Also in the city of Messina, the one at the Madonna della Mercede is one of the oldest Marian cults and is connected to the church of via Tommaso Cannizzaro owned by the homonymous confraternity Maria Santissima della Mercede in Valentine’s Day. The title derives from the possession that the product fathers had from 1595, although the small building existed even first as Santa Maria di Piè di Grotta. According to Samperi, this ancient name is linked to the revered painting, depicting the Madonna della Pietà in the face of the Grotta del Sepolcro di Christ. The religious enlarged the Church and placed on the main altar an image depicting the appearance of the Madonna in S. Pietro Nolasco and S. Raimondo di Pennafort, founders of the order of goods, always close to Christians in danger of losing faith and discarded, detainees, orphaned children and exploited. Subsequently they placed the statue of the Spanish Virgin, known for the encounter with the risen Christ of Easter day in the so -called “spampanati” procession; Destroyed after the earthquake, the church was reconstructed in 1934 and entrusted to the Confraternity.
This year after a century, at the behest of the renewed Confraternity led by the extraordinary commissioner Fortunato Marino and the rector of the Church Father Gianfranco Centorrino, the celebrations of 24 September will be sealed by the procession of the statue, at 7 pm, which will travel on the following itinerary: via Tommaso Cannizzaro, via 24 May, via Felice Bisazza, Piazza XX Settembre, Viale Principe Umberto, via Pietro Castelli (up to the Santa Castelli (up to the parish Maria delle Grazie and Return), Viale Italia, via Giovanni Pascoli, via Rocca Portalegni, via Francesco Todaro, via Madonna della Mercede, via Tommaso Cannizzaro. Last night with the descent of the simulacrum the celebrations came alive. The triduum in preparation for solemnity is starting today: tomorrow at 5 pm the conference on the origins of the cult at the Madonna della Mercede.
