St. Agatha's Festival 2008

Here we are along with at least 100,000 of our closest friends in the main piazza of Catania. It was a mob scene. This is the shrine bearing Agatha's bones.




Saint Agatha, a martyr who died in 252 at age 15, is the patron saint of Catania, Sicily, and an exciting festival is held in her honor in Catania. The 2-day procession, said to be the second largest religious procession in the world, begins February 4. Following a mass at dawn, the statue of St. Agatha that houses her relics is placed on a fercolo, a 40,000 pound silver carriage that will be pulled up Monte Sangiuliano by 5,000 men. The huge festival lasts for two days and two nights and as with most Italian festivals, there is also plenty of eating and drinking and a huge fireworks display at the end.



And as it emerged from the cathedral...cheers rang up to the heavens and thousands of white gloved hands waved their handkerchiefs in the brisk winter air.



It was like nothing I've ever experienced before - a mass of this magnitude in utter adoration for a woman violently slain in the second century who inspires hope and prayers and miracles for an entire city of Catholics!!