There is the life broken by the violence of feminicides, the one lost on the streets, the one overwhelmed by wars. There is the life of those who flee, of those who don’t have a home or a job, of those who live in solitude and poverty, of those who are fragile and risk becoming invisible. It is from this reality, from the many lives that ask to be recognized and cherished, that the 35th March for Life began yesterday. Designed by the late Msgr. Giovanni Impoco and organized by the Santa Maria delle Grazie parish of Gravitelli Superiore as part of the celebrations of the Madonna delle Grazie, this year the event took on an open and “secular” character, involving numerous local social entities: Misolida Onlus, Associazione Leo Onlus, Italian Association of families and victims of the Road, Vittoria Quarenghi Life Help Center, Club 500 Team Messina, Movimento Cristiano Lavoratori.
A procession that crossed Corso Cavour and Via Tommaso Cannizzaro, transforming itself into a path of reflection on the “wonder of existing”. The notes of successes such as Elisa’s A modo tuo, Marco Mengoni’s Human Beings and Fiorella Mannoia’s Che sia benedetta accompanied the different stages, dedicated to birth and the future, to children and young people, to fragility and disability, with a simple and strong message: no one is a burden. And then poverty, loneliness, the condition of migrants, work, home and dignity; the elderly and memory; peace to be built by learning to disarm the heart, the earth as the home of life.
Different themes, linked by the same idea: care cannot remain a word, but must become responsibility and action. It is the meaning of the words of the parish priest Alessandro Marzullo: «Every person must be recognized, no one must be invisible; let every wound be listened to, no one suffers alone; every difference is respected, dignity makes us equal; every conflict seeks a way, peace begins with us; every hope finds hands, the cure becomes action”. On the way, the icon of the Madonna delle Gravidelle, a sign of life, was carried on the shoulder up to the church, where the march ended with a moment of prayer. The celebrations will end today at 5pm with the Mass presided over by Archbishop Giovanni Accolla. Afterwards, the simulacrum of the Madonna delle Grazie will cross the streets of Gravitelli in the traditional procession.