This year, the Clergy Messina, with Archbishop Giovanni Accolla and Father Antonello Angemi, the chaplain of the Vara in the lead, wanted to dedicate the procession of the Vara 2025 to Sara Campanella, the young Misilmeri student tragically killed by a university colleague. “We keep these ropes tight – he said – like faith in the mother hired, and we pray”. During the path of Vara, the invitation to prayer has expanded to all the victims of femicide and road accidents, in a year that Messina will unfortunately remember for many broken lives, such as that of the young Gabriele Cavò, who died right near the route of the procession.
Along the crowded ways, the participants have repeatedly gathered, recalling the faces, stories and pain of families with shirts and dedications, entrusting their memory to God and invoking a concrete commitment to respect for life, the dignity of the person and safety on the roads.
A significant moment was the floral tribute of the prefect Cosima di Stani to Father Angemi. The prefect, this year, wanted that 15 Ukrainian children, orphans of the war, welcomed in Messina, to attend the procession, to try to give them a moment of serenity to the procession in the middle of the pain. “To them – he said – we wanted to give some beauty and hope”.
Along the procession also the beauty of simple but extremely moving gestures. Among these, the message of a dad to the microphones of Salvatore De Maria and Rachele Gerace: “Love of dad, I love you”, the “cry” dedicated to the daughter who followed the vara from home. Words that, between prayers and applause, touched their hearts. As well as those of the young Samuele who urged everyone, launching an appeal to enhance the city: “Messina is great and deserves a lot, for this reason it is necessary that everyone makes an effort to make it even more beautiful, it is a unique place in the world that should not be mistreated”.
Stories, dedications and prayers that have been collective embrace in an intertwining of faith, memory and hope between those ropes, in a thread that combines an entire community.