilical cord that Nico found difficult to sever.

And several times a day, he looked for news on the very types of