Ragusa Marks San Francesco's Feast Under Eighth Centenary Banner
Four parish choirs sang at a triduo Mass in the Cappuccini quarter, while the 4 October programme lists mortaretti, Masses, an animal blessing and a procession.
In the church of San Francesco d'Assisi in Ragusa's Cappuccini quarter, the singing fell to the parish's own choirs. San Paolo, Sacro Cuore, Savio and San Francesco provided the liturgical music at a eucharistic celebration within the triduo, the three-day preparation before the feast, presided over by don Giuseppe Di Corrado of the Istituto San Paolo in Catania. Two Ragusa outlets identify him as a lecturer in Patristics at the Centro Accademico di Formazione Teologica 'Studio Teologico San Paolo'. The community's thanks went to the choristers, local coverage records, for accompanying the prayer with song.
The feast itself falls on Sunday 4 October, described in the Ragusa reports as a particularly intense day for the Franciscan community and the faithful. The programme drawn up by the parish opens with the firing of mortaretti at 9 and again at 18, the traditional signal to the city that the day belongs to the saint. Don Nicola Iudica presides the Masses at 9.30 and 11. At noon in piazza Cappuccini comes the blessing of the animals which, in the account of the Quotidiano di Ragusa, is the appointment that each year brings the largest number of families into the square with their dogs and cats, recalling Francis's bond with all creatures. The same outlet lists a rosary and Coroncina from 17.30, a procession with the simulacro, fireworks and a theatrical performance.
This year's edition carries an extra layer of meaning. It sits within the commemorative path of the eighth centenary of the death of the Poverello of Assisi, who died at Assisi in 1226, a recurrence that, as the Ragusa reports frame it, recalls the continuing relevance of his message of peace, fraternity and respect for creation. San Francesco is the patron saint of Italy, and the Ragusa feast is one of the local observances of that anniversary.
What the accounts describe is a parish occasion rather than a civic one, with a programme both religious and civil prepared by the parish of San Francesco d'Assisi. Its centre is the church in the Cappuccini quarter; its public moments are those that carry the feast out of doors, among them the mortaretti, the blessing of the animals in the square, the procession with the simulacro and the fireworks listed for the evening.
The day's markers remain the two salvos of mortaretti, at 9 and at 18, the traditional announcement of a feast now read against the distance of eight centuries.