The community of the Carmine Sanctuary parish paid tribute to S. Alberto Carmelite, patron of Trapani (cities that gave him the births around 1250) and compatrion of the city of Messina, where he lived for many years until his death in 1307, operating several miracles. The saint was remembered yesterday, on the occasion of the anniversary of death, during the solemn mass presided over by Messina Msgr. Marco Sprizzi, president of the Labor Office of the Holy See (linked to the Parish of Carmine (where as a boy he attended the Scout Group among the Lupetti) and concelebrated by the parish priest Father Gianfranco Centorrino.
At the end of the celebration animated by the parish choir “Luigi Lazzaro”, the blessing of the water with the relic of the saint’s arm, kept in the church of Carmine and exhibited for the whole day. Councilor Nino Carreri turned on the lamp by entrusting the city to the intercession of S. Alberto, according to what reported in the decree of the Messina Senate of 28 September 1629, of which it was read; Also present was the vice -president of the fourth municipality Deborah Buda.
The Carmelite is linked to the famous episode of the liberation of Messina – besieged by Roberto d’Angiò Duke of Calabria – by the famine of 1301 thanks to the entrance to the port of three galleys full of wheat to feed the population reduced to the street: a historical moment remembered by the so -called “Vascelluzzo”. The silver artifact, which parades every year during the Corpus Domini procession, has in fact, on one of the two sides, a medallion depicting S. Alberto.