The Madonna of Pilerio on a ‘Mission’ in the USA
December 15 to 20 the religious and cultural event eagerly awaited by the Calabrian community from overseas is taking place
The embrace of the Madonna of Pilerio – patron saint of the city of Cosenza – to Italians around the world will start, in a few days, from the United States. The Italian community in New York is in great ferment for the arrival of a copy of the icon depicting the Madonna of Pilerio in the church of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel in the Bronx where, on December the 18th, during the solemn mass, the icon will be donated. To accompany the icon the parish priest of the cathedral Don Luca Perri and a delegation of the 8centoCosenza aps association that has been promoting all the activities related to the 800th anniversary of the Cathedral of Cosenza held this year. A long-awaited cultural and religious event that will see the mobilization of the Italian communities in the Big Apple.
The intention is to recall in the faithful a religious figure of great popular veneration and show it to younger generations too, and to reawaken the memory and remembrance of past history, but above all to reawaken in the faithful the journey of faith and their belonging to the Church.
Indeed, the Madonna of Pilerio is not only the spiritual guiding for the people of Cosenza but for the entire Calabrian community, because the Madonna represents the identity of a population that has always been used to sacrifice, as few others maybe, and for this reason linked to her Saints by an indissoluble bond made of faith and religious passion.
The desire to rediscover one’s own origins has created a bridge with the territories, and it is very important to strengthen this bond more and more as well as to encourage the knowledge of culture and traditions through events and moments of aggregation and sharing.
This is a bond that has been rooted in the culture of Calabria for centuries and renewed today, on the occasion of the celebrations for the Cathedral dedicated to the Madonna del Pilerio.
The invitation addressed to Calabrians abroad is to actively contribute to keeping alive the link with the native land through actions aimed at solidarity and cultural exchange, as a form of enhancement and protection of their own roots.
