Feast of Our Lady of Loreto Peschici Gargano Puglia
For over a hundred years, the `Monday after Easter, is celebrated in Peschici Our Lady of Loreto. Early in the morning the bells announce the festivities and `After the Mass, Saints Matthew, Rocco, Michael, Elijah and Our Lady of Loreto, preceded by the Brotherhood of Purgatory and of the Sacrament, are carried in procession to the church , away from the village two kilometers.
How is the origin of this festival? Time will tell! In the last century, a cargo load of pilgrims from the Terra di Bari and directly to the Shrine of Loreto, is `suddenly in the middle of a storm, right in front of our coasts. The captain of the freighter was looking for a landing point, but the darkness of the storm 's late hour not let her. I continue to look on the captain `` darkness, when he saw a small flame in the distance. The captain stared, then turned to the sky praying: "Whatever you are holy, help us! Him` you build a church. "
The cargo bay of the port `Peschici. The pilgrims were safe. The next morning, the captain went in search of that speck of light and, following his instincts as a sailor, `arrival in the woods, where I find` a cave containing a hermit and his few rags out at the entrance, a small hollow inside with an oil lamp and a little image, crumpled and greasy, of Our Lady of Loreto. The captain kept his promise and built the apse and a half of the one aisle.
Lacked the internal gallery and bell tower, which was completed in 1892 by parish priest Fr Michelantonio Piracci - of which there is no news - which, in the joy of seeing his beloved church completed, jump `enthusiastic few steps that separate the 'apse from the nave, but fell ill and died there `in church.
If you look good in the hat (apse) vessels can be seen in miniature, wooden church, pictures, braids and more. These gifts (a few years ago, many more) were put there by `Peschiciani who migrated to distant America or Australia, in those lands where, perhaps, would not be more back. That gift was to invoke the Virgin's blessing and was, for relatives and friends, a sign of their presence. In a corner of the hat you see an oar with a date engraved on: December 29, 1923. The oar was part of a barge that was carrying flour from the Marche and Puglia on that day a violent storm the hole `.
The sailors, in the cold water, clung to that oar and swimming with difficulty, came to the beach of Cala. Peschiciani many who had witnessed these sad moments, came in June `Cal 'd'Mast'wustin' (set of Master Augustine), bringing dry clothes, and because` all showed signs of hypothermia, accompanied them to the oven and Teresa Michele Del Duca (i Stasch / l '), in front of Town Hall, where they were warmed and fed.
The oar of salvation was brought by the same sailors in the church of Our Lady of Loreto, for grace received. Tat-tat (grandfather), when I was little, told me that if a young bride was delaying the arrival of a child, she knocked at the cottage of the Madonna and Grace arrived in due time. I still remember the birth of sor'm '(my sister) was my grandmother and told us kids: Jat' to cas 'd' z-jan't 'and stit'v' to `lla, NUJ amma ja Madonn 'urit, vuj nun N'C' putit 'mni `, po'v' chjamam (go to her aunt's house and they were`, we must go to Our Lady of Loreto, you can not come, then you call it).
After a few hours, the grandmother came to call and with it went to the house: here we found the mother in bed, near a newborn baby. We return to the party ... Day of Our Lady of Loreto in the countryside wore kulac, Trezza, pan 'ttar, canstrill (taralli, braids, and baskets with loaves into a hardboiled egg). All these cakes were prepared with the same ingredients: flour, sugar, oil, natural yeast, fennel seeds, a little 'white wine.
The dough was worked by hand, very good, my mother, then cut the dough into pieces and they got so many strips, the stretched and gave shape due; the sweet roti vanivano put in and taken to the furnace, where, pending shift infornatura, the mother beat an egg in a cup and, wetting his fingers in the liquid orange, oiled, almost caressing, those sweet, one by one. Upon returning to the streets of the oven was a fragrant scent intoxicates the senses and put want to eat those sweet hot, shiny, hard.
The day of the festival, after mass, the people poured out under the trees, ate sweets transported in white or colored scarf, tied to stock-mo. The men, after the cake, drank the wine, many got drunk and, accompanying the procession on the way back, singing loudly and off key in this song:
God save on Mary full of grace the Lord is with thee blessed you are in among women, blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus!
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death and so is `,` Jesus-Maria
Reported in the Holy Mother Church, the people returned to their homes for lunch, simple, too: stuffed squid with squid stuffed with peas or Troccoli. In the evening, tired after the long journey and red in the face for the first spring sun, we went to bed and sleep there quickly embraced. "
