Easter in San Cataldo

Traditions

On the occasion of the Holy Week in San Cataldo various traditional rites take place preceded by a long period of preparation, during Lent, known as the Sabatini.
The Sabatini in honor of the Madonna, originally organized by the various social classes, is a rite which provides for, every Friday of Lent, the transfer of the simulacrum of the Immaculate Madonna from the house of the family that guards it for an entire year until the Mother church. The simulacrum remains on display in the Mother Church until Saturday afternoon, when it is taken to the home of the new family who will have the task of guarding the simulacrum for the following year.
The rites of Holy Week begin on Sunday at Palme, the day on which the re-enactment of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem takes place, a representation in which figures and groups of statues take part.
On Holy Wednesday, in the afternoon, a historical procession winds its way through the streets of the historical center in period costumes with legionaries, priests, princes and the Jewish people. This is followed by the dramatization of the Process of Jesus, a representation of the Via Crucis and the arrival at Calvary.
On Holy Thursday, in the evening, the procession of the simulacrums of Our Lady of Sorrows and of San Giovanni. The procession, which wants to represent the search for Jesus, ends in the small church of the oratory of the SS. Sacramento, located next to the Mother Church, where the dead Christ is placed on the cataletto. The culminating moment of this representation is when the statues of the Madonna and San Giovanni try to enter the Mother Church, and the door is closed to them. Thus begins a suggestive funeral march to the sound of u chiantu di Maria, or rather Mary's tears.
On Good Friday the meeting of Our Lady of Sorrows and St. John with the dead Christ followed by the procession of statue groups of the Via Crucis. The day ends with the sacred representation, the visit to Calvary and the scinnenza, that is, the descent of Jesus from the cross, followed by a long and well-attended procession.
On Easter Sunday the procession of the Sampauluna takes place, i.e. large nineteenth-century papier-mâché statues representing the Apostles. The procession ends with the meeting of the Risen Christ with the Apostles.

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