Translated automatically by AI from the Italian original.
ACIREALE (CATANIA) / CULTURE & SOCIETY – A day of deep faith, identity and civic memory brought together the community of Acireale for the feast of the Translation of the Sacred Relics of Santa Venera, Virgin and Martyr, the city’s and diocese’s principal patron saint. The annual celebration, held on Saturday 14 November, involved ecclesiastical, civil and military authorities, schools and hundreds of the faithful, renewing the centuries-old bond between the area and its patron.
The festivities—organised by the Deputation of the Royal Chapel of Santa Venera in collaboration with the Cathedral Basilica, the Municipality of Acireale and the Circolo Santa Venera—had opened on Friday 13 November with a concert by the Santa Venera Philharmonic Society of Malta, sealing the historic devotional bridge between Sicily and the Maltese archipelago.
Schools, the 1941 bombing remembrance and votive oil from Santa Venerina
The solemn day began with the translation of the venerated bust-reliquary and the silver casket from the Royal Chapel to the high altar of the Cathedral Basilica, followed by a mass animated by choirs from the city’s schools. Attention then turned to civic remembrance in via Atanasia, with the laying of a laurel wreath at the plaque dedicated to the victims of the 1941 bombing: a deeply felt moment for the people of Acireale, who link the city’s escape from disaster and the averted massacre during the war to Santa Venera’s intercession.
In the afternoon, the bishop of Acireale Monsignor Antonino Raspanti presided over the solemn pontifical mass in the cathedral in the presence of the mayor Roberto Barbagallo, civil and military authorities and an institutional delegation from the Municipality of Santa Venerina led by its mayor Santo Raciti. Raciti renewed the traditional rite of donating oil to fuel the votive lamp that burns year-round in the patron’s chapel, a sign of the deep spiritual bond uniting the two Mount Etna towns.
Monsignor Raspanti’s homily: “Venera’s witness must overcome oppression and violence”
At the heart of Monsignor Raspanti’s homily was the value of Christian witness, human dignity and transcending social conventions in the light of the Gospel:
“Her choice reveals a new freedom, in which man and woman, without denying their own identity, find full unity in Jesus,” the bishop said, dwelling on the wounds that throughout history have broken reciprocity between man and woman, generating oppression and violence.
“Venera’s martyrdom is the witness of one who already belongs to the Kingdom of God and lives looking beyond the contradictions of the old man. Her death is not a defeat, but full union with the risen Christ. Today do we understand Venera’s language?” the bishop pressed, calling the baptised to the responsibility of being in the world “the salt of the earth and the light of the world.”
Call for peace in the Mediterranean and entrustment in piazza Duomo
To close the day, the procession with the Sacred Relics reached piazza Duomo in front of the Palazzo di Città. From the civic heart of Acireale, Monsignor Raspanti raised a heartfelt appeal for peace in the world and especially in the Mediterranean, before the prayer of entrustment led by the parish priest Don Mario Fresta and the return to the cathedral for the final blessing and the repossession of the bust-reliquary in the Royal Chapel.
