Century old Sicilian tradition deepens understanding of observance of Holy Week

by Fr. Mark Steffl

This last Holy Week and Easter, my first as a priest of the Diocese of New Ulm, I was asked to help (particularly to hear confessions) in a parish and pilgrimage spot on the southwest coast of Sicily in a town of about 5000 people named Siculiana. The parish church is a thousand year old stone structure named Ss. Crocifisso, or The Most Holy Crucifix. It is a special place of pilgrimage for many Sicilians during Holy Week, in addition to the local population.

Sicily, in past centuries, was closely connected to Spain and many cultural influences still can be seen there. Some of them are the traditional Holy Week processions that take place in so many little towns and villages throughout the countryside, including the parish where I was helping.

To aid in making possible these Holy Week processions each year, different parish "confraternities" and "consororities" have their own responsibilities during the week. All of these processions are meant to aid the faithful in entering, in the deepest way possible, the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus

At the center of these processions are life-sized, and very life-like statues of the people who share in a special way the suffering and death of Our Lord: a scourged Jesus, a Jesus carrying His Cross, His suffering Mother, St. Mary Magdalene, St John the Beloved Apostle, and St. Peter. All of the statues are made of wood and painted to look as real as one might imagine, very detailed even having glass eyes and tears. They are the same statues that have been used in the Holy Week processions of this small town, year after year for centuries. They are remarkable works of art in themselves.

On Holy Thursday, after the celebration of the Lord’s Last Supper, a statue of a scourged Jesus crowned with thorns, the "Ecce Homo" of Sacred Scripture is carried out of the church alongside of a statue of Mary with a pierced heart, shrouded in a rich black cloak of velvet. Young women bear the statue of the Blessed Mother on their shoulders and carry the statue off in one direction in the town while young men bearing the scourged and crowned Jesus carry him on their shoulders in another direction into the town. The young women accompanying the statue of the Blessed Mother sing a Sicilian version of the "Stabat Mater," a song of lament and grief that a Mother would rightly be feeling as her Son is suffering and preparing to die by crucifixion. The two statues, having been separated, meet again in the town in a very touching scene. From there the participants go quietly to their homes.

On Good Friday, the statue of Jesus suffering and crowned is exchanged for a statue of Jesus carrying His cross. The town gathers and leaves from the church with the statue of Jesus. His ascent to Calvary and His crucifixion, and the first eleven Stations of the Cross are prayed along the way to "Calvary," a little hill outside of the medieval town where a cross is prepared for the crucifixion. Along the way, Jesus again meets His Mother, the Sorrowful Mother. Those who cannot take part in all of the procession will look from their doors, windows, or balconies and say a prayer as the procession passes by their homes. When the place of Calvary is reached, the statue of Jesus Carrying His Cross is exchanged for a different Christ, life-sized, who is nailed to the Cross, overlooking the town of Siculiana in the distance. It is much like I would imagine Jerusalem, with its stone buildings and homes, would have looked like from Calvary on that Friday some 2000 years ago. After Christ is nailed to the cross, He is left quietly by the townspeople to hang.

At sunset of Good Friday, the people of the town meet at the church to accompany a very elaborately carved wooden and glass sarcophagus to the hill outside of the town to receive the body of the Crucified Christ. Then the statue of Christ is lowered from the cross and placed in the sarcophagus and is taken through the town in a 3 hour procession. The statue of His Mother, the statue of Mary Magdalene, and the statue of St John the Beloved Disciple follow in the procession, creating a somber tone. The local town band accompanies the procession playing traditional funeral music. Men and

women, boys and girls of every age peek from their windows or wait along the curbs in front of their homes to see the crucified Christ pass before them. A tomb is constructed inside the parish church and the "Body of the Crucified Christ" is eventually placed in the tomb. The people of the parish and town look on as the stone is placed over the opening where the body of the Lord will remain until the Easter Vigil.

The last of the processions of Holy Week takes place on the evening of Easter Sunday. It is called the "Reunion of the Saints." Following the account from the Gospel of John that we hear during the Mass on Easter Sunday, an angel statue leads the other statues to a statue of the Risen Lord Jesus. The first to follow is Mary Magdalene, then Sts Peter and John together. Lastly and most triumphantly, Jesus is united with His Mother. Then all the statues and the confraternities carrying them, are surrounded by a rain of confetti, music and dancing, beginning the final procession to the parish church where the Resurrection of the Lord is celebrated by the parish priest.

I was struck by how these festivities provide an opportunity for the people of the town to really enter into the whole great event of our salvation that is Holy Week. Everybody has some role to play. Each of the statues has very symbolic groups carrying them in the processions. The fishermen of the village, in their confraternity, always carry St Peter with his fishing nets. Young men about the age of the young "Beloved Apostle," St John, carry him; young women carry the Blessed Mother, and older women carry Mary Magdalene. The statues are carried in a way that actually attempts to animate them as if they were moving themselves.

Seeing and experiencing these events played out can appeal to our sentiments as men and women who have our own mothers, for example, as we see the scourged and crowned Jesus meet His Mother.

These statues are, as they have been for centuries, to help others to deepen their understanding and participation in the commemoration and celebration that is our annual Holy Week.