The rites of the Holy Week in Ciminna open with “Simana di Lazzaru” the procession of the “vivula vivula” or “viva l’aliva”. Since ancient times on Wednesday of Lazarus week, (the week preceding the Holy Week) a festive procession of children, which winds through the ancient streets of Ciminna, shouting “vivula vivula” or “viva l’aliva”, holding an olive branch, adorned with colored paper bows, anticipate Palm Sunday, the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, by a few days.
Holy Thursday: the confraternities, especially the older ones, in procession from their confraternal headquarters go to the Mother Church to participate in the solemn Eucharistic celebration “in coena Domini” with the ritual of the washing of the feet. At the end of the celebration, there is a prayer stop at the altar of reposition, formerly known as the “sepulcru”, where the pyx with the Eucharist is kept and will be distributed on Good Friday after the rite of adoration of the Cross. The altar of reposition is decorated with flowers and lit candles and with “lavuredda”, grains of wheat grown in plates or plastic trays to symbolize the death and resurrection of Christ.
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Good Friday and penitential processions: on Good Friday we remember the passion and death of the Lord Jesus Christ. In Ciminna two penitential processions take place, one early in the morning and the other in the evening at 9.00 pm, in addition to the liturgical celebrations celebrated in San Giovanni Battista Church with the Seven Words at 2.00 pm and immediately afterwards in Mother Church the rite of the Adoration of the Cross.
The morning procession called “Procession of the Mysteries” begins at seven o’clock starting from San Giovanni Battista Church where seven eighteenth-century wooden fercolos statues of Christ at life-size depicting are carried: Jesus praying in the the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus tied to the column for flagellation, the Ecce Homo, Jesus falling under the weight of the Cross, the Crucifix, the Pietà and Jesus dead on a cot. Participating in the processional procession are groups of figures representing the cruel scenes of the Passion (Roman soldiers, the flagellated Christ, etc.) with hundreds of little girls and boys dressed in “Veronica and Monachelle” and many children representing Christ loaded from the Cross, as well as a large group of young girls preceding the statue of the dead Christ in the cot.
At the center of this large procession there is a woman representing Maria Addolorata, dressed all in black with a large cloak, halo on her head and a heart pierced by a silver dagger. A large moving procession in which both children and young girls and the marching band, which plays funeral marches, bring to life the sadness of death and the climate of the passion and death of the Lord Jesus Christ. The procession goes through the streets of the town and passes through the various sacramental churches of the town where in the past the tombs (altars of reposition) were set up.
In the evening after the adoration of the Cross and the Good Friday rite celebrated in the Monumental Mother Church (chosen by Luchino Visconti for some important scenes of the film “The Leopard”), another moving procession begins again from San Giovanni Battista Church in mourning with a polychrome wooden urn containing a Dead Christ and behind it the statue Maria Addolorata accompanied by the Confraternity of Maria Addolorata, by the marching band that always plays funeral marches and by the Ciminna inhabitants. Once in Umberto I°square, the priest gives a short homily and then returns to the church. It is particularly moving to see the statue of Maria Addolorata adorned with a large black cloak moved by the wind and the oscillation of the fercolo walking through the village streets which, in the context of the funeral marches sung by the band and the day of mourning, seems like a moving statue.
Saturday night: solemn celebration of the Easter Vigil at the Mother Church with the rites foreseen by the Catholic liturgy, new fire, lustral water, baptisms of children and the solemn liturgy of the Resurrection of the Lord on the holy night of Easter.
On the Sunday following Easter the Procession of the SS Eucharistic is celebrated for the Saint “Precept for the sick”. The “Thursday Confraternity”, under the title of the SS. Viaticum, organizes the “procession of the Precept to the Sick” during which the Priest brings, in solemn form (canopy, band, drums), the Holy Easter Communion to the sick people of the town. Characteristic procession in which children are dressed as Saint Giovanni Battista, San Michele Arcangelo , the Risen Jesus and little angels.
