Coming back from the Golgotha!
There is a big feast at Forio, today, but I think I couldn’t call feast a moment of meditation like this, during the Lent. This feast is an old tradition and it is dedicated to the “Madonna Addolorata” (Our Lady of Sorrows) we venerate at the St. Sebastian’s Parish.
Our Lady Of Sorrows was initially named Our Virgin of the Seven Sorrows (or Swords), but Pope Pio X (1913), fixed the liturgical feast on September 15 and the name we have today. Our Lady Of Sorrows has a broken heart by seven swords, because seven were the most principal sorrows during her life: the prophecy of the old Simeon, the exile in Egypt, the loss of Jesus in the Jerusalem’s Temple, the Way of the Cross, the Crucifixion, the Deposition from the Cross and the Burial. Our iconography, often, represents St. Mary with one sword, only the sorrow of the Simeon’s prophecy (the statues of the 19th century).
The liturgical feast of Our Lady of Sorrows begins two weeks before Easter with a solemn procession inside the Church and this year with the preaching of Father Beppe Pireddu, Capuchin, one of the most Italian preacher.
Today is a sad day, as I was saying before, because we remember the Mary’s sorrow. From 6.00 a.m. in the St. Sebastian’s begin the masses. At 11.00 a.m. the big procession from the Parish and across the Forio’s streets.
The procession is very sober, only with prayer and without brass-band and music.
At 5.00 p.m. the liturgy of the meditation about the tragedy of the Golgotha (an old musical composition by Giacinto Lavitrano). On Palm-Sunday all the Forio’s inhabitants will be in St. Sebastian’s to kiss the black mantle of "Our Lady of Sorrows" and on Saturday before Easter the statue of the "Madonna" will be crowned with a flower’s crown, while we, all together, will be singing “Regina Coeli, laetare, Alleluja, quia quem meruisti portare, Alleluja, resurrexit sicut dixit, Alleluja. Ora pro nobis Deum, Alleluja”. After the liturgy a floral gift for all.
The Addolorata’s statue was carved out of the wood, the black baroque mantle, pure silk and first quality gold.
Actually we have three different Addolorata’s mantles, one of this with the representation of the signs of the Christ’s Passion (Cross, crown of thorns etc.). Another particularity regards the “ceremony of the Madonna’s dressing” before the procession: the women who dress Our Lady of Sorrows are related to the ancient families who dressed the Madonna in the past years. This is an old familiar tradition.
(Our Lady of Sorrows by my Parish. My Parish-priest prays for our community)
(Our Lady of Sorrows with the "Ex Voto")